As South Africans lose interest in politics, the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) faces the unenviable task of maintaining popular excitement about national and provincial elections.
IEC deputy electoral officer Mosotho Moepya says lack of interest in voting is to be expected as South Africa’s democracy matures. In the last general election, just under 90% of those eligible to vote turned up at the polls.
Moepya said the greatest challenge facing the IEC was getting young people to vote. “Almost 52% of young people between 18 and 30 years old who are eligible to vote are not registered. We are addressing that through programmes in schools and working with youth organisations.
“As far as identity documents are concerned, we have no big problem. Statistics South Africa says there are 27,4-million South Africans who are eligible to vote, according to their 2001 census. [The Department of Home Affairs] says it has issued IDs to 28,1-million eligible voters. The numbers do not quite add up, but for us it would have been a problem if the numbers were the other way around. Some people will lose their IDs before elections but home affairs is now assisting with providing IDs for free.”
Moepya said the IEC will encourage a higher electoral voter turnout by making registeration and voting as simple as possible. “The public no longer want to queue to register and queue again to vote, so we have increased the number of voting stations from 14 900 to 17 000,” he explains. The IEC has scheduled a voter registration drive for November.
The Electoral Institute of Southern Africa’s Ilona Tip echoed Moepya’s sentiments, saying the challenge was to sustain the big turnout and to attract younger voters.
“But they must also monitor the IDs issued because we don’t know whether people from economically depressed areas, who cannot afford to pay for [ID] photographs, are getting them free. The election should proceed freely, except for KwaZulu-Natal, and perhaps the Eastern Cape, where there will probably be some tensions,” Tip said. Moepya said the IEC’s preparations were unlikely to be hampered by the current squabbling about changes to the Electoral Amendment Bill, which is currently before Parliament. “Some of the changes are ones we have proposed ourselves,” Moepya explains. Some opposition parties have threatened to take the legislation to court. This could delay it coming into law and have a knock-on effect on the election date.
The IEC is also unfazed about the timing of the election, which many political parties suspect may be April 2004.”It is the prerogative of the president. We have to be ready to deliver elections any time. We have come a long way and our electoral systems are fairly established,” Moepya said.