The National Development and Labour Council (Nedlac) is urging businesses and employers to ensure that registered voters can cast their vote on 29 May.
Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal have the highest number of young people who are strongly considering abstaining from voting in the 2024 elections, according to a study.
The Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) on Wednesday hosted a seminar to discuss the findings of a survey by the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) to gauge the perceptions and intentions of young people, especially those who are considering abstaining from voting.
The HSRC survey took place from August to October and involved more than 3 000 respondents.
The findings were that 80% of youth from KwaZulu-Natal and 83% of their peers in Gauteng plan to abstain from voting in the national elections in 2024 or are uncertain about voting, HSRC researcher Samela Mtyingizane said.
She said reasons for the high numbers included the government’s poor performance in addressing issues such as poverty, unemployment and corruption, as well as the lack of change since the last election and empty promises from political parties.
“Difficulty in finding a party representing their needs, political party coalitions have a
disincentivising effect on interest in turnout among the youth cohort and independent candidates also appear to dampen interest in turnout among this cohort,” Mtyingizane said.
Young people feel powerless and the creation of youth-targeted interventions that enable participation in both society and the economy could be a solution, according to the chief research specialist at the HSRC’s inclusive economic development programme, Alude Mahali.
“Empowering the young through increasing their voter awareness and their capacity to engage meaningfully in their communities through civic education, upskill and train young
people to facilitate their own dialogues; will increase interest in engagement and broadly increase first-time voter turnout.”
She added that most of the young people did not even know what the IEC was.
Mtyingizane said respondents were asked an open-ended question: “In your opinion, what could the IEC do to encourage you to vote in next year’s election?”
Many of the issues raised by the respondents — job opportunities, service delivery, addressing corruption — were not within the mandate of the commission.
“The responses within the IEC’s mandate included ensuring a fair and honest voting experience and a guarantee of free and fair elections. The voting experience will be improved by making voting stations more accessible,” she said.
Mtyingizane emphasised that the safety and security of voters — and the boxes containing the ballot papers — will be ensured at voting stations.
“A stronger message against corruption will be sent by creating a system of voting in which everyone will know that no corruption can happen when counting votes,” she said.
Additionally, there should be more education and awareness campaigns to make people understand more about elections by being visible everywhere with improved advertising campaigns.”