‘Voetsek!’ — Mzansi in shock as Eskom introduces stage 4 load-shedding

It only took a few seconds for “stage 4” to top the Twitter trends list on Wednesday as gatvol South Africans flooded social media platforms to share their shock after Eskom announced a worsening of the national rolling blackouts.

SA has been experiencing stage 2 load-shedding since last week, with Eskom claiming it had hit a wobble in returning power stations to service and will only be able to stop the blackouts on Saturday.

The power utility did, however, promise that it would work with the Electoral Commission to keep the lights on for the local government elections next week. 

But it all seemed to go out of the window on Wednesday when the power utility announced it had upgraded load-shedding to stage 4 from noon until 5am on Friday. Stage 2 will resume from Friday morning to Saturday morning.

Eskom blamed the latest power cuts on “further shortages of generation capacity”.

A poll conducted by TimesLIVE this week asked readers if they thought Eskom would keep the lights on when voters head to the polls on Monday.

Most (81%) said Eskom “always keep the lights on when politicians and famous people need it”, pointing to the power utility suspending load-shedding earlier this year for the memorial service for Zulu King Goodwill Zwelithini.

A total of 15% said they did not believe the power utility because it is "full of surprises”, while only 4% said they trusted Eskom’s word.

The power utility’s latest announcement gave South African less than an hour’s notice, which was more than a recent load-shedding notice that gave citizens around 30 minutes' to prepare, leaving many fuming.