‘I wouldn’t miss you if I took aim with any gun’, says Lindiwe Sisulu

When the minister says come for lunch at 2 you don’t quibble.

There is no working around diaries or the mention of a delightful new restaurant you want to try. Security does not accommodate that.  

What you do is change your flight and wait for the pin to dropso that you know where to go.

It’s a bit like being invited to a secret party, where the venue is the last thing your find out. But it’s worth it. Haven’t you always wondered what that ministerial compound in Rondebosch is like on the inside?

Time feels like it has slowed down to a genteel pace on the inside of the fence. Things are a little past their prime

All that hushed patrician silence and  the imposing, ancient trees. Nothing says “seat of power” more than this view of Table Mountain all up in your back garden as if  geology conspired with the landscape for your personal pleasure.

Time feels like it has slowed down to a genteel pace on the inside of the fence. Things are a little past their prime. The tennis courts could do with a refresh but there are armies of public works teams planting and sweeping and generally keeping the place ticking over for future generations.

The minister has lived here for a long time. She has served in every administration since 1994, to the point that I wonder if there is any portfolio she has not had. She has been in this particular house for more than a decade.

“When they were building these houses I said: ‘You know I wouldn’t mind changing from the old one,’ because I had been there a long time and the architect said they were just finishing, you can design yours as you like.  You should see it in summer when the waterfall is running. It so gorgeous.”  

But as you may have heard, she has declared that she has designs on  the big house at the ANC conference next month.

We sit in a bright, white formal sitting room. All the furniture is her own and dotted around the space is an array of art, heirlooms, Japanese screens and mammoth Chinese vases, all collected  over her years of travelling on official government business.

“This painting always embarrasses  men,” she says, pointing at a brightly coloured canvas depicting a bare-breasted young woman above the fireplace. “But I always think, ‘it is my house’.  I  bought it in the Congo from a woman artist. We had gone to a conference there and I was amazed the painting is so lifelike — it is like a photograph of her model.”

I find I am getting a little hot under the collar. And not because the minister has just listed her intelligence and military credentials, gained from years of training in the former Soviet Union and in exile.

The heater is on despite the warm afternoon shining through the big windows. She explains it is not some kind of subtle interrogation technique learnt from the KGB, it’s because she is anaemic and always feels cold.  

So we move outside to the veranda with the killer view and I wonder out loud if, given her training, she could pull some kung fu move and disarm me right there. “No,” she laughs, and then gets very serious. “But I wouldn’t miss you if I took aim with any gun.”

I swallow my fruit kebab a little drily.

“You know, I am a trained soldier, I hold the rank of general. You get to understand that equality is equality because you have to prove it every day in the defence force and I was in the defence force in the Soviet Union.

I spent all my life fighting with my brothers because I was the first girl in my family and they were ragamuffins

“The hardest part was when it gets cold and they expect you to give up because you are a small, skinny woman. You had to show that I’m as good as any man, tougher in fact — much tougher.  

“I spent all my life fighting with my brothers because I was the first girl in my family and they were ragamuffins. So having been in the defence force and intelligence, it’s been a male-dominated world and we haven’t changed it to a female-dominated world. We just adjusted to the  males.  

“I am a soldier of the highest rank and so when people ask me how I would cope as a woman being president, I say a woman will be much better. I have met women presidents in my life and I can swear they have provided better leadership than men.”

I playfully interject and tell her I have two words:  “Liz Truss.”

She pauses and giggles. “Do you know what, she is the only person who could say: ‘I am not going to do that, I would much rather resign.’ She has principles, I mean I think everybody’s position was: ‘She is new, so she is going to bow down to our line of doing things.’ She literally said: ‘I don’t agree, and for that reason I am going to resign.’

“Only a woman does that. You have to get a shovel to get a man to leave; not with a woman. I believe in women, women have integrity. That’s why we’re able to bring up children.”

 “You know, in my culture you raise many children, especially if you are the eldest daughter in the family.” She is also raising a  grandson whose parents divorced. 

“If we did not have women we would still be clobbering each other over the head. I believe in women, I was raised by a woman. I was raised among women because most of the people around my mom were women and all the husbands were in detention and on the island.

“So the women came together and that became our extended family. Strong women, women of integrity, women of resilience. We grew up in that environment, knowing women were top of the pack because there were no men there.”

On that subject, does she have a supportive network  of women friends?

“No, not like that, I probably have more friends in men than women. I was a tomboy, I grew up with three boys in the family. The girlfriends I do have are also from politics because I am so steeped in politics. Politics determines my life, I relate to those people who relate to the same issues I do.

“I am just go, go, go. I have to induce myself to switch off. I am a night owl. I work late into the night but I can turn on music and switch off. Airplanes are also peaceful environments.”

She tells me she reads the Russians, Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy, and when I ask her how she feels about the Russian invasion of Ukraineshe looks at me wryly.

If we did not have women we would still be clobbering each other over the head

“How do I feel about the Russians? Not like you for sure.  I lived there, I studied there, I did my intelligence training there. So when they disintegrated into various states my heart broke because as a bloc they were solid against anything that might have come to the Soviet people, and I envied them because our country has been broken up into provinces and along tribal lines. [The Soviet Union] was a huge land, all of it believing in the same principles and saying they were all one people.

“So for me it was like losing the best part of the power they had had. When they lost Ukraine and Odesa, the ports and around the corner from the oil, I was thinking here comes trouble.  

“And here we are. You know, I went to Russia just after lockdown. I was invited by their tourism minister and I found the development was just incredible, their use of resources and their nuclear power. Why could we not use nuclear for good purposes? I am thinking: ‘Why?’”

Her team brings out platters of chicken and salad and I wonder if she eats. She looks like a teenager in a floral body-hugging dress.

She tells me she has always been this size. “You know, in our culture I got teased a lot.  And being in my position in the family as the eldest daughter commanding respect when I go home in the Eastern Cape, they are like: ‘No, you must be joking.’ They are expecting someone big. For them stature is also power. My mother, on the other hand, was very solid.

“So you have to project power and authority with your voice, your values and what you stand for. Women are go-getters so you project your views by being in the lead, so I take the lead. 

I grew up feeling very awkward and shy about being skinny - until Twiggy

“But I have learnt to be myself. When they talk about a party I wonder what they do at a party. I would rather be at home reading a book.

“But I love to feel feminine, I love to feel good about myself. I grew up feeling very awkward and shy about being skinny — until Twiggy. When Twiggy came on the scene I thought: ‘OK, your time has come.’

“So I have to make sure I dress to fit my sizeotherwise I look very awkward. So, taking particular care about what I do with myself makes me feel good. And when you feel good then you project yourself better.

“I believe there is no need for us to have more than we need, and the definition of equality for me is having what you need and not more, not less. I believe in making sure you are at one with most of the people.

“But I also care about how I present myselfbecause it is a good thing to do and I enjoy it. Nobody can take it away from me, it’s mine.”