In the May election, many commentators noted a slump in voter turnout. According to the IEC, turnout hit just 65.5%, down from 73% in 2014. Given how hard fought the right to vote has been in SA, this is a depressing number.
But even that 66% may significantly understate the problem, according to Stellenbosch senior lecturer Bruce Bartlett. The issue, he says, is that the IEC reports the percentage of registered voters that turn out on election day. But not all eligible voters are registered.
To get a truer picture of democratic participation in the country, Bartlett recalculates SA’s voter turnout using two methods.
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First, he looks at the number of voters divided by the voting-eligible population, which means people who are legally allowed to vote in SA, whether they are registered to vote or not. The number of eligible voters is, unfortunately, not something that the government tracks. Nevertheless, using IEC data to estimate that number, he gets a turnout of just 49%.
He then looks at the number of voters divided by the voting-age population, which is everyone in SA who is over 18 (whether they are citizens or not). Using this measure, he gets a turnout of 46.7% (the size of the voting age population is tracked by the Census).
All of this indicates that SA’s voter turnout problem is a lot more serious than we realise. In fact, when Bartlett compares his figures to comparable data for other countries, he finds that voter turnout in SA is well below that of other emerging democracies like Ghana, India, and Brazil.
This has obvious implications for our democracy. It means, essentially, that the actual winner of the 2019 election was not the ANC, but apathy – more than half of eligible voters didn’t bother to make their mark.
Studies around the world show that non-voters are usually poorer, younger, and less-educated than voters. They are usually people who are disillusioned with politics, who believe that their vote won’t make a difference, and who are convinced that their life circumstances will not change.
In SA, it appears that at least a very good chunk of eligible non-voters fit this description – they are young, unemployed, hopeless, and angry. They are also mostly black Africans.
Read also: Racialisation rises as polls show record stay-away – Anthea Jeffery
Now, many people have rightly pointed out that this group of disillusioned non-voters represents a significant opportunity for an enterprising political party. If one of SA’s parties could persuade the 10-million odd eligible voters who haven’t registered to sign up and vote in the next election, they could make a serious run on the ANC’s grip on power.
Given who these non-voters are, the party best positioned to win them over is the EFF. The EFF speaks directly to the disenfranchised and angry young people who are struggling to build lives in SA’s cities. The EFF’s populist economic message and embrace of in-group/out-group politics have captured the hearts of many of SA’s young urban citizens. The party made big strides in this election. If it can get more of its spiritual voters to actually register and vote, its growth could accelerate further.
This would not be an ideal outcome. The EFF’s radical economic policies are, for the most part, ones that have been tested and failed elsewhere. The party’s leaders appear to encourage violence against political opponents and journalists, and there have been serious allegations of corruption against some high-ranking party members.
Unfortunately, however, no other political party seems to be speaking the language of the dispossessed. The ANC’s voters are ageing and the party seems to be struggling to energise the youth. It is increasingly seen as a party captured by trade unions, interested more in protecting those with jobs than helping those without them. The DA has cut no ice with young, black South Africans, who see it as the defender of white privilege. And, let’s be real, those voters are not going to be lining up to vote Freedom Front Plus, notwithstanding that parties gains among conservative, white, suburban voters.
Thus, SA is faced with a genuine political conundrum. There is a mass of disengaged potential voters who could dramatically alter the face of the country’s politics if they chose to vote. At present, however, the only party with a shot at harnessing this sleeping giant is the EFF. And without a political channel for their growing disenchantment, these voters pose a risk of serious civil unrest – the “fees must fall” and service delivery protests gave a taste of what this could look like.
SA is in dire need of a political visionary who can craft a positive and uplifting message of the future and marry that to policies that will actually work to change people’s lives.
