DA's march on ANC's Luthuli House was the starting gun...

Come next year’s general election, the ANC is likely to say it has improved the lives of millions of people and deserves another chance at power.

Still, that one-third of the country which has political power and exercises it may now be frustrated with the electricity crisis beyond the point of no return. That rolling blackouts are still going to be with us when voters cast their ballots is a fact that ANC leaders appear to have finally realised.

On Wednesday, members of the DA marched towards the ANC’s headquarters, Luthuli House, saying it was there the real decisions that ruined Eskom were made. DA leader John Steenhuisen said it was the ANC that had broken the entity and was responsible for the problems that we now face as a nation. He said this would be part of a campaign of “rolling mass action”, perhaps a nod to tactics used by the anti-apartheid movement.

There is strong evidence to bolster the DA’s claim. As is well-documented, it was the ANC which was in power at all times during this crisis, and it was ANC members and leaders who made the decisions that broke Eskom.

Read more in Daily Maverick: “Twelve years of load shedding – written, starring & directed by the ANC”

And it was the ANC which benefited directly from deals such as Hitachi contracts through Chancellor House that led to catastrophic boiler problems at the Medupi and Kusile power stations.

It is the ANC government that appears unable, even unwilling, to address the sabotage in Mpumalanga, criminal acts committed within Eskom and the historic levels of corruption.

The ANC is well aware of this, so instead of simply refuting the DA’s claim, the party’s spokesperson, Pule Mabe, has said that it was the ANC itself that pushed for the Zondo Commission, thus shining a light on the State Capture which occurred at Eskom. (It is also the ANC chairperson, Gwede Mantashe, who is taking the Zondo report on judicial review. — Ed)

Mabe focused on the DA’s decision to march on Luthuli House, rather than trying to defend the ANC’s track record on electricity. President Cyril Ramaphosa’s promise on Sunday evening to ask Eskom to “put in suspense” its power price hike shows how important this issue is to the ANC.

Read more in Daily Maverick: “Ramaphosa’s load shedding populism – a cheap, short-term political move that will hurt South Africa”

For the DA, the real power of this issue may not be just to shine a light on its claim that the ANC is incompetent. It can use this to illuminate many different issues, including cadre deployment, corruption and the problems the ANC has had with basic stuff like forming a coherent energy policy.

At the same time, there seems to be competition among our politicians to be seen as foremost in trying to stop the Nersa-approved 18% increase.

Ramaphosa says he is asking Eskom’s board to suspend the increase, the DA has lodged a court application, and the UDM and Mmusi Maimane were joined by other groups in lodging a separate legal challenge.

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For the DA, this may be about ensuring it is not seen as silent on this issue. In the longer run, ahead of the elections, the real value for the main opposition party is getting votes.

Its share of the vote has fallen in recent years (certainly in the 2019 national elections and the 2021 local elections, while it disputes claims that it has lost votes in recent by-elections).

One of the problems the DA may have is getting what it believes is its constituency to simply go out and vote. If it can transform the election into an opportunity to “vote against load shedding”, this picture may change.

Its strategists are likely to believe that rolling blackouts can play the role Jacob Zuma once did in helping the DA.

This may also explain its very public efforts to ameliorate rolling blackouts in the places where it governs.

One of the first acts of Mpho Phalatse, when she became the DA’s mayor of Joburg, was to hold an indaba about electricity and to start plans for that metro to purchase power from independent power producers.

On Tuesday, the DA mayor of Cape Town, Geordin Hill-Lewis, announced that National Treasury was now allowing the city to purchase power from people with rooftop solar installations.

If Cape Town is able to alleviate load shedding while the rest of the country suffers in the dark, it will be a very powerful advert for the DA.

The DA may have another aim here.

From time to time, commentators have asked whether the ANC would give up power if it lost a democratic election. The DA may benefit if the ANC is seen to react extremely to any kind of provocation. That could resonate with a particular constituency in our society. 

However, the ANC itself has a few cards left to play.

First, any march on its headquarters can allow its leaders to call on its members to defend it. They can claim that the entire ANC is now under siege from the DA. Some of those leaders may also want to introduce race to this fight, which could have an impact. (The DA would argue that most of the protesters wearing DA regalia were, in fact, black.)

Second, the ruling party can appeal to what may be described as “wavering ANC voters” to defend the revolution — by which it would mean, the changes introduced since the end of apartheid.

Already, the KwaZulu-Natal ANC provincial secretary, Bheki Mtolo, has said that people in Umzimkhulu in that province do not complain to him about rolling blackouts, because during apartheid they did not have electricity at all. He is unlikely to be the only ANC figure to make this point.

In the meantime, the ANC Youth League says it’s planning to march to Eskom over rolling blackouts. This is probably another example of the ANC’s well-used tactic of trying to harness the outrage of society at its own decisions, corruption and incompetence.

This would mean that the response by politicians to the energy crisis now involves at least the following: the DA’s march to Luthuli House, a call by the President to suspend an increase agreed to by the regulator, a call by the KZN ANC for its councils to lodge their own legal case against the increase, a planned march on Eskom by the ANC Youth League, a separate legal application by the DA, and another application by Holomisa and other groups.

It is clear that politicians are very comfortable arguing about who is to blame. But they do not appear to be focusing on finding solutions.

Which may mean that no matter who wins next year’s elections, very few of our politicians will provide solutions to solve our problems. DM