South Africa's Politicians Are Betting Our Young People Will Stay Home

Somewhere in the Free State this month, a young person sat in a classroom and learned what a ward councillor does, how a voter roll works, and why the bus fare to the polling station is worth paying. That should not be remarkable. In a democracy that is thirty-one years old, it should be the bare minimum. Yet it is news, because for too long the people who run our country have counted on our youth not knowing any better.

Between 5 and 10 October, the YOUth Choose Your Leaders programme ran civic education workshops at the University of the Free State and Maluti TVET College. The programme was facilitated by SAIIA and Project Vote SA. Students who will shape the next decade were taught the mechanics of their own democracy. Ask yourself why that needed a special programme at all.

Consider the record. Turnout in South Africa's 2024 national and provincial elections fell to roughly 58 percent, the lowest since the first democratic vote in 1994. Each year that the number drops, the message to a generation grows louder: your voice does not count, so do not bother. The young are not apathetic. They are watching patronage networks reward loyalty, watching municipal water pipes burst and go unrepaired, and watching the same faces reappear on ballots after decades of broken promises. When the system gives you every reason to walk away, walking away is not stupidity. It is a rational response to a rigged game.

And the political class knows it. A party that expects a young voter to stay home does not need to campaign for that voter. It needs only to keep the registration queues long and the information thin. That is the quiet calculation behind every missed registration drive, every ward meeting held at an inconvenient hour, and every council that treats its constituents as an inconvenience. Our democracy is not being stolen with tanks. It is being stolen with indifference, and indifference is much harder to prosecute.

Now look at the economic cost of that indifference. Youth unemployment in South Africa has hovered above 60 percent for years, among the highest rates recorded anywhere in the world. Think about what that means in human terms. Millions of young South Africans have finished school, enrolled in college, or spent years searching for work, only to find that the economy has no place for them. A young person who cannot find a job is also a young person who cannot afford to wait five years for a government to notice. They need reform now, and reform is decided at the ballot box and at the council chamber.

This is where the centre-right case must be made without apology. Strong institutions, an independent judiciary, transparent procurement, and accountable local government are not luxuries for wealthy countries. They are the machinery that turns a vote into a pothole fixed, a tender awarded fairly, and a small business allowed to open without paying a bribe to a municipal official. Civic education matters precisely because it teaches citizens to demand that machinery work. A voter who understands the difference between a national list and a ward councillor knows exactly whom to hold responsible when a water tanker never arrives.

Look at the countries that have done this well. Botswana built one of the most stable democracies on the continent through decades of peaceful transfers of power, prudent management of its diamond wealth, and institutions that, for most of its history, remained credible. Mauritius shows what open markets and an accountable state can produce: a small island with a functioning democracy, strong property rights, and a per-capita income that dwarfs most of its neighbours. Senegal, in its 2024 transition, demonstrated that young citizens who organise, register, and vote can force a peaceful change of government even when an incumbent resists. None of these models is perfect. Each proves that better governance is not a fantasy African countries must wait for. It is a choice their citizens made and defended.

So what must South Africa do? First, the Independent Electoral Commission and universities must treat voter registration as a permanent campaign, not a few weeks before election day. Registration points should sit on campuses, at TVET colleges, in taxi ranks, and at clinics where young people already gather. Second, civic education must be non-partisan, sustained, and funded beyond the life of a single project. A workshop once a year is a gesture. A curriculum that teaches every Grade 11 learner how their municipality is funded and governed is a democracy. Third, civil society and the private sector should publish scorecards on councillors and municipal budgets, so that every ward has a public record of promises kept and broken. Transparency is the cheapest anti-corruption tool we have, and too few people use it.

Fourth, parties must be made to answer to the young. Every manifesto should carry a costed plan for youth employment, and every councillor should be required to hold open public meetings with published minutes. A politician who cannot explain a budget to a student in Phuthaditjhaba has no business asking that student for a vote.

Finally, we must stop treating our youth as a voting bloc to be harvested every five years. They are citizens, with the same right to accountable government as anyone else.

So here is the demand. To the IEC and the universities: put registration where young people live, and keep it open year-round. To Parliament and provincial legislatures: fund civic education as a permanent part of the school and college system, and protect it from political interference. To every party contesting the coming local government elections: publish your youth employment plan and submit to a public ward-by-ward accountability test. And to every young South African reading this: check that you are registered, learn who your ward councillor is, and ask them one question they cannot dodge. Then bring a friend.

Our parents fought for the vote so that no government could decide, on our behalf, that we were not worth listening to. Do not let the men and women who inherited that freedom teach us to forget what it cost. The ballot is still ours. Use it.

Based on reporting by SAIIA