Violence Against Women in Political Leadership: the Deliberate Erasure of Lindiwe Sisulu

By Gillian Schutte

As South Africa observes the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence, we must confront the systemic violence experienced by women in political leadership. This violence targets figures whose presence disrupts entrenched narratives within institutions, reflecting deeply rooted psychological and cultural mechanisms. Former Minister Lindiwe Sisulu’s treatment under President Cyril Ramaphosa’s ANC reveals how repression, projection, and symbolic erasure are wielded against women tied to the liberation struggle, particularly when they refuse to conform to a party increasingly aligned with neoliberal and patriarchal values.

Sisulu’s political marginalisation became evident in 2017 when she contested the ANC presidency. Her candidacy was a bold assertion of her revolutionary lineage, challenging Cyril Ramaphosa’s corporate-aligned vision for the party. As the daughter of struggle icons Walter and Albertina Sisulu, her campaign represented a direct connection to the liberation struggle, a connection that unearthed ideological contradictions within the ANC. Her eventual endorsement of Ramaphosa did not prevent her earlier defiance from disrupting the leadership’s internal cohesion, forcing it to confront its abandonment of revolutionary ideals in favour of global capitalist alliances.

Following Ramaphosa’s victory, Sisulu was demoted in 2019 from her influential role as Minister of International Relations and Cooperation to the Ministry of Human Settlements, Water, and Sanitation. This reassignment diminished her visibility and influence, reflecting a deliberate sidelining of a figure whose revolutionary symbolism threatened the ANC’s neoliberal trajectory. Sisulu’s removal was a psychological act of repression, an attempt to distance the party from uncomfortable reminders of its liberation history.

In 2021, Sisulu was reassigned again, this time to the Ministry of Tourism. This move further marginalised her within the party, relegating her to a less significant portfolio. These reassignments reveal how her presence unsettled the leadership’s carefully constructed narrative of neoliberalisation. From a psychoanalytic perspective, this displacement can be interpreted as the party projecting its internal insecurities onto Sisulu, transforming her into a scapegoat for its ideological compromises.

In March 2023, Sisulu was replaced as Minister of Tourism by Patricia de Lille, leader of the opposition-aligned Good party. De Lille, who had served as Minister of Public Works and Infrastructure since 2019, represented an attempt by the ANC to appeal to coloured voters. The strategy failed to deliver electoral gains and instead highlighted the leadership’s willingness to undermine its own stalwarts. The decision to replace Sisulu with De Lille symbolised a rejection of the revolutionary ideals Sisulu embodied and a prioritisation of neoliberal alliances.

The attacks on Sisulu were not confined to her political career. In 2018, the mishandling of Albertina Sisulu’s memorial lecture revealed a deeper cultural and psychological dimension to the marginalisation of women leaders (Mail & Guardian, "ANC's botched Albertina Sisulu lecture raises eyebrows," 21 October 2018). Albertina Sisulu, a maternal figure of the liberation struggle, symbolised care, resilience, and revolutionary unity. The failure to honour her legacy reflected a rupture in the ANC’s symbolic order. Neglecting the maternal archetype at the heart of its history, the party severed itself from a critical source of moral authority.

This removal of maternal significance reflects the entrenchment of black chauvinism within the ANC, which increasingly aligns itself with the structures of white patriarchy. In suppressing figures like Lindiwe Sisulu, the leadership reveals its complicity in a system that privileges male-dominated narratives at the expense of women’s contributions to the liberation struggle. Sisulu’s political erasure represents an effort to reframe the ANC’s history in a way that serves the interests of global capital, with black male leaders often acting as intermediaries for these structures.

Sisulu’s critique of the ANC’s compromises was made explicit in her "Hi Mzansi" open letter, where she challenged the judiciary’s role in upholding colonial and capitalist systems. Her words highlighted the disconnection between the ANC’s revolutionary origins and its current policies. The leadership’s backlash against the letter revealed its discomfort with figures who expose these contradictions. The attacks on her critique were not simply about disagreement; they reflected an effort to silence a voice that forced the leadership to confront its ideological failures.

The deliberate erasure of Lindiwe Sisulu took another calculated turn in October 2024 when the ANC staged a memorial lecture for Albertina Sisulu on the same day that Lindiwe launched the Sisulu Foundation for Social Justice on Robben Island. This relentless effort to overshadow her, to wrench the legacy of the maternal away from her grasp, speaks to a deeper intent to dismantle her sense of self and sever her connection to a lineage of revolutionary care and sacrifice. In seeking to control the narrative of Albertina’s memory, the ANC symbolically denied Lindiwe the rightful space to honour her mother’s legacy and her own role as its custodian. It is an act that exposes the party’s unease with women who refuse to conform and its growing distance from the principles of justice and humanity that once defined its moral compass.

The sidelining of women leaders in the ANC extends beyond Sisulu. Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, another senior figure tied to the liberation struggle, has also faced marginalisation. Her loss to Ramaphosa in the 2017 ANC presidential race, despite being the preferred candidate of certain revolutionary factions within the party, signalled a broader shift within the ANC. The leadership’s response to her campaign reflected similar patterns of repression, where black female leaders are displaced to preserve the party’s neoliberal trajectory.

Busisiwe Mkhwebane, the former Public Protector, represents another example of how women leaders are targeted within the ANC’s structures. Her impeachment in 2023 under allegations of misconduct was seen as an attempt to discredit her role in challenging power structures (News24, "Parliament votes to remove Busisiwe Mkhwebane as Public Protector," 11 September 2023). Mkhwebane’s tenure exposed the party’s alignment with neoliberal interests, a critique that made her a threat to the status quo. Her removal highlighted how the ANC projects its internal contradictions onto women leaders, silencing them to maintain its carefully constructed narrative of modernisation.

The erasure of women leaders like Sisulu, Dlamini-Zuma, and Mkhwebane reflects a deeper pattern of repression within the ANC. Walter Sisulu’s revolutionary contributions and the sacrifices of the Sisulu family remain a challenge to the party’s current ideological direction. The sidelining of Max Sisulu as Speaker of Parliament and Zwelakhe Sisulu during his lifetime reveals a deliberate effort to sever ties with the revolutionary lineage that exposes the party’s betrayal of its foundational ideals.

This collective repression operates on both personal and societal levels. The Sisulu legacy, as a repository of resilience and revolutionary unity, represents a shared memory that challenges the ANC’s alignment with global capital. Its erasure disrupts the historical narrative of liberation, replacing it with a narrative that prioritises expediency over justice.

The 16 Days of Activism provides an opportunity to recognise and address these patterns of symbolic and systemic violence. The marginalisation of Sisulu, Dlamini-Zuma, and Mkhwebane reveals the ANC’s failure to honour its revolutionary origins and its complicity in upholding patriarchal and neoliberal systems. These acts of erasure betray the principles of justice and equality that the ANC once represented.History cannot be rewritten indefinitely. The truths embodied by these women will continue to surface, challenging the leadership’s efforts to suppress them.

Their resilience serves as a reminder of the ongoing struggle for justice and the necessity of confronting unresolved contradictions within institutions. The ANC had to remove and excise revolutionary women—the heart from within—in order to make way for the ultimate betrayal, culminating in the formation of a Government of National Unity (GNU) in 2024. This development signifies not only a political realignment but also the profound consequences of sidelining revolutionary figures to accommodate alliances that betray the party's original mission. The revolutionary spirit that the ANC seeks to repress will ultimately demand recognition, forcing a reckoning with the ideals it has abandoned.

* Gillian Schutte is a film-maker, social justice and race-justice activist and public intellectual.

** The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of Independent Media or IOL.