Zulu entered politics during apartheid through the exiled ANC and rose to prominence as head of communications for the ANC Women's League during the negotiations to end apartheid. From 1999 to 2014, she worked in foreign affairs as a diplomat and political adviser; most notably she was South African Ambassador to Brazil from 2004 to 2009 and a foreign affairs adviser to President Jacob Zuma from 2009 to 2014.
Zulu was born on 21 April 1958[1] in Nhlazatshe in the former Eastern Transvaal.[2] After the village's residents were forcibly removed to Madadeni in KwaZulu, her family moved to Swaziland. In the aftermath of the 1976 Soweto uprising, large numbers of young South African political activists crossed the border into neighbouring Swaziland, and Zulu joined the African National Congress (ANC); her brother joined the Pan Africanist Congress.[2]
Immediately after joining the ANC, she left Swaziland for Mozambique and then for Tanzania, where she attended the Solomon Mahlangu Freedom College. A year into her education there, she received a scholarship to study journalism in Moscow. After seven years, she graduated with a Master's degree from the Patrice Lumumba University,[3] by which time she was fluent in Russian.[2] She returned to Tanzania, where she contributed to the ANC's internal newsletters until 1987, when she was sent to Angola for military training.[2] She was the head of communications for the Pan-African Women's Organisation in Angola in 1988, and in 1989 she moved to Lusaka, Zambia, to head communications in the ANC's department of religious affairs. Her final posting, begun in 1990, was as administrator and head of communications in the ANC's Ugandan office.[1]
Return to South Africa
In 1991, during the negotiations to end apartheid, Zulu returned to South Africa and became head of communications for the newly relaunched ANC Women's League.[1] She was elected to the league's National Executive Committee in 1993. Also in 1993, she was seconded to the information and publicity department of the mainstream ANC in order to serve as the party's spokesman ahead of the first post-apartheid elections in 1994.[1]
From 1999 to 2001, Zulu was a special adviser to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma.[1] Then, from 2001 to 2003, she worked in the Department of Foreign Affairs as chief director for west and central Africa.[1] She reportedly remained close with Minister Dlamini-Zuma and even was rumoured to be the minister's favoured candidate for promotion to director-general of the department.[5] In 2003, Zulu took a brief hiatus from political work to become an executive for Vodacom, with responsibility for government and international relations.[1]
During this period, at the ANC's 53rd National Conference in December 2012, Zulu was re-elected to the ANC NEC. She was also elected to the ANC's National Working Committee and as chairperson of the NEC's subcommittee on communications and media.[15][16] She remained in the subcommittee until late 2015, when she ceded her place to Jackson Mthembu in order to chair the drafting subcommittee instead.[17] The Mail & Guardian labelled her one of Zuma's "most trusted lieutenants".[18]
Zulu with Estonian diplomat Väino Reinart in April 2017
Career in national government
Minister of Small Business Development: 2014–2019
Zulu returned to the National Assembly in the 2014 general election,[10] and she was appointed to Zuma's cabinet as Minister of Small Business Development, a newly created portfolio.[19][20] During the controversy that surrounded Zuma's second term, Zulu became reputed as one of Zuma's "fiercest defenders".[21] For example, she defended his controversial December 2015 cabinet reshuffle, claiming that the adverse market response to the reshuffle was the result of politically motivated manipulation, because, "Business wrote off President Zuma a long time ago."[22] During major protests against Zuma's rule in April 2017, Zulu told the press "We will continue to defend the president as members of the ANC, as long as he is a member of the ANC and as long as he remains the president of the country."[23]
At the ANC's 54th National Conference, convened in December 2017 to elect a new president, Zulu endorsed Zuma's preferred successor, her former boss Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma; she said that it was important to support women candidates in order to ensure gender parity in the party leadership.[21] Dlamini-Zuma was defeated by Zuma's outgoing deputy, Cyril Ramaphosa.[24] However, Zulu herself was re-elected to the NEC at the same conference: by number of votes received, she was the second most popular candidate, behind Zweli Mkhize.[25] Though she was not re-elected to the National Working Committee,[26] she was elected as chairperson of the NEC's subcommittee on international relations.[27]
In 2018, the Public Protector, Busisiwe Mkhwebane, investigated Zulu after Toby Chance of the Democratic Alliance alleged that she had committed misconduct by lying to the National Assembly. Specifically, in November 2017, Zulu told Parliament that she drove a Lexus valued at R580,000, which Chance believed was an underestimation.[28] Mkhwebane found that Zulu's statement had been incorrect – her department had spent R1.8 million on two ministerial BMWs – but cleared her of any misconduct.[28]
Zulu was ranked 131st on the ANC's national party list in the 2024 general election, making her re-election unlikely. In the election the ANC won only 73 seats from the national list, far below the amount needed for Zulu to be returned to Parliament, and she lost her seat.[31]
Personal life
Zulu is married to Kgosietsile Itholeng, a South African whom she met in the ANC in Angola. They have one son together.[3][32] Zulu also has three elder children: two girls, born inside South Africa and raised there while Zulu was in exile, and another son, fathered by a Guyanese student in Moscow.[2][32] She is an amateur long-distance runner.[2]
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