Dlamini-Zuma says she’s been struggling for a long time

In a Women’s Day interview with John Perlman on news broadcaster eNCA, presidential hopeful Dr Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma said she has what it takes to lead the country.

To back up her claim, she said she had been in the struggle since her student days, and also had a successful track record in government.

She tried to downplay the sense of her own ambitions, saying that “if the ANC” considered her a candidate it would probably be because “they would have looked at my track record”.

“I started struggling as a student … I was in student politics. I was in the ANC … and that track record, then, coming back into the country I was among the people who re-established the ANC in the country … the first branches of the ANC after the unbanning.”

She also mentioned her time in government, where she spent years as minister of health, foreign affairs, home affairs and “of course, I’ve been sent to the AU”. She said people were welcome to judge what she had done in all these capacities.

Dlamini-Zuma said she wanted to be judged on whether she had been “a servant of the people … done my work with integrity … whether I’ve been hardworking as expected by the ANC … whether I’m responsive to people’s needs … whether I’m able to relate to people at all levels” from the “village to the boardroom”.

She also mentioned she had a good track record in dealing with sexism and patriarchy.

Her former husband, President Jacob Zuma, started openly campaigning for her in song today.

The full interview was to be broadcast on eNCA on Wednesday night at 9.30pm.