Young voters in South Africa are losing faith in the effectiveness of voting — Daily Maverick
In South Africa, more than 70% of citizens aged 18–19 who are eligible to vote were not registered as voters in June. The author of a column published by Daily Maverick believes that low youth registration should not be equated with apathy: in his view, distrust is caused by unfulfilled promises and weak accountability of local authorities.
Youth voter registration
After a voter registration weekend in June, South Africa’s Electoral Commission introduced zero-rated access to its online portal, so registration did not require spending mobile data. The commission also announced a second registration weekend in August and kept online registration open after it.
Four out of five new voters registered in June were under 30. At the same time, by the end of July, ahead of the second registration weekend, seven out of ten voters who would be voting for the first time were still not on the rolls.
According to data from the South African Human Sciences Research Council’s long-running study of social attitudes cited in the column, around two-thirds of the country’s residents consider voting a civic duty. More than six out of ten respondents in the youngest age group share this view. At the same time, the share of those who believe their vote matters has fallen from six out of ten in the late 2000s to fewer than three out of ten today; among Generation Z, this figure is fewer than one in four.
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Problems with local representation
The author draws attention to ward committees, through which residents can communicate their concerns to municipalities between elections. Such a committee includes a municipal councillor and up to ten residents, and the law requires the councillor to chair this body.
The committees can only make recommendations, and administrations are not obliged to respond to them. As stated in the column, researchers working in 12 municipalities documented a recurring problem: reports reach the authorities, but responses do not come back. After elections, new committee compositions also often do not receive previous reports, lists of unresolved issues, or information about unfulfilled promises.
Proposed changes
The author proposes allowing committees to elect their own chair, requiring administrations to respond in writing to recommendations within a specified period, and transferring documentation to the new committee composition. In the author’s view, changing the chairing procedure requires a parliamentary decision, since Section 73 of the Municipal Structures Act provides for a councillor to chair. The councils can introduce the other changes using their existing powers, the column states.
