President Emmerson Mnangagwa finished his State of the Nation Address on Tuesday with a torchlight after a power outage struck Zimbabwe’s New Parliament Building in Harare.

The blackout halted proceedings for minutes and fueled sabotage claims from ruling ZANU-PF members, while opposition lawmakers saw it as a sign of the country’s energy woes.

The outage hit near the end of Mnangagwa’s 40-minute speech, which outlined the government’s agenda for the Third Session of the Tenth Parliament. An aide held the torch as Mnangagwa read for almost 10 minutes in the dark chamber. ZANU-PF lawmakers applauded his resolve once lights returned minutes after he ended.

Some ZANU-PF legislators yelled that saboteurs caused the cut. Speaker Jacob Mudenda apologized to Mnangagwa and pledged an investigation. “We see it proper that we apologise to the President for the power outage. We shall go beyond and chase the culprit,” Mudenda said.

Mudenda added harsher words. “The person who switched off electricity while the President was speaking will regret the day he was born,” he said.

Zimbabwe’s state power utility ZESA has not explained the cause. Officials requested a backup generator days before the event, but it failed to activate. The country endures daily load-shedding of up to 18 hours due to low water levels at hydro dams and aging coal plants.

Opposition Citizens Coalition for Change members walked out early in the address to protest its content. They later called the blackout a “humiliating spectacle” that exposed corruption in energy projects like the stalled Gwanda Solar plant. “This is the state of darkness under ZANU-PF rule,” one lawmaker said on social media.

Political analyst Elias Moyo linked the event to internal rifts. “When the lights go out on the Head of State twice in less than a year, it’s more than a power fault — it’s a reflection of power struggles,”.

This marks the second such disruption in under a year. A November 2024 blackout hit a budget presentation; ZESA blamed thunderstorms.