SA youth cautious ahead of local polls

As political parties vying for power in the upcoming municipal polls pin their hopes for electoral success on the youth and first-time voters, many young people who registered to vote have expressed mixed feelings about their enthusiasm to vote.

Yesterday was the last day for eligible voters to register at various registration centres to cast their ballots while online registration will be closed by midnight today and political parties spread themselves throughout the country as they galvanised support.

A number of youth who spoke to Sowetan at the weekend expressed mixed views about what they wanted out of their first ballot casting.

Thabiso Maake, 21, from Orlando West, Soweto, said: “I don’t think politicians understand that they do not speak to us and our issues sometimes on economic opportunities. I feel like if they want the youth to vote for them they should not only listen to what they have to say but implement the things they promise them. We feel patronised by political parties, hence young people don’t want politics. But I am voting now so that I can also play my role in choosing who must lead.”

Even the people who are canvassing votes and putting up stands for parties here are not even coming to talk to us and engage but they want the youth vote

Banele Maseko, 25, said he would be voting for the second time on November 1 and hoped his vote would help put in power those who would deal with the unemployment and unemployability of young people, especially in townships, as well as education.

“As the youth we need to vote so that we can have representatives chosen by us and ones that we think will be best in representing us and our needs. Even though they may not do what they have promised or we elected them to do, we have to vote and be part of the process,” Maseko said.

Nobubele Jele, 28,  a student from Auckland Park, said she had registered to vote once again in the upcoming elections despite her unhappiness about how political parties paid lip service to the needs of young people.

“Even the people who are canvassing votes and putting up stands for parties here are not even coming to talk to us and engage but they want the youth vote,” Jele said.

The registration process had a slow start on Saturday morning as the Electoral Commission of SA's (IEC's) newly introduced Voter Management Devices (VMDs) remained offline for hours, leaving political parties complaining that this could result in voter suppression.

IEC chief electoral officer Sy Mamabolo, however, refuted that the VMDs were dysfunctional and said the commission had deliberately put the capturing machines offline as they experienced mapping problems but that this did not affect the capturing of prospective voters’ particulars across registration centres.

While most registration centres continued without disruptions, The EFF clashed with the ANC in Dambuza, KwaZulu-Natal, with the red berets accusing the governing party of intimidating its leader Julius Malema, who was driving its campaign in the province at the weekend.

ANC national chair Gwede Mantashe took the party’s election campaign to church in North West as he called for prayers for the party.

Addressing the Moruleng Congregation, Mantashe called on the clergy to pray for the governing party to part ways with its problems and its mistakes.

“Our responsibility is to own up to those mistakes and the church should pray for us to overcome these mistakes,” Mantashe said.

 “The church has a responsibility to pray for us.”

He said the ANC had made an admission to itself that it would not survive until it dealt with corruption and those who had been perpetrating it.

“It is a journey we must go through for the ANC to survive in the long term,” he said.