The retirement of the often controversial Dr Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma from Parliament marks the end of a long era in SA politics.
Her biggest contribution was possibly the major changes she made in her five years as Health Minister, and yet, writes Stephen Grootes in Daily Maverick, after all these years, it is still not entirely clear what she stood for.
As Minister in the Presidency for Women, Children and Persons with Disabilities, she has enjoyed sizeable political power and was stopped just a hair’s breadth from becoming the first female leader of the ANC.
And for many people, it is difficult to imagine what South Africa was like just after 1994 when she took over the national Department of Health. The best hospitals had often been reserved for white people, healthcare was much more hierarchical, abortion was illegal and people smoked – everywhere.
During her tenure as Nelson Mandela’s Health Minister (1994-1999), she introduced a new framework for the health sector, instituted court action against international pharmaceutical companies over their insistence on patents for HIV medications, oversaw the legalisation of abortion, and introduced legislation banning smoking in nightclubs and bars.
We must never forget just how huge the opposition was to those bold moves.
Many in the ANC had a moral objection to abortion, pharmaceutical companies hired top lawyers, and the tobacco industry did what it always does.
In the end, her efforts had a significant positive impact on our society.
Of course, she was not alone, and the ANC was perhaps at the height of its political power and legitimacy. Still, she had to make major decisions and bear responsibility for them. Many millions of people are still benefiting from the changes she introduced.
Scandals
However, this period was not without scandal. First, there was Virodene, a dangerous industrial solvent its creators claimed would cure HIV. It did not.
But that did not stop her from putting intense pressure on the Medicines Control Council to lift its ban on clinical trials of the product.
It is still not clear if this was her decision, or if she was implementing policy being made elsewhere.
This was overshadowed by Sarafina 2. The play cost more than R14m and was not helpful in the fight against HIV-Aids.
One of the first investigations by the new Office of the Public Protector raised important questions about the funding for the play.
However, Dlamini-Zuma convinced Mandela to use the ANC’s majority to stop investigations into the saga.
She was also at the forefront of two other important dynamics in our society:
• She was one of the first prominent black women to hold a key post in SA’s Cabinet.
• The independent media, still largely white-owned then, was intensely critical, even hostile towards her.
Her reticence to conduct many interviews later on may well have its roots in her experience then.
Mbeki years
Dlamini-Zuma’s 10 years as Minister of Foreign Affairs coincided with a time when then-President Thabo Mbeki was playing a major role on the international stage.
She featured prominently in his policy of “quiet diplomacy” towards Zimbabwe, when then-President Robert Mugabe was inciting people to forcefully occupy land controlled by white farmers.
In 2007, she stood as Deputy President at the ANC’s Polokwane conference, despite their opposition being led by her ex-husband. She lost to Kgalema Motlanthe.
Two years later, Jacob Zuma, now President, appointed her to the Department of Home Affairs, where she continued an important restructuring process.
By now, it appeared she was moving much closer to the political unit controlled by Zuma.
In January 2012, she contested for the position of chair of the African Union (AU) Commission.
Already, it appeared that one of the reasons Zuma wanted her in this post was to move her away from domestic politics. The theory was this would ensure there could be no scandal around her and she could challenge for the position of ANC leader in 2017.
When she left the AU in January 2017, many at the AU headquarters believed she had spent most of her term preparing for the 2017 ANC conference.
Back in South Africa, it appeared she was campaigning as the candidate for Zuma’s political unit. The ANC faced a decision between continuing with the Zuma corruption, or changing course with Cyril Ramaphosa.
And in public, she made some curious missteps.
She went to Marikana in an apparent attempt to win support from people who had every reason to be critical of Ramaphosa (he had been a board member of Lonmin during the Marikana massacre, and had sent emails calling for “concomitant action” in response to the violent strike shortly before the police killed so many mineworkers).
She had no track record of action or even commenting on the Marikana issue before, yet her team arrived with a large convoy of supporters.
It was a disaster that saw her chased away from the area.
During this time, she hardly ever spoke in public and granted just one interview, to the Gupta-owned ANN7.
As this reporter noted: “One of the main problems Dlamini-Zuma faces is that we still don’t really know what she stands for.”
For some, this is still the case today. She has never communicated her view of the world or detailed the direction in which she wants our country to go.
Unfortunately, this has strengthened perceptions that she is a front for Zuma.
Despite these problems in her 2017 ANC campaign and despite the claims she had spent her term at the AU preparing for the conference, she lost by only 179 votes.
The pandemic and defiance
During the Covid-19 pandemic, she was given significant legal power, and as the Minister of Co-operative Governance & Traditional Affairs, signed the National State of Disaster regulations into law.
Some of these, like the ban on the sale of tobacco and alcohol, were controversial, particularly after an image emerged of Dlamini-Zuma with the self-confessed cigarette smuggler (and EFF donor) Adrian Mazzotti.
But still, after such a long and influential career, many people ask: what was Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma all about?
See more from MedicalBrief archives:
Dlamini-Zuma promises public participation ahead of any tobacco ban
Dlamini-Zuma promises regular re-evaluation of ‘empirical evidence’ for alcohol ban
Court threats over South Africa’s ‘permanent State of Disaster’