Africa-Press – South-Africa. Ahead of the IEC’s voter registration weekend, various organisations have been adopting creative means to get the country’s youth to participate in the fast-approaching 2024 general elections.
As the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) gears up for registration weekend ahead of the fast-approaching general elections in 2024, concern over youth participation remains.
This has seen political parties and various civic organisations adopting creative means to get young people to participate in the polls.
The IEC will conduct voter registration across all nine provinces of the country at the weekend.With an estimated 13 million eligible South Africans still unregistered to vote, new ways to woo young people to the polls have emerged.
Various organisations are now organising free concerts and developing mobile apps to effectively share information and engage the youth.
Rivonia Circle’s Tessa Dooms said these served as effective tools to initiate conversations about democratic processes.
“Our job as civil society going into the 2024 election is to be on the side of the voter, and the first part of that is empowering the voter with the opportunity to register.”
The founder of Ground Work Collective, Mbali Ntuli, said low voter turnout amongst young people was not necessarily due to apathy.
“Democracy has become theoretical. So many of the things that they were told they would get in terms of opportunities, job security, the ability to leave the circumstances that they find themselves in have not actually happened.”
The IEC will host a registration weekend on 18 and 19 November.
For More News And Analysis About South-Africa Follow Africa-Press
