A dressing down for Juju after 'Barbie' jibe

The gloves are off between Economic Freedom Fighters leader Julius Malema and Human Settlements Minister Lindiwe Sisulu. Each has accused the other of style suicide.

Sisulu, considered South Africa's best-dressed politician, was branded a "Barbie doll" by Malema in parliament last month.

She hit back this week, claiming Malema was juvenile and sexist - and tore a strip off the EFF for their red overalls.

"It has to do with respect - you don't need to be told to throw your scruffy jeans to the back of the wardrobe when your grandmother is coming," said an immaculately attired Sisulu this week in her parliamentary office.

"You don't go to somebody's party dressed in a nightgown.

"[In] those places that you respect you dress to show your respect, and parliament is one of those places we respect because we are appointed by the people to represent them," she said.

"We are given a salary to make sure we are attired properly to represent them - it is not as though we are pleading poverty in parliament."

Sisulu's comments add to the furore over the EFF's red "uniform" - overalls for men, domestic-worker outfits for women - which led to a scuffle in the Gauteng legislature three weeks ago. Two EFF members were injured when the police removed EFF members on the orders of the speaker for wearing "inappropriate attire".

Two EFF members were expelled from the Eastern Cape legislature last month for wearing red overalls, hard hats and black gumboots, and the garb was censured by the KwaZulu-Natal legislature speaker, Lydia Johnson.

EFF members said they were merely trying to "identify with the masses".

Sisulu said she was not perturbed by Malema's ranting.

"I would regard Malema as a young child who is growing up and has all the energy of youth," she said.

"In time, he will settle down. Everybody does. We have all been through that riotous and anarchic phase. He will not be 50 years old and still be riotous and anarchic."

Sisulu also took aim at another of her snappy-dresser political rivals, DA defence spokesman David Maynier.

"W hen somebody junior like Maynier - who was a speech writer for [former DA leader] Tony Leon - suddenly takes chances on something I think he knows nothing about, then I am quick to respond."

During her term as defence minister, Sisulu once referred to Maynier as having "a flea-infested body".

Maynier shot back this week. "Lindiwe Sisulu did herself huge damage by becoming a symbol of excess and branding herself as cabinet's 'Imelda Marcos'," he said, in a reference to the former Philippines first lady known for extravagant tastes, especially in shoes.

Malema could not be reached for comment.

Debate over unconventional fashion is nothing new.

In 2012, ANC MP Pinky Mncube set tongues wagging when she arrived at the opening of parliament in a red dress that revealed her cleavage and a rose tattoo on one breast.

A tigress on the tightrope

Lindiwe Sisulu is redecorating. She directs a giant landscape painting towards a vacant wall in her spacious parliamentary office, but it is too big to hang. A similar painting rests in the corner - a Karoo vista of endless veld and enormous sky.

Sisulu's love of wide-open spaces should come as no surprise: space is the commodity she needs most if she is to make inroads into a staggering backlog of 2.3million houses for South Africa's urban poor. Add to that a dire shortage of available land in South Africa's major cities and it is easy to see why Sisulu is fond of art depicting empty spaciousness.

"My biggest challenge is having to start all over again," said Sisulu during an interview at her office this week. Her previous term as housing minister - between 2004 and 2009 - produced, at its zenith, 270000 houses a year, almost double the current rate. She said a similar effort was required now, but with an emphasis on bigger projects: "We must insist on mega-projects where we can use economies of scale - it will be cheaper and faster. We are the only country that is still building [houses] brick by brick, one by one, as if we have all the time in the world while the housing list grows."

As if to highlight the difficulties she faces, Sisulu was pitched into the midst of a huge housing controversy last month in her first week in office - the Lwandle eviction outside Cape Town. The demolition of about 250 shacks on state-owned land on the eve of a massive winter storm was the worst possible timing for a new government stung by accusations from some quarters that it had grown fat at the expense of the poor.

The subsequent muddle over accommodating the evictees offers a grim insight into Sisulu's future. Not only must she tackle the task of reducing the backlog, she must do so while walking a tightrope between landowners and the landless. So instead of her customary designer heels, a pair of Economic Freedom Fighters gumboots may be more useful. 

• jordanb@sundaytimes.co.za