{This year’s local government elections could see many students turning their back on the ANC, or the whole system of voting, opting instead for the ”direct democracy” of protests, a political analyst has said.
\n}<\/p>\n
”They don’t channel their discontent into voting for an opposition party – they rather take it to the streets and on the campuses,” said Susan Booysen, a Wits professor and author of Dominance and Decline; the ANC in the time of Zuma.<\/p>\n
Her comments come after some protesters in the #FeesMustFall movement threatened to boycott the elections, which are due to be held on a date still to be set between May and August this year.<\/p>\n
According to the Electoral Commission, current voter registration is 24.98 million out of around 34.1m people of voting age (18 years and older).<\/p>\n
As many as 9.1m eligible voters are not currently registered, with over 80% of these under the age of 35.<\/p>\n
Booysen said the ANC is already struggling to get the youth interested in elections, and to vote for them.<\/p>\n
She said students have been mostly non-aligned during their protests, rejecting overtures from political parties who tried to get in on the revolt.<\/p>\n
The EFF appear to be the only party gathering support according to opinion polls, which spells potential trouble for the ANC.<\/p>\n
‘No confidence in the ANC’<\/p>\n
The test is whether the threat to boycott translates to mass action.<\/p>\n
”Young people are the emerging intellectuals, the future leaders, and if there is a distant motion of no confidence in the ANC, it is a big problem for the ANC.<\/p>\n
”The ANC has been getting away with a massive amount of unfulfilled promises, and young students are saying ‘so far, no further’.”<\/p>\n
She said it would be a small step for the unemployed and homeless people to join the revolt.<\/p>\n
However, opposition parties should not think they will be able to gather up disillusioned ANC voters, she warns.<\/p>\n
”They [students] will rather take it to the streets and on to the campuses,” she observed.<\/p>\n
”The deinstitutionalisation and deligitimisation of constitutional politics is probably the biggest winner, and that isn’t any good for democracy. I don’t think any opposition party will be a great winner.”<\/p>\n
Institute for Security Studies researcher Lauren Tracey said the level of participation at local government elections is usually much lower than national elections.<\/p>\n
Researchers think it could be because people do not understand what municipal government does, or that their interactions with councillors and municipalities has not been effective.<\/p>\n
”They don’t see them as the go-to people to sort things out,” said Tracey.<\/p>\n
However, it would make more sense for people to vote because it is a better way to get their voices heard.<\/p>\n
”By abstaining from participating in these processes, it’s not benefiting your cause to try and change things in your local communities.”<\/p>\n
But research is also showing that the youth don’t know who to vote for.<\/p>\n
”There is a sense of ‘I am not going to vote because my voice is not heard. If I do think of going out and voting, who do I vote for anymore?'”<\/p>\n
She said the youth have become disillusioned by people who forget their grassroots – the people who put them in power – when they go into politics.<\/p>\n
Tracey said young people don’t have the same loyalties as their parents and believe they have a completely different struggle, such as the fight for economic freedom.<\/p>\n
If political parties wanted to catch the attention of the youth, they should develop a younger look, stay more connected, engage with young people – and not only during election time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
{This year’s local government elections could see many students turning their back on the ANC, or the whole system of voting, opting instead for the ”direct democracy” of protests, a political analyst has said. } ”They don’t channel their discontent into voting for an opposition party – they rather take it to the streets and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2000071568,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[100],"byline":[2462],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-22595","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics-48","tag-africa","byline-news-24"],"bylines":[{"id":2462,"name":"News 24","slug":"news-24","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"contributors":[{"id":2462,"name":"News 24","slug":"news-24","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"featured_image":{"id":2000071568,"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton22595.gif","alt":"","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/gif","width":0,"height":0,"sizes":{"thumbnail":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton22595.gif","width":1,"height":1},"medium":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton22595.gif","width":1,"height":1},"medium_large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton22595.gif","width":1,"height":1},"large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton22595.gif","width":1,"height":1},"full":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton22595.gif","width":0,"height":0}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22595","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22595"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22595\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2000071568"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22595"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22595"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22595"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=22595"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=22595"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}