State of the nation: Zimbabwe President speaks under torchlight

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State of the nation: Zimbabwe President speaks under torchlight

6:07 CAT | 29 Oct 2025

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Image: Take Step Africa

Zimbabwe’s President Emmerson Mnangagwa was forced to deliver part of his state-of-the-nation address by torchlight on Tuesday — showing that even he isn’t spared the country’s persistent power cuts.

Mnangagwa delivered his address at the official opening of parliament in Mount Hampden, about 11 miles northeast of the capital, Harare. Before the blackout, he committed to “implementing policies to maintain currency stability,” adding that “the trend in macroeconomic stability is expected to become the status quo.”

Power failures in the southern African nation often last more than a day, as falling output at the Kariba hydropower plant — one of Zimbabwe’s main energy sources — continues to strain the electricity supply, prompting many to rely on generators to keep the lights on.

It later emerged that the ceremony itself had been powered by generators — a sign of the authorities’ reluctance to rely solely on the state utility, Zesa Holdings Ltd. The utility was meant to serve only as a backup, according to a statement issued Wednesday by Parliament Clerk Kennedy Chokuda.

“Preliminary investigations indicate that a circuit breaker supplying the load had tripped,” Chokuda said, adding that restoration took longer than expected, forcing part of the address to be delivered without power.

Speaker of Parliament Jacob Mudenda vowed to find those responsible for the outage, warning they “will regret the day of their existence.”

The Managing Director of the Zimbabwe Electricity Transmission and Distribution Company (ZETDC), Abel Gurupira, has been removed from his position with immediate effect following yesterday’s embarrassing power outage in Parliament while President Emmerson Mnangagwa was delivering… pic.twitter.com/FglDDM2noq

— Hopewell Chin’ono (@daddyhope) October 29, 2025