TOM EATON | Eskom’s sudden generosity might be the ANC’s light at the end of the tunnel

I know that all parents think their babies are special, but if you are a South African baby who was born five weeks ago then you truly are unique because you have lived your whole life in a South Africa in which the electricity is always on.

Of course, if you’re five weeks old and you’re reading this then I concede that having round-the-clock electricity is probably the least exciting thing going on in your world.

Still, for the rest of us, 30-odd days without load-shedding is a pretty big deal, by which I mean an increasingly alarming deal, because, not being five week olds, we know that every day that passes in lavishly electrified calm means that we’re one day closer to May 30.

On that day, we have reason to believe, a great bell will be rung at Megawatt Park, and all the soot-encrusted, diesel-soaked Eskom triage teams will step back from the squealing, groaning boilers and conveyor belts, and the fraying bungees and smouldering Elastoplast will be allowed to fall off, and things will start popping out and ricocheting around with festive pings and clangs; and then the whole thing will give a cough, and a wheeze, and one final ping, and the country will plunge into the sort of darkness that waits at the end of all things.

In fairness, I might be exaggerating. It might only get as dark as, say, the finances of the ANC, and that’s if it happens at all. Some among us remain resolutely optimistic, like the acquaintance of mine who demonstrated extraordinary faith in the future of this country this week by setting the clock on his microwave oven.

Our minister of electricity, too, says there’s nothing suspicious, short-term or cynical going on. Far from being a desperate attempt to buy votes by pouring an Augrabies worth of diesel down Eskom’s gullet every hour, our current abundance of electricity, the minister insists, is the result of his maintenance plan starting to bear fruit, a line he’s been sticking to for some time now.

Indeed, six weeks ago he told Bloomberg that “more and more you will wake up to a hot bath”, a promise which, once you get past the creepy scenario of people tiptoeing into your house and fiddling around in your bathroom while you sleep, speaks well of his optimism, or at least his ability to keep a straight face.

Jokes aside, it doesn’t all seem to be political spin. Far more plausible people than the minister have explained that the lights have stayed on in part due to a substantial lowering of demand coinciding with a surge in private generation. In other words, the ANC’s famous two-pronged “Horns of the Bullshitter” tactic is working, that cunning plan whereby it spends half its time killing the economy and the other half waddling down the passage from the nursery, dirty nappy around its ankles, wailing at the private sector to wipe its botty.

Yes, by hook or by crook, or by burning both hooks and crooks and anything else not bolted down, the ANC has kept the power on. And because it has, I think it’s increasingly likely that it will keep power for itself, too

And you can see the sense of it: every business that folds and every family that emigrates is another few watts that don’t have to be produced. This is how electricity production by Eskom could reach a 20-year low last year without the grid collapsing.

Yes, by hook or by crook, or by burning both hooks and crooks and anything else not bolted down, the ANC has kept the power on. And because it has, I think it’s increasingly likely that it will keep power for itself, too.

In this column I’ve previously suggested that stage 6 load-shedding anywhere near this year’s election would guarantee that the ANC would crash out of government. Stage 4, I argued, was as bad as things could get: a state of affairs which, though infuriating, enervating and ultimately destructive, had slowly come to feel manageable.

The last five weeks, however, have felt like Christmas, and by that I mean Christmas 2013, back when Jacob Zuma’s supporters were still burning overpriced Gupta coal and not shops, as they did in 2021, or trucks, as they did last year. (Aside: it will interesting to see what they burn next when Zuma and his uMkhonto we Sizwe Party don’t get their way in local politics, but I suppose we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it, probably the one on the R61 between Port Edward and uMgungundlovu, though I imagine there are a couple of other bridges that will get you out of KwaZulu-Natal in a hurry.)

To be clear, I’m not suggesting that the ANC will walk it. But I do think that these past five weeks — and the next four, during which the lights will surely stay on — will allow it either to drag itself to the safety of 51%, or, if it falls short of an outright majority, at least to fall to something it can work with, like 48%.

From there, it would be the work of a few phone calls to the small but voracious also-rans to make up the missing two percent. Patricia de Lille already works for Cyril Ramaphosa. The Patriotic Alliance’s Gayton McKenzie is, to quote Marc Antony, an honourable man, and would certainly be eager to do his duty, as, say, minister of tourism ...

Yes, May 30 is going to be a paradox: a day on which darkness is supremely illuminating.

And the babies?

Welcome to real life, kiddos.