1. Lindiwe Daphney Zulu was born on 21 April 1958 and is a South African politician and communications strategist who served as Minister of Social Development from May 2019 to May 2024.
26 Facts About Lindiwe Zulu
1. 2.
Lindiwe Zulu joined the National Assembly and Zuma's second-term cabinet after the 2014 general election.
3.
Lindiwe Zulu remained in government for ten years before she lost her parliamentary seat in the 2024 general election.
4.
Lindiwe Zulu was born on 21 April 1958 in Nhlazatshe in the former Eastern Transvaal.
5.
Lindiwe Zulu returned to Tanzania, where she contributed to the ANC's internal newsletters until 1987, when she was sent to Angola for military training.
6.
Lindiwe Zulu 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.
7.
Lindiwe Zulu's final posting, begun in 1990, was as administrator and head of communications in the ANC's Ugandan office.
8.
In 1991, during the negotiations to end apartheid, Lindiwe Zulu returned to South Africa and became head of communications for the newly relaunched ANC Women's League.
9.
Lindiwe Zulu was elected to the league's National Executive Committee in 1993.
10.
From 1999 to 2001, Lindiwe Zulu was a special adviser to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma.
11.
Lindiwe Zulu 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.
12.
In 2003, Lindiwe Zulu took a brief hiatus from political work to become an executive for Vodacom, with responsibility for government and international relations.
13.
Lindiwe Zulu remained in the private sector only until 2004, when President Thabo Mbeki appointed her as South African Ambassador to Brazil.
14.
Lindiwe Zulu's candidacy was supported by the Congress of South African Trade Unions.
15.
Lindiwe Zulu was appointed as one of Zuma's three envoys to Zimbabwe, tasked with helping implement the 2008 Zimbabwean peace agreement alongside Charles Nqakula and Mac Maharaj.
16.
In 2013, Lindiwe Zulu made public comments about the upcoming Zimbabwean elections that led Robert Mugabe to call her "a stupid, idiotic street woman".
17.
Lindiwe Zulu was elected to the ANC's National Working Committee and as chairperson of the NEC's subcommittee on communications and media.
18.
Lindiwe Zulu remained in the subcommittee until late 2015, when she ceded her place to Jackson Mthembu in order to chair the drafting subcommittee instead.
19.
Lindiwe Zulu returned to the National Assembly in the 2014 general election, and she was appointed to Zuma's cabinet as Minister of Small Business Development, a newly created portfolio.
20.
At the ANC's 54th National Conference, convened in December 2017 to elect a new president, Lindiwe 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.
However, Lindiwe 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.
22.
Specifically, in November 2017, Lindiwe Zulu told Parliament that she drove a Lexus valued at R580,000, which Chance believed was an underestimation.
23.
In December 2022, at the ANC's 55th National Conference, Lindiwe Zulu was re-elected to the ANC NEC; she was ranked 26th by popularity.
24.
Lindiwe Zulu was ranked 131st on the ANC's national party list in the 2024 general election, making her re-election unlikely.
25.
Lindiwe Zulu is married to Kgosietsile Itholeng, a South African whom she met in the ANC in Angola.
26.
Lindiwe Zulu has three elder children: two girls, born inside South Africa and raised there while Lindiwe Zulu was in exile, and another son, fathered by a Guyanese student in Moscow.