Read this opinion by our CEO, Claudia Pizzocri on the Daily Maverick. Some extracts below.
In the palaces of early modern Europe, access to the sovereign was everything. Between ruler and subject stood a powerful class of intermediaries: the courtiers. They were neither elected nor accountable, yet they held immense power. They shaped the sovereign’s image, absorbed his moods, silenced his critics, and cloaked self-interest in the language of loyalty. Theirs was the politics of proximity. Their loyalty was to power not to the public.
South Africa’s post-election Government of National Unity (GNU) has seen the rise of the revived modern courtier. Today’s courtiers do not drift in palace’s marble halls, they transcend physical confines through social media curated campaigns, they tweet and post, scripting press releases, spinning crisis into cohesion, staging photo opportunities and trading visibility. Yet, their role remains unchanged: to filter power through performance, to conceal uncertainty with appearance, and to govern the people by managing their perception.
Courtiers thrive in systems where ambiguity protects power and the power of proximity overrides principle. In the case of the GNU, this ambiguity is not accidental: it is structured by necessity. Fragile alliances, broad-stroke mandates, and uneasy ideological pairings create the perfect conditions for unaccountable actors to flourish. The recent “Whitfield-gate” has simply amplified the dissonance in the public discourse. Influence no longer flows from ideas or mandate, but from access alone. The courtier does not serve the public, only the powerful; fluent in persuasion, loyal to position, and accountable to no one.
The GNU has not merely redistributed power, it has multiplied the illusion of access to it.
With more parties brought into Cabinet, the circle of those closest to executive authority has also broadened. Growing networks of unarticulated proximity, without a corresponding expansion of accountability reinforces the courtier dynamic: the more intermediaries are seen to speak for and to power, the harder it becomes to locate who governs and on what terms. In this way, the GNU has not diluted the politics of proximity; it has institutionalised it.
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In the GNU, compromise is no longer a tool of deliberation, but a cover for contradiction. It is this ambiguity that nourishes the courtier, a political environment where clarity is not required, only coherence of tone. As long as the right hashtags trend and the press briefings are well-worded, the courtier’s job is done. Power is exercised through narrative, not through consequence.
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Unemployment remains severe, criminal rates keep spiking, institutional incompetence is real, and inequality is structural. These are not conditions that can be managed through performance. They require vision, authority, and above all, accountability.
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The ability to shape sentiment on social media has become a currency of influence. Digital virality, not ideological consistency, determines access. Influence is no longer won through democratic mandate but through algorithmic popularity. It is the return of the courtier, dressed in retweets and TikTok reels. The implications are far-reaching. When visibility becomes a qualification for power, and performance a substitute for policy, democratic substance is slowly hollowed out. What remains is a structure filled with actors, but devoid of purpose.
Even outside the realm of formal politics, the courtier archetype endures.
Figures like Elon Musk now play courtier roles on a global scale, unelected, but indispensable; private, but proximate. With a single post or platform policy, he can reframe national debates, destabilise regulatory consensus, or recast sovereign narratives as marketable disruptions.
To accept this trajectory is to resign ourselves to a politics without truth, where decisions are made in strategy rooms, not by elected representatives, but by fixers. The courtier, once a figure of aristocratic courts, is reborn as the architect of democratic illusion.
Claudia Pizzocri, CEO at Eisenberg & Associates Inc.