A power cut plunged Zimbabwe’s parliament into darkness as Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube was wrapping up his budget speech.
The lights flickered on and off, leaving top officials such as President Emmerson Mnangagwa, Vice President Constantine Chiwenga and members of parliament sitting in the dark.
The outage is symptomatic of an ongoing crisis in Zimbabwe, with daily 12-hour blackouts due to a prolonged drought crippling power generation at the Kariba Dam, the country’s main source of energy.
When the lights went out, opposition MPs shouted that the blackout was an apt metaphor for the state of affairs in the country.
