Youth apathy no surprise – A looming threat to SA democracy?

The young people boycott elections and political participation because parties have nothing that appeals to the youth, causing them to pursue other things.

This is the view of political scientists, who said the voter apathy by young people as found by the Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) should not be a surprise because the youth were changing focus away from politics.

They said the high youth unemployment rate and lack of economic opportunities for them has worsened the situation.

Masego Sheburi, IEC deputy chief electoral officer: electoral matters, said the youth voters were thin on the voters’ roll.

He said all South Africans should be concerned with the under-representation of young people on the roll as their numbers were dwindling.

As at the end of August, the voters’ roll had 25.9 million voters of which 55% were females and 45% were males.

Political expert Prof Ntsikelelo Breakfast questioned what future lies ahead for the country if young people were not voting or at least registering as voters.

Another political analyst, Sandile Swana, said South Africans had been losing interest in politics as far as the 1999 general election where the Thabo Mbeki-led ANC received an overwhelming two-thirds majority.

He said the ANC victory then was based on declining voter space and political participation.

“So the loss of interest in politics, whether by the youth or any other group of voters, was due to political parties that had no political programmes for the young people,” Swana said.

The IEC’s Voter Participation Survey for the mid-year estimates of 2019 reported that the youth (aged 18-34) constituted almost a third of the (17.84 million) of South African population.

It is understandable that the IEC undertook a drive to encourage the youth to register to vote.

Breakfast said young people didn’t want to be involved in politics because they realised they were not benefiting anything from politics.

“It’s concern because one of the hallmarks of democracy is public participation. So if young people don’t participate in politics, it begs the question as to what kind of democracy are we going to have because young people are future leaders.”