Minister of Tourism and ANC National Executive Committee member, Lindiwe Sisulu, is one of two women vying for the presidency of her party. She and her long-time friend Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma have both expressed their interest in the position, but it will be no easy feat for either.
Sisulu believes patriarchal tendencies within the governing party have propelled men to new heights, while women are left behind.
“Some men are insecure in the ANC… they are not comfortable working with women in strategic positions,” said Sisulu.
“Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma is my comrade and a friend. We have been through the Struggle together and, I guess, even now, we are in this together representing our respective constituencies and the future of our children.
“I have no doubt that we will end up together, as we have been in the past. She is a strong woman. My fear is that men may be tempted to double-cross us again because they mistakenly believe the presidency is their place,” she said.
Sisulu has been travelling the country meeting ANC branches and delivering lectures. She says there are a range of issues which ANC members complain about, including certain actions of the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA).
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ANC president Cyril Ramaphosa’s 2017 campaign was focused on ending corruption within the party. This led to the implementation of the controversial step-aside rule which has affected some top names.
In the past year, the NPA has cracked the whip on those alleged to have committed serious crimes. This has seen a number of high-profile politicians being charged, including suspended ANC Secretary-General Ace Magashule.
https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2022-06-10-free-state-asbestos-corruption-case-ace-magashule-claims-delays-deliberate-ahead-of-ancs-elective-conference/
Magashule has been charged with fraud, corruption and money laundering over a contract the Free State Department of Human Settlements awarded to the Blackhead Consulting joint venture to audit and remove asbestos from homes six years ago. Magashule was provincial premier at the time.
“Branches are concerned about their daily struggles, electricity, children that are beating teachers, teenage pregnancy, rape, selective application of justice, wasteful expenditure on the commissions of inquiry as they see no value for money, gender-based violence, the NPA’s role in ANC politics and the impact of money in eroding values of the ANC,” said Sisulu.
“They are also worried about leaders who have money, because no one knows where our leaders get their money.
“I am concerned about the NPA, as to why they are applying selective justice. Why do they charge some leaders and leave others? The current challenge is corruption, rape of our children, the education system, electricity, GBV and the economy,” she said.
Read more in Daily Maverick: “In a spit-fire speech to Unisa, Lindiwe Sisulu repeats her January attack on judiciary and SA Constitution”
Sisulu’s criticism of the NPA comes as no surprise. She caused a stir earlier this year when she wrote an open letter titled, ‘Hi Mzansi, have you seen justice?’ in which she criticised the South African Constitution.
Of the judiciary, she said: “Today, in the high echelons of our judicial system, are these mentally colonised Africans who have settled with the worldview and mindset of those who have dispossessed their ancestors.
“They are only too happy to lick the spittle of those who falsely claim superiority. The lack of confidence that permeates their rulings against their own speaks very loudly, while others, secure in their agenda, clap behind closed doors.”
Her take on the Constitution and the rule of law ruffled many feathers and even saw Chief Justice Raymond Zondo responding to her in a press briefing:
“[What Sisulu wrote] is not criticism, it is an insult to the justices of the Constitutional Court, the judges of the Supreme Court of Appeal, the judge presidents of the High Court, and all African judges who serve this country with distinction and determination to uphold the Constitution,” Zondo said at the time.
Read more in Daily Maverick: “The race is on for the top six in the ANC, and the outcome will affect us all”
This was widely seen as the beginning of her ANC presidential campaign. However, Sisulu begs to differ.
“I have not been campaigning for leadership. That process has recently opened. What I did was to respond to calls that requested me to deliver lectures. That is not a campaign, because it has nothing to do with a manifesto,” she said.
So far, she has not received a single endorsement from any of the Provincial Executive Committees (PEC), but Sisulu does not consider that a failure.
“When it comes to PEC, it means we have a different understanding, because that is a conference of branches, not PECs. If it was of the PECs, I was going to lobby PECs. Lastly, I don’t buy positions. Many trade-offs in these PECs are akin to business transactions, not about politics or taking our people out of the morass of unemployment, poverty, petrol price and electricity problems.
“They are purely about positions in exchange for money. That’s not how I was raised… you won’t find me in business deals for power or positions,” she said.
Allan Boesak: Sisulu is the right woman for the job
Cleric and anti-apartheid stalwart Allan Boesak has long been an ally of Sisulu and thinks she is the perfect person for the job.
Boesak says it’s time for the ANC to elect a woman to lead the party, and that woman is Lindiwe Sisulu.
“I have been impressed by Lindiwe Sisulu because I find her to be a very, very strong and resolute person, one who at least tries to do the thing that I have seen very few politicians across the board do… hold up ideals of integrity and decency and honesty and commitment and courage.
“The reason I say she is a strong woman is the way I saw her holding up in the beginning of the year when she raised issues which many of us find fundamentally true about the Constitution, and about the way the law has been understood and applied by the courts in South Africa.
“The question of the land… at the moment, the indigenous people of this country are blocked from this claim by the very Constitution that is supposed to enshrine our freedom and dignity.”
Read more in Daily Maverick: “Lindiwe Sisulu’s extraordinary attack on South Africa’s Constitution”
He lamented the deteriorating state of the governing party, saying it was only Sisulu who was capable of turning the situation around.
“The ANC is in a hopeless state, and the one hope I have is that in December they would realise exactly the quagmire they themselves put the country into.
“The one person that can give the right leadership is Lindiwe Sisulu – if they have the courage to overcome this patriarchal pattern,” he said.
Sisulu not likely to be elected – analyst
Political analyst Levy Ndou believes Sisulu stands no chance of being elected into the ANC top six, even if the party wanted a woman at the helm. He said this was because she had so far not been endorsed by any region of the ANC.
“Even in the ANC, when they talk about a woman, she cannot be a women’s candidate,” he said.
Ndou went on to outline why it was difficult to assess Sisulu’s performance as a minister, but noted the contribution she had made through her political activism.
“She has been deployed in many departments and maybe we should judge her on the basis of the time given to her in those responsibilities that she has not been given a fair chance to settle.
“There are a few things she has done, but Sisulu has always represented a group of women who have been able to go out and fight for the liberation of South Africa, and we are where we are because of the contribution and sacrifices made by women like Sisulu,” he said.
Sisulu was detained between 1975 and 1976 for her involvement in political activism. She subsequently joined Umkhonto we Sizwe and worked in underground structures of the ANC while in exile.
Sisulu returned from exile in 1990 and worked as a personal assistant to former president Jacob Zuma when he was heading the ANC’s intelligence department. She also served as chief administrator for the ANC at the Convention for a Democratic South Africa in 1991, and as administrator of intelligence at the ANC Department of Intelligence and Security in 1992.
She has been a Member of Parliament since 1994. DM