In a statement released by the Democratic Alliance in late April, the opposition party expressed what many people suspect to be the case: the claim that “Eskom may be manipulating the power supply ecosystem to keep the lights on at all costs until May 29”. South Africa has now had an uninterrupted electricity supply for over a month – which, depressingly, is the longest period without load shedding since 2022. Naturally, people are suspicious about the timing – since the general elections are now less than a month away, and it was previously believed that load shedding as an electoral issue was going to cost the ANC badly. So is the ruling party somehow managing to rig the system to keep load shedding at bay until May 29th – after which things will return to darkness as usual?
