A social worker by training, Dlamini rose to national political prominence in the ANC Women's League, where she was Secretary General from 1998 to 2008.

She was first elected to the ANC National Executive Committee in 2007 and became an outspoken supporter of former President Jacob Zuma, who appointed her to his cabinet.

Although she served briefly as Minister for Women under Zuma's successor, Cyril Ramaphosa, she was removed from the cabinet after the May 2019 general election and resigned from the National Assembly the following month.

Her perjury conviction also disqualified her from standing for election to a fourth five-year term on the ANC National Executive Committee.

[4] During the same period, from 1991, Dlamini was part of the interim regional leadership of the African National Congress (ANC) Women's League (ANCWL) in the Natal Midlands.

The ANC had recently been unbanned by the apartheid government and the interim leadership was tasked with rebuilding the organisational structures of the ANCWL inside South Africa.

[3][4][6] In 2005, Dlamini was one of the politicians implicated by the Scorpions in South Africa's Travelgate scandal, which concerned the abuse of parliamentary travel vouchers.

[14] Dlamini remained in the social development portfolio for the rest of Zuma's presidency, securing appointment to his second cabinet after the 2014 general election.

As Minister, she chaired the inter-ministerial committees on gender-based violence, combating substance abuse, and early childhood development.

[1] In June 2016, the opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) criticised Dlamini for arguing that social grant recipients should be able to survive on a monthly payment of R753, pointing out that she had herself spent R11,000 on a short stay in a luxury hotel in Umhlanga Rocks.

[20][21] The crisis was ameliorated on 17 March, when the Constitutional Court responded to an application by Black Sash (joined by Corruption Watch, the South African Post Office, and others) and ordered SASSA to extend the contract with Cash Paymaster Services for another year.

[22] During the crisis, President Zuma defended Dlamini, dismissing calls to fire her and saying that her performance in the matter could not be evaluated until the 1 April deadline passed.

[22] Indeed, constitutional law expert Pierre de Vos said that the judgement contained "the most scathing criticism of a member of the executive that I have ever seen".

[30] In September of that year, on the basis of Ngoepe's report, the court ruled unanimously that part of the responsibility for the grants crisis was due to Dlamini, who had been personally negligent.

[31] The Ngoepe inquiry and related Constitutional Court finding also led ultimately to Dlamini's criminal conviction on a charge of perjury (see below).

[39][40][41][42] Ahead of the ANC's 54th National Conference in 2017, Dlamini supported Zuma's unsuccessful campaign to have Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma elected as his successor.

Ngoepe reported to the Constitutional Court that, during the inquiry, Dlamini had been highly evasive and had made statements which were contradicted by other evidence.

[31] DA politician Bridget Masango laid a formal complaint with the Public Protector, alleging that Dlamini had lied to Parliament in May 2016 when she assured the National Assembly that SASSA would be able to take over social grants payments from April 2017; the Public Protector, Busisiwe Mkhwebane, reported in 2019 that she could not "substantiate" Masango's claim that Dlamini's promise had violated the Executive Ethics Code.

[54] The court found that she had "knowingly and intentionally disposed of false evidence" in claiming that she did not oversee the relevant parallel work streams.