Sisulu do-little won’t be missed

It was not unexpected that recently sacked tourism minister Lindiwe Sisulu would bow out of visible ANC politics – she resigned as an MP this week – without a swipe at Cyril Ramaphosa, the man who fired her.

Through her spokesperson, she said her departure from Cabinet was not unexpected, adding that she found it “difficult to serve under someone who lacks integrity and credibility”.

It is sobering to think that someone as singularly politically undistinguished as Sisulu could have lasted for almost 30 years at the top the ANC, as a minister and member of the party’s national executive committee.

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Actually, that is not surprising at all, given that the ruling party is an organisation which has long molly-coddled those from the inner circle of “The Struggle”.

And Sisulu certainly believed that she was member of liberation royalty, given that her parents were anti-apartheid stalwarts Walter and Albertina Sisulu.

However, they were almost the polar opposite of their flashy daughter, who was given to ostentatious displays of fashion and making angry public statements.

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Sisulu and her supporters would often try to counter any criticism of her by crying racism or sexism – or both. Yet none of that erases the fact that her legacy as a government minister will barely trouble the scorers of history.

She did little as minister of housing, or of defence and military veterans, public service and administration, human settlements, international relations and cooperation and, finally, as minister of tourism.

She will be remembered, though, for her ill-fated campaign to become the country’s first woman president and her fight against Ramaphosa in both 2017 and last year at the ANC’s elective conferences.

Her flirtation with the radical economic transformation clique around Jacob Zuma showed her political opportunism. She won’t be missed. In that, she is just like the rest of our ministers.

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