[4] During her childhood, Sisulu therefore corresponded with her father by post; after the first moon landing, she wrote to tell him that she hoped to become "the first African woman in space" and he encouraged her to pursue her ambition.

[9] On 13 June 1976, at home in Johannesburg between semesters, Sisulu was arrested by the South African Police on suspicion of association with the banned ANC.

She was detained without trial under the Terrorism Act for the next eleven months, held in jails at John Vorster Square, Hartbeespoort, Nylstroom, and the Pretoria Central Prison.

[6] Her father, himself still imprisoned, wrote a lengthy letter to Jimmy Kruger, the Minister of Justice, noting her depression and expressing concern that "the sins of her parents are being visited on her head".

[10] Sisulu returned to South Africa in April 1990 amid the negotiations to end apartheid; her father, recently released from prison, met her at Jan Smuts Airport in Johannesburg.

[7] Later in 1992, she worked briefly as a consultant to the UNESCO National Children's Rights Committee, and in 1993 she was the director of the Govan Mbeki Research Fellowship at the University of Fort Hare.

[7][12] However, in June 1996 – less than a year into her tenure as committee chairperson – Sisulu was promoted to the position of Deputy Minister of Home Affairs in President Nelson Mandela's Government of National Unity.

[7] She ultimately held that position from June 1996 to January 2001,[7] and she deputised Minister Mangosuthu Buthelezi, the leader of the opposition Inkatha Freedom Party.

[22][23] This opposition peaked in December 2007, when residents of the Joe Slovo settlement, who had been removed to Delft, launched a major occupation of the newly built N2 houses, leading to eviction proceedings in the Constitutional Court.

[24] Sisulu was criticised for threatening publicly that residents who did not "cooperate" would be removed from the waiting list for government housing,[25] and academic Martin Legassick excoriated her for refusing to meet with the occupiers and, more generally, for failing to consult affected communities.

[31] Sisulu herself later said of the Mbeki–Zuma leadership contest that, "We didn’t know what we were doing; we were caught up in factions",[32] and that she had believed Zuma was "our best bet" to prevent Mbeki from winning an "unconstitutional" third term in the ANC presidency.

[34][35] Soon into her term, she received media attention for appointing Paul Ngobeni, a controversial lawyer and fugitive from justice in the American state of Connecticut, as her legal adviser.

The appointment was criticised by figures inside the defence establishment,[36] as well as by the opposition Democratic Alliance (DA), which said it was part of a pattern of providing jobs for Zuma's "political friends".

[41][42] Although the dismissals were reversed in the following weeks,[43] Sisulu became committed to a policy of de-unionising the South African National Defence Force on the grounds that unionisation presented a security risk.

In October 2012, in response to a parliamentary question from the DA, the Defence Ministry reported that Sisulu had chartered 203 private Gulfstream flights, at a cost of over R40 million to the South African Air Force, between 2009 and 2012.

[52] However, Sisulu strongly denied the Defence Ministry's account, insisting that she had only chartered 35 flights – the rest had been taken on VIP jets owned by the Air Force.

[58] In June 2012, Zuma announced a reshuffle in which Sisulu became Minister of Public Service and Administration; she succeeded Roy Padayachie, who had recently died.

[62] Also during her first year, Sisulu made another controversial appointment, recruiting Menzi Simelane as a special adviser soon after the Constitutional Court questioned his integrity in a high-profile judgment.

[65] However, when the conference took place in December 2012 in Mangaung, Sisulu stood only for re-election to her fourth term as an ordinary member of the National Executive Committee.

Pursuant to the May 2014 general election, Zuma appointed Sisulu as Minister of Human Settlements in his second-term cabinet – the same (now renamed) Housing portfolio that she had formerly held under Mbeki.

[78] Because Mantashe had been a trade unionist inside South Africa during apartheid, this remark was viewed as disparaging to the internal anti-apartheid struggle (as opposed to that waged from exile), and critics said that it supported perceptions of Sisulu as "out of touch and arrogant".

[87] The Mail & Guardian commended her for "bringing a new energy" to the Department of International Relations and for being "an assured and charming representative of South Africa".

[100] Critics described the policy as "a personal vanity project",[1] and City Press reported that it faced opposition within the cabinet and ANC parliamentary caucus.

[103] In November 2019, she appointed Bathabile Dlamini – who had recently been sacked from the cabinet – as the chairperson of the Social Housing Regulatory Authority's interim board.

[106] This allegation led to an investigation by the Public Protector, who ultimately found, in September 2023, that Sisulu had indeed exceeded her authority in appointing the task team.

[112] Sisulu remained in the Human Settlements, Water and Sanitation Ministry for just over two years before Ramaphosa reversed the merger of those portfolios in an August 2021 reshuffle.

In America, these interpreters are called the House Negroes... Today, in the high echelons of our judicial system are these mentally colonised Africans, who have settled with the worldview and mindset of those who have dispossessed their ancestors.

The Acting Chief Justice, Raymond Zondo, held a rare press briefing to respond to and reject Sisulu's remarks, characterising them as an unsubstantiated "insult" to "all African judges".

[125] However, in what the Daily Maverick called "a show of unprecedented defiance from a Cabinet minister", Sisulu released her own statement disputing the Presidency's account and asserting that "I stand by what I penned".

[130] Despite this early stir, Sisulu's presidential campaign did not receive sufficient support from local ANC branches to appear on the ballot paper.