Voter apathy a result of poor leadership, corruption, system dysfunction – experts

Besides temporary improving service delivery, last-minute door-to-door campaigns, giving people food parcels and T-shirts, it seems no effort or strategy is being put in place to improve poor voter turnout.

Despite multiple requests for information over three days, the Electoral Commission of SA did not respond.

While the ANC is preparing for its December national elective conference and 2024 polls, voter apathy remained a major problem – possibly due to the lack of service delivery, lack of voter education or other issues such as no satisfactory alternative parties.

Sipho Lukele from Johannesburg said the element of disinterest from voters was likely to rear its ugly head in 2024 as South Africans were irked by the current economic developments.

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Lukele said the mushrooming of new political parties with different dynamic approaches could motivate people to go to the polls to unseat the ANC and also minimise the existence of certain opposition parties.

“The ANC conference in December will be factionalised and will not yield any positive direction to the voters on the ground, as well as the opposition parties with splinter group breakaways becoming more relevant,” he said.

‘We will have serious problems’

Political analyst André Duvenhage said poor voter turnout was because people have completely lost confidence in the system, the ANC and related structures.

“Therefore, the argument is that there is no need to go and vote. Why should we vote if next time we will have the same or even worse situation. That is basically the view,” he said

“The tendency of political apathy is also increasing all the time. Already the ANC is a minority government in terms of its support base. If you look at the total of voters available, the voting participation is coming down and that is not only a phenomenon among the minority groups, but also referring to black people in SA.”

Duvenhage said there was nothing done to improve voter turnout.

“People should take part and vote for their best choice. Although they disagree and argue there is not an ideal choice, they must choose a better one,” he said.

“We cannot work with the reality of a democracy without people voting.

“Then we will have serious problems. We need a legitimate government to keep the country responsible.”

With continued coalition chaos, Duvenhage said people were very sceptical at the moment about coalition governments.

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He said while some saw it as an option to get rid of the ANC, coalitions were also seen falling apart.

“Reading it from a context of more and more violence, we may see even more voter apathy in the future.

“People are very negative about leadership, corruption, system dysfunction – and all that takes place,” he said.

Mbulelo Mpongwana from Soweto said it was important voter turnout was analysed as per age demographics.

He said through lack of voter education and a “don’t care attitude”, the youth were one of the main reasons there was such a poor voter turnout.

“They have missed opportunities to change the trajectory in which our political system is heading,” he said.

Mpongwana said the older age group’s despondency and lack of viable alternatives discouraged voter turnout and with lesser turnout, the status quo of existing political parties was maintained.

“However with the renewed focus on nationalistic sentiments and attitude towards foreigners, the anti-immigration parties like Patriotic Alliance and ActionSA are gaining traction and renewed interest in upcoming elections,” he said.

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“The voter turnout would likely improve and we might find ourselves in the politics of coalition government at national level.”

– lungas@citizen.co.za