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Intense Power Cuts May Last Until Mid-Week, US Lawmakers Propose Review Of Relations With SA

SOUTH AFRICA
  • Eskom reduced loadshedding to Stage 5 until further notice from Stage 6 over the weekend, the highest level of power cuts in months. Electricity Minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa said that "it was like four stages of loadshedding essentially imposed on us" as the utility had to ramp up power outages, with nine generating units going offline due to boiler tube leaks - but he was expecting the situation to improve by mid-week. During his media briefing on Sunday, Ramokgopa repeatedly emphasised that the situation was an "outlier" and South Africa was moving closer to the end of loadshedding, in line with President Cyril Ramaphosa's pledge in last week's SONA.
  • A bipartisan bill has been submitted to the US Congress calling for a review of diplomatic relations with South Africa in the wake of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruling on the Gaza situation in a case brought by Pretoria. This comes after last year a bipartisan group of US lawmakers were calling on the White House to review South Africa's trade benefits under the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA).
  • The Social Research Foundation (SRF) said that the new party formed by ex-President Jacob Zuma could contribute to ending the dominance of the African National Congress (ANC) in South African politics. The organisation's polling data showed that the new party could garner 24% of the vote in Zuma's home base of KwaZulu-Natal, the country's second most-populous province, which could reduce the ANC's national vote share by around 5pp.
  • The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) unveiled an election manifesto, which included proposals to raise corporate taxes and nationalise the central bank. Should the ANC's vote tally drop below around 45%, it would likely need to form a coalition with one of its main rivals, the centrist Democratic Alliance (DA) or the radical left-wing EFF.

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