By Tebogo Suping
The current narrative that the youth in South Africa do not care about voting needs to be changed.
At the same time, this doesn’t take away the fact that young people are frustrated because they no longer believe that their vote counts.
There are few jobs, poor service delivery, and almost daily, we hear of corruption within government structures and from our politicians.
So, it is no wonder that young people think their vote no longer matters.
The country is a mess, and politicians are hoping to make sense to people who are not working, people who have not found a meaningful space in this current dispensation, and people who don’t understand what democracy means if it disenfranchises them.
Politicians have made a mockery of all we have come to believe in. Imagine how different things could be if political parties went into communities regularly and looked to see if their electoral promises are being delivered on.
Local Government elections are about ensuring that people are treated with dignity through the services government is mandated to provide. But instead, people are experiencing the opposite because public representatives do not understand that public service is not for personal gain.
There is a lack of accountability from our public representatives and our political parties because the government is not driving this message through.
What we need to understand is that leadership is a position placed on politicians, for the people. As an organisation, we are also trying to educate young people that every vote counts and that they can make a difference.
This year, Activate Change Drivers is training and fielding 215 young people from our network to be election observers in the local elections. We also have 14 Activators who themselves will be standing in these elections and who are putting their hands up to serve their communities.
We need to empower young people to understand the power they have. This is why issues of civic education are becoming so important. Voters do not understand the systems of government and how they can be held to account by the very laws and processes it creates. The government, instead, feeds off people’s ignorance because you cannot enforce what you don’t know.
We have also taken on the task to bring back civic education to the people, with tools to enable them to address their issues and navigate through the processes of local government and engage with democratic structures.
Youth participation in elections is not just important – it is a requirement for the effective functioning of this democracy that people have risked their lives and sacrificed so much for.
We need to understand that there are critical factors that will influence if and why our young people will participate in the elections.
Their dire circumstances and the high unemployment rate speaks much greater volumes than the empty promises of politicians in getting them to the polls.
It is very important to note that the numbers of young people eligible to vote are sufficient to turn any election on its head.
Young people are not apathetic. They are frustrated.
We need to start to hear and acknowledge that and do something about it, otherwise, we will pay a price much the same way as we did with the looting sprees earlier this year.
The fact that it only takes a spark to ignite a fire among hungry people tells us that much worse is possible if nothing changes. These are the realities South Africa faces.
Equally, for the longest time, young people have been treated like voting cows. They are engaged with every five years and told to come to the polls on unfulfilled promises, and when they don’t show up, they are told that they are not rising to the occasion.
As a young person, what do I have left to hope for to bring me that far?
The question we are asking ourselves is why and for whom must we show up at the elections when our challenges are not being addressed, our needs are not being met when our lives are not getting any better?
The answer is not going to come from speeches or well-written election manifestos.
The answer lies in the doing, because we do not have a lot of time left before we push young people to the tipping point.
*Suping is the executive director at ACTIVATE! Change Drivers Executive Director, ACTIVATE! Change Drivers
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.