A member of the African National Congress (ANC), she was formerly the Minister of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development between May 2019 and June 2024.
She was elected to the first post-apartheid Parliament as a nominee of the ANC Youth League in 1994, and she joined Nelson Mandela's Government of National Unity as Deputy Minister of Agriculture from 1994 to 1999.
She returned to the cabinet as Minister of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development after the 2019 general election, appointed by President Cyril Ramaphosa.
[2] She was the youngest of three children born to Vusimuzi and Assiena Ntombenhle Msane, and her mother was from a family of small-scale farmers in present-day Mpumalanga.
[3] Didiza attended the Ohlange School in Inanda, founded by John Dube of the African National Congress (ANC).
[1][6] Having entered politics through the church, she was involved in the leadership of the Natal Women's Organisation,[6] as well as in the underground structures of the ANC, which at the time was banned inside South Africa.
[4] In 1989, Didiza moved to Vosloorus on the East Rand to work as the national youth coordinator for the South African Council of the Young Women's Christian Association (YWCA).
[4] The ministry under Didiza and van Niekerk was also noted for intermittently coming into conflict with Derek Hanekom, the Minister of Land Affairs, whose portfolio sometimes competed with theirs.
[8] In 1996, after van Niekerk and the National Party exited the government, Hanekom became Didiza's boss at the head of the newly amalgamated Ministry of Agriculture and Land Affairs.
[8][11] She was admired for building relationships between government and disparate interest groups, such as AgriSA,[12] and, though the pace of land reform remained slow, there was a marked acceleration in the 2002–2004 period.
[23] When the ANC's 52nd National Conference was held in Polokwane in December 2007, Jacob Zuma and his supporters beat Mbeki's camp in all the top leadership races.
During this period, from 2011 to 2014, she was employed by the University of South Africa, working as a consultant on the launch of the Archie Mafeje Research Institute on Applied Social Policy.
[32] In the 2014 general election, she was one of the top candidates for the ANC, ranked 15th on the national party list, and she was therefore a possible contender for an appointment to President Zuma's second-term cabinet.
Instead, she was elected as a presiding officer, serving alongside Mmatlala Boroto and Cedric Frolick as one of the National Assembly's three house chairpersons.
At the time, the ANC in Tshwane was divided in a factional struggle between the outgoing mayor, Sputla Ramokgopa, and his deputy, Mapiti Matsena.
In February 2019, Didiza was elected as chairperson of the ad hoc parliamentary committee established to redraft the so-called property clause in Section 25 of the Constitution, with the purpose of explicitly sanctioning land expropriation without compensation.
[54] Although she was viewed as a frontrunner to succeed Baleka Mbete as Speaker of the National Assembly,[55] she was instead appointed to the cabinet of President Cyril Ramaphosa, named to her earlier (now renamed) portfolio as Minister of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development.
[58] Also in 2019, at a meeting in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, Didiza was elected to chair the African Union's Specialised Technical Committee on Agriculture, Rural Development, Water and Environment.
[60] She did not stand for higher party office at the conference, despite speculation that she was well positioned to do so, particularly as a young female ally of President Ramaphosa.
[4] During her hiatus from government, she ran an eatery in central Pretoria named Thoko's Kitchen,[64] and she is a longstanding member of the board of the Thabo Mbeki Foundation.
They have five children;[2] in 2000, while Agriculture and Land Affairs Minister, Didiza had her fourth child, becoming the first South African politician to give birth while serving in the cabinet.