Lindiwe Nonceba Sisulu (born 10 May 1954) is a South African politician. She represented the African National Congress (ANC) in the National Assembly of South Africa between April 1994 and March 2023. During that time, from 2001 to 2023, she served continuously in the cabinet as a minister under four consecutive presidents. President Cyril Ramaphosa sacked her from his cabinet in March 2023, precipitating her resignation from the National Assembly.
The daughter of anti-apartheid leaders Albertina and Walter Sisulu, Sisulu was born in Johannesburg and attended boarding school in neighbouring Swaziland. After suffering prolonged detention without trial in 1976–1977, she left South Africa, aged 23, and joined Umkhonto we Sizwe in exile. She lived primarily in Swaziland and England until 1990, when she returned to South Africa during the negotiations to end apartheid. Elected to the National Assembly in South Africa's first post-apartheid elections, she became the inaugural chairperson of Parliament's Joint Standing Committee on Intelligence, and she went on to serve in Nelson Mandela's Government of National Unity as Deputy Minister of Home Affairs from 1996 to 2001.
Under President Thabo Mbeki, Sisulu served as Minister of Intelligence from 2001 to 2004 and as Minister of Housing from 2004 to 2009. Under President Jacob Zuma, she was Minister of Defence and Military Veterans from 2009 to 2012, Minister of Public Service and Administration from 2012 to 2014, and (returned to her former portfolio) Minister of Human Settlements from 2014 to 2018. President Ramaphosa appointed her as Minister of International Relations and Cooperation in February 2018, but her tenure in that position was brief: after the 2019 general election, she was moved to the newly created position of Minister of Human Settlements, Water and Sanitation. Finally, in a cabinet reshuffle in August 2021, she was demoted to Minister of Tourism, her last position in government.
Known for her "relentless" political ambition, she campaigned for election to the ANC presidency ahead of the party's 54th National Conference in 2017 and its 55th National Conference in 2022. Her 2022 campaign was notable for its populist rejection of constitutionalism. Neither campaign received enough support to advance a presidential nomination. She did appear on the 2017 ballot as Ramaphosa's running mate, but David Mabuza won the deputy presidential slot. Sisulu has been a member of the ANC National Executive Committee since December 1997; she was re-elected to a sixth five-year term in December 2022. She also served four terms as a member of the ANC National Working Committee between 2003 and 2022.
Early life and career
Sisulu was born on 10 May 1954 in Johannesburg. She had three elder brothers – Max, Mlungisi, and Zwelakhe – and a younger sister named Nonkululeko. Their parents, Walter and Albertina Sisulu, were prominent anti-apartheid activists; Walter was the secretary-general of the African National Congress (ANC) in 1954, and he was sentenced to life imprisonment ten years later in the Rivonia Trial. During her childhood, Sisulu therefore corresponded with her father by post; after the first moon landing, she wrote to tell him that she hoped to become "the first African woman in space" and he encouraged her to pursue her ambition.
Having attended boarding school since childhood, Sisulu completed high school outside South Africa at St Michael's School and Waterford Kamhlaba in neighbouring Swaziland. She graduated in 1973 with the Cambridge General Certificate of Education: Advanced Level. She studied Latin in school, intending to pursue a legal education in Britain, but was a denied a passport. Instead, she enrolled in a history and politics degree at the University of Swaziland. During this period, to her mother's disapproval, she became interested in Black Consciousness politics.
Detention: 1976–1977 On 13 June 1976, at home in Johannesburg between semesters, Sisulu was arrested by the South African Police on suspicion of association with the banned ANC. She was detained without trial under the Terrorism Act for the next eleven months, held in jails at John Vorster Square, Hartbeespoort, Nylstroom, and the Pretoria Central Prison. Under interrogation, she suffered electric torture, sexual torture, and isolation; she was also told, falsely, that her family members had died or been arrested. Her father, himself still imprisoned, wrote a lengthy letter to Jimmy Kruger, the Minister of Justice, noting her depression and expressing concern that "the sins of her parents are being visited on her head". Her mother later said that Sisulu was "terribly affected" by her torture. She was released from detention in July 1977 and, shortly afterwards, she left South Africa to live permanently in exile.
Exile: 1977–1990 After a sojourn with Ruth First in Maputo, Mozambique, Sisulu joined Umkhonto we Sizwe, the exiled military wing of the ANC, later in 1977. Over the next two years, she received military training under its auspices, with a specialism in military intelligence; according to her official résumé, she was admitted to the Order of the Red Star for her performance on a Soviet training course. In 1980, she returned to Swaziland, where she continued her work for the ANC and where she resumed her education: she completed her BA at the University of Swaziland, followed by diploma in education in 1980 and an Honours in history in 1981.
She spent her early career in education in Swaziland, teaching at Manzini Central High School in 1981 and at the University of Swaziland's history department in 1982; she was also a sub-editor for the Mbabane-based Times of Swaziland in 1983. From 1983 to 1984, she lived in England on an Oppenheimer Scholarship, completing an MA in history at the University of York's Centre for Southern African Studies. She returned briefly to Swaziland from 1985 to 1987, working at Manzini Teachers Training College, but then went back to York to complete her MPhil. Her MPhil thesis, completed in 1989, was entitled, "Women at Work and Liberation Struggle in South Africa". According to her résumé, the degree was upgraded to a DPhil in the same year.
Return to South Africa: 1990 Sisulu returned to South Africa in April 1990 amid the negotiations to end apartheid; her father, recently released from prison, met her at Jan Smuts Airport in Johannesburg. For the next three years, she worked for the ANC, which had been unbanned by the apartheid government. She was personal assistant to Jacob Zuma, who was then the chief of the ANC's intelligence department, in 1990; the ANC's chief administrator at the Convention for a Democratic South Africa in 1991; and an administrator in the ANC's intelligence department in 1992. Later in 1992, she worked briefly as a consultant to the UNESCO National Children's Rights Committee, and in 1993 she was the director of the Govan Mbeki Research Fellowship at the University of Fort Hare. In late 1993, she returned to ANC work as a member of Transitional Executive Council's sub-council on intelligence.
Early political career When South Africa's first post-apartheid elections were held in April 1994, Sisulu was elected to represent the ANC in the National Assembly, the lower house of the new South African Parliament. The Intelligence Control Act created Parliament's Joint Standing Committee on Intelligence in 1995 and she was elected to chair the committee.
However, in June 1996 – less than a year into her tenure as committee chairperson – Sisulu was promoted to the position of Deputy Minister of Home Affairs in President Nelson Mandela's Government of National Unity. She ultimately held that position from June 1996 to January 2001, and she deputised Minister Mangosuthu Buthelezi, the leader of the opposition Inkatha Freedom Party. While serving as Deputy Minister, Sisulu attended the ANC's 50th National Conference in Mafikeng in December 1997, at which she was elected for the first time to the party's National Executive Committee.
Ministerial career
Intelligence: 2001–2004 After the 1999 general election, newly elected President Thabo Mbeki initially retained Sisulu and Buthelezi in the Home Affairs portfolio. In January 2001, however, he announced a cabinet reshuffle which saw Sisulu join the cabinet as Minister of Intelligence, replacing Joe Nhlanhla. In that capacity, in 2003, she established the Intelligence Services Council.
In December 2002, the ANC's 51st National Conference elected Sisulu to a second term as a member of the National Executive Committee; by number of votes received, she was the 13th-most popular candidate of the 60 ordinary members elected to the committee. She was also elected to the smaller National Working Committee for the first time.
Housing: 2004–2009
After the 2004 general election, Sisulu was appointed as Minister of Housing in Mbeki's second cabinet. She served in that portfolio throughout the Third South African Parliament of April 2004 to May 2009, through Mbeki's second term and the brief term of Mbeki's successor, President Kgalema Motlanthe. During Sisulu's tenure, the Department of Housing established the Housing Development Agency and prioritised the construction of new government housing. Her work in the department attracted awards from the Institute for Housing of South Africa, in 2004, and the International Association for Housing Science, in 2005.
N2 Gateway project Sisulu's flagship housing project, launched in February 2005, was the N2 Gateway Project, an extremely ambitious pilot program to build housing in Cape Town in place of informal settlements. It was highly controversial and met sustained civic resistance from those who were displaced during construction. This opposition peaked in December 2007, when residents of the Joe Slovo settlement, who had been removed to Delft, launched a major occupation of the newly built N2 houses, leading to eviction proceedings in the Constitutional Court. Sisulu was criticised for threatening publicly that residents who did not "cooperate" would be removed from the waiting list for government housing, and academic Martin Legassick excoriated her for refusing to meet with the occupiers and, more generally, for failing to consult affected communities.
While admiring Sisulu for "dreaming large", the Mail & Guardian said that, by the end of 2008, the N2 Gateway had become "the decomposing albatross around the minister's elegant neck", in large part because Sisulu's implementation of the project depended on "the forced removals of poor people to the periphery of cities". The project ultimately yielded 16,740 homes at a cost of R2.7 billion.
Polokwane conference In December 2007 in Polokwane, the ANC held its hotly contested 52nd National Conference, at which former Deputy President Jacob Zuma (Sisulu's former supervisor in ANC intelligence) ousted Mbeki from the party presidency. Although most of Mbeki's cabinet failed to gain re-election to the National Executive Committee, Sisulu was re-elected as the seventh-most popular candidate; she was also returned to the National Working Committee.
Some observers, including R. W. Johnson, explained Sisulu's rise as a result of her having "quietly joined the Zuma camp" in the run-up to the conference, abandoning Mbeki; according to Mark Gevisser, her relationship with Mbeki had soured during his second term, partly due to her perceived demotion from the Intelligence portfolio to the Housing portfolio. Sisulu herself later said of the Mbeki–Zuma leadership contest that, "We didn’t know what we were doing; we were caught up in factions", and that she had believed Zuma was "our best bet" to prevent Mbeki from winning an "unconstitutional" third term in the ANC presidency.
Defence and Military Veterans: 2009–2012