South African President, Cyril Ramaphosa, denied on Monday that a recent halt in the country’s long-running energy disruptions was due to the May 29 election.

Rolling power outages enforced by state utility Eskom reached record levels in 2023 and continued into the first quarter of this year, but there has now been no load-shedding, as South Africans refer to the cuts, for 48 straight days, the longest period in more than two years.

According to statistics collected by The Outlier, an independent South African publication specializing in public service data visualisations, power outages occurred every day over the same 48-day period last year.

The rapid improvement in power supply has become a talking point in South African media, prompting opposition charges that the timing was intended to boost voter contentment with the ruling African National Congress.

The ANC is expected to lose its legislative majority for the first time in 30 years, facing its most challenging election ever. According to Ramaphosa’s weekly communication, Eskom’s increased performance demonstrates the success of the government’s 2022 energy plan.

“Yet, against all the available evidence, some people have claimed that the reduced load-shedding is a political ploy ahead of the elections,” he said. “This is not borne out by the facts.”

Ramaphosa credited the improvement to Eskom’s renewed focus on maintenance, additional generation capacity from renewable energy projects, and increasing demand for rooftop solar panels, aided by tax breaks.

Last Monday, the Democratic Alliance, the largest opposition party, ascribed the improved power supply to “political interference” by the ANC, accusing it of exerting pressure on Eskom to keep the lights on.

“South Africans should not be fooled by this brazen abuse of power and they must act to decisively vote out the manipulators on the 29th of May,” it said in a statement on its website.

A key point of contention was whether Eskom was burning more diesel to enhance supplies, as claimed last week by the utility’s former CEO, Andre de Ruyter, who is openly hostile to the ANC.

“If the lights are on, well done, but they’re on because we are pouring money into diesel at a rate of knots,” de Ruyter, who stepped down in February 2023, told a conference in South Africa, in comments widely reported by local media.

Niger’s Prime Minister, Ali Mahaman Lamine Zeine, has claimed that Benin’s suspension of Niger’s oil shipments, imposed in reaction to a border shutdown, breached bilateral trade agreements as well as those with Niger’s Chinese partners.

Niger’s Prime Minister Ali Mahaman Lamine Zeine said on Saturday that Benin’s blockade of Niger’s oil exports, imposed in response to a border closure, violated trade agreements between the two countries and with Niger’s Chinese partners.

Speaking at a press conference in the capital Niamey, Zeine said Niger could not fully reopen its border with Benin for security reasons, in comments that escalate a dispute that saw Benin this week block supplies of Niger’s crude oil to ships in its port.

The blockade threatens Niger’s plan to begin crude exports under a $400 million deal with China National Petroleum Corp (CNPET.UL). This is significant because Niger plans to use the funds from the export deal to cover missed bond payments due to regional sanctions.

Zeine claimed that the embargo breached over a dozen agreements signed by Benin, Niger, and China about a recently launched, PetroChina-backed pipeline connecting Niger’s Agadem oil field to Benin’s port of Cotonou.

However, Benin has stated that it will only back down if Niger reopens its border to Benin-produced goods and normalizes relations. According to Zeine, one of the oil export treaties stated that Benin could not unilaterally amend or limit the agreements without the assent of the other parties.

“This means that the country agreed not to take any decision that would stop the flow of Niger’s crude oil to the international market. This is serious. This is a violation of an agreement,” he said at a press conference.

The relationship between the two countries has been strained since July 2023, when a coup in Niger prompted ECOWAS to impose tight sanctions for over six months. What comes next is unclear. Zeine stated that Niger will not cooperate with Benin’s desire to reopen its border fully.

“In Benin’s territory, there are bases where in some, terrorists are trained to come and destabilise our country. So, it is for simple security reasons that we decided to maintain the border closure,” Zeine said, without further detailing the allegations.