Stage 4 Rolling Blackouts: South Africans must register to vote to keep the lights on

9 June 2021

Note to Editors: Please find attached soundbite by Ghaleb Cachalia MP.

On 2 September 2015, then Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa told the National Council of Provinces that “[in] another 18 months to two years, you will forget the challenges that we had with relation to power and energy and Eskom ever happened.”

This was a blatant lie.

Today, almost six years down the line, it is clearer than ever that the ANC couldn’t overcome the crisis then and it certainly can’t overcome it now.

The announcement of stage 4 rolling blackouts by Eskom once again shows how desperately South Africa needs change. And the only way to achieve this is to vote the ANC out.

Only the DA can keep the lights on, and we call on all South Africans to vote for the DA in the local government elections on 27 October.

To do this, South Africans who will be 18 or older by 27 October, must ensure that their names are on the voters’ roll. And they can do this on the registration weekend of the 17th and 18th of July, when all polling stations will be open for voter registration.

The DA was the first out of the blocks this week when it launched its voter registration campaign in the run-up to the local government elections in Nelson Mandela Bay yesterday. And today we have started flighting our registration posters in all nine provinces of the country.

While the ANC dithers on how to fix Eskom and whether the elections should even go ahead, the DA is marching full steam ahead to the ballot box, ready to provide the country with a credible offer on how to fix Eskom and turns things around.

It will only be through the ballot box and by voting in a capable party such as the DA that South Africa’s rolling blackout woes will come to an end.

Issued by Ghaleb Cachalia, DA Shadow Minister of Public Enterprises, 9 June 2021