Tolashe was a member of the Eastern Cape Provincial Legislature between 2001 and 2008, and she rose to national political prominence as the secretary-general of the ANC Women's League under President Angie Motshekga.
[2] On 29 January 2001, Tolashe was sworn in to the Eastern Cape Provincial Legislature, where she filled a casual vacancy in the caucus of her political party, the African National Congress (ANC).
Her candidacy had been endorsed by the Congress of South African Trade Unions,[5] and she received 1,574 votes from the roughly 4,000 delegates at the conference, making her the 59th-most popular candidate of the 80 ordinary members elected to the committee.
[6] Her departure from the legislature followed her election as national Secretary-General of the ANC Women's League (ANCWL), a full-time position based out of Luthuli House.
[16] Tolashe's term in the National Assembly lasted less than two years: she resigned on 25 February 2018,[13] ceding her seat to Daniel Jabu Kabini.
[17] Tolashe left Parliament to accept election as Executive Mayor of the Enoch Mgijima Local Municipality, her hometown in the Eastern Cape.
In the 2019 general election, she was nominated to return to the National Assembly, ranked 11th on the ANC's regional party list for the Eastern Cape constituency.
[14] In addition, on 24 June 2020, she was elected unopposed to chair the ad hoc parliamentary committee tasked with finding a successor to Kimi Makwetu, the Auditor-General of South Africa.
[26] At the conference, she reportedly supported Cyril Ramaphosa's bid for re-election as ANC President; she was linked politically to Oscar Mabuyane and his allies in the Eastern Cape, a group sometimes nicknamed the Chris Hani Cabal.
Tolashe was viewed as a frontrunner for election to the league's presidency,[30] running with the support of Ramaphosa and his allies, including Pemmy Majodina and Angie Motshekga.