Though election-linked unrest spiked in May, especially in the Eastern Cape, the suspension of rolling blackouts has meant a decline in service delivery demonstrations, according to new data.

In April 2023, 100% of service delivery protests in South Africa were triggered by rolling blackouts and water shortages - every single one.

But in May 2024, even as protests escalated in the run-up to the elections, power and water woes accounted for only 24% of the total.

advertisementDon't want to see this? Remove adsThis is according to the latest analysis from Municipal IQ (a research company that monitors service delivery protests), which shared its data with Daily Maverick.

"While water and electricity continue to be the dominant reasons for protests generally over the past two years, in May these issues accounted for only 24% of protests. This reflects the fact that load shedding, which is the key cause of both electricity- and water-related protests, dropped dramatically in May," Municipal IQ said.

"If we continue to see low levels of load shedding... it is also likely that protests may drop to the lower levels seen in April when there was also reduced load shedding," it said.

Using the elections to be heard

May was a month of significant unrest, which Municipal IQ said was directly related to the elections.

"May 2024 saw a huge spike in service delivery protests...