Africa-Press – South-Africa. Mbali Ntuli was offered large amounts of money to form a political party, but her interest is not in campaigning ahead of the 2024 elections – she wants to rattle the political environment and increase the number of people who are registered to vote.
Ntuli, who launched her non-profit organisation Ground Work Collective on Tuesday, left politics in 2022 after resigning from the DA, where she served as a member of the KwaZulu-Natal legislature.
Ground Work Collective will focus on targeting more unregistered citizens to register ahead of the 2024 elections.
She has no plans of turning the organisation into a political party.
Ntuli said:
Ntuli said the country, with the current system, would never see a growth in voter participation because political parties already in existence were focused on turning out their supporters, and not the missing chunk of people who still needed to be registered.
The Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) conducts massive campaigns on registering citizens to vote, but Ntuli said the commission alone could not achieve this bold initiative.
The IEC has had its funding cut over the years, but beyond this, a focus on civic education might close the gap and get more people engaged and interested in voting, Ntuli explained.
Data from the IEC showed that over 1.5 million people between the ages of 18 and 19 were not registered to vote.
The former DA member said many people who did not vote needed a basic understanding of how decisive their votes were.
“Increasing civic participation for us means increasing the number of people who are registered to vote. But not just doing that, but making sure they understand and are aware of their civic rights. It means they also have to have easy access to information.
“I cannot stress the importance of civic education because we cannot keep doing the same thing and expect a different result. What we have in this country is an abundance of voter education, we tell them how to vote and where to put their mark, but that does not matter if you don’t have civic education. This is where you teach people how the system works and how to close the gap between a political party and what you, as a citizen, can do and how to use the plethora of legislation,” Ntuli said.
She said voter apathy manifested in spaces where people needed help to link how to use existing legislation beyond casting their votes to hold political leaders accountable.
Ntuli said:
“This means we are left with a huge number of people who are eligible to vote but who are not registering because they do not see the political contribution. Register them and create a culture of civic education. We want them to actually contribute to the democracy.”
Ntuli was reluctant to divulge how many people her organisation would target for registration but she says the number is significant, and the aim was to flood the voters’ roll. Her organisation will rely on existing activist organisations in different communities nationwide.
Ntuli said she wanted to rattle the political environment before the 2024 elections.
She added:
“What we are trying to do is not only force political parties to account to citizens but [help] citizens understand how to do that practically. We have to shake up the system and get everybody scared about the outcome of 2024. I am using my knowledge and connections to make this possible.”
Ntuli stressed that the organisation would not campaign to support specific political parties or influence registered voters’ choice at the ballot box.
She said political parties who saw her NPO as a threat would be mistaken.
“If they are smart, the political parties will consider me a friend because I am doing a lot of work for them. Very few political parties can campaign, strategies and get votes. The ANC and DA have been able to do that. But any political party would see me as a friend bringing a cohort of people up for grabs,” she said.
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