The Democratic Alliance has an active group here in London. More active, certainly from my perspective, in the last few days.
DA Abroad, as it is called, is keen to get as many South Africans living in the UK to sign up to vote in the general election. From the calls and emails I’ve been getting, they’re becoming frantic. Signups are down on 2014, despite this being the most important election since 1994 – and the process of registering via the online VEC 10 form literally taking a few minutes. Registrations for those wanting to vote in the election from outside SA close today.
SA’s new president will be hoping this apparent lack of interest is not replicated within the country itself. Cyril Ramaphosa desperately needs a mandate to enact the bold policy changes he knows SA needs. He’ll only get this if the army of ANC voters who stayed away in the 2016 municipal elections return in their numbers. Failure to do so will help the opposition parties, and bring governance of a couple of important provinces very much into play.
Given everything South Africans had to go through to become enfranchised, it’s weird the possibility of a low voter turnout is even on the table. Then again, a country gets the government it deserves.
