{"id":95149,"date":"2026-02-01T18:48:57","date_gmt":"2026-02-01T18:48:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/malema-advocates-electoral-reform-and-voting-duty"},"modified":"2026-02-01T18:56:23","modified_gmt":"2026-02-01T18:56:23","slug":"malema-advocates-electoral-reform-and-voting-duty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/malema-advocates-electoral-reform-and-voting-duty","title":{"rendered":"Malema Advocates Electoral Reform and Voting Duty"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #ff6600\"><strong>Africa-Press &#8211; South-Africa. <\/strong><\/span>Following a low youth turnout in the 2024 General Elections, the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) is calling for all young people to be automatically registered to vote once they turn 18.<\/p>\n<p>The party spent the weekend at the Birchwood Hotel in Boksburg, hosting a strategic planning gathering\u2014or Plenum\u2014ahead of the upcoming municipal elections. Party leadership suggests that their performance in the previous elections would have been significantly stronger had youth participation been higher.<\/p>\n<p>Delivering the closing remarks on Sunday, EFF leader Julius Malema emphasised that major electoral reforms are necessary to strengthen the country&#8217;s democracy. He argued that registration should not be an optional hurdle but a legal standard.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We want every child who becomes 18 years old to be registered as a law in South Africa. It is your civil duty as a citizen to vote and to vote for a party of your choice.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Malema added that the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) must streamline its processes to make it easier for the youth to participate. He framed the act of voting as a necessary trade-off for demanding government accountability.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We cannot just be citizens and not play our role\u2014that role is to be a registered voter,&#8221; Malema stated. &#8220;In as much as we demand services from government, we too as citizens must play our role, and that role is to register and vote for a party of your choice.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><strong>For More News And Analysis About <span style=\"color: #ff6600\">South-Africa<\/span> Follow <span style=\"color: #ff6600\">Africa-Press<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Africa-Press &#8211; South-Africa. Following a low youth turnout in the 2024 General Elections, the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) is calling for all young people to be automatically registered to vote once they turn 18. The party spent the weekend at the Birchwood Hotel in Boksburg, hosting a strategic planning gathering\u2014or Plenum\u2014ahead of the upcoming municipal [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":95148,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,7,12],"tags":[275],"class_list":["post-95149","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-head-lines","category-policy","tag-south-africa-2"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.1 (Yoast SEO v27.0) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Malema Advocates Electoral Reform and Voting Duty - South Africa<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Following a low youth turnout in the 2024 General Elections, the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) is calling for all youn ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/malema-advocates-electoral-reform-and-voting-duty\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Malema Advocates Electoral Reform and Voting Duty\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Following a low youth turnout in the 2024 General Elections, the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) is calling for all youn ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/malema-advocates-electoral-reform-and-voting-duty\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"South Africa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/AfricaPressTunisiaa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-02-01T18:48:57+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-02-01T18:56:23+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/sites\/31\/2026\/02\/sm_1769959555.535124.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"630\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/malema-advocates-electoral-reform-and-voting-duty#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/malema-advocates-electoral-reform-and-voting-duty\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"Malema Advocates Electoral Reform and Voting Duty\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-02-01T18:48:57+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2026-02-01T18:56:23+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/malema-advocates-electoral-reform-and-voting-duty\"},\"wordCount\":251,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/malema-advocates-electoral-reform-and-voting-duty#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/sites\/31\/2026\/02\/sm_1769959555.535124.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"South-Africa\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"head lines\",\"policy\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/malema-advocates-electoral-reform-and-voting-duty#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/malema-advocates-electoral-reform-and-voting-duty\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/malema-advocates-electoral-reform-and-voting-duty\",\"name\":\"Malema Advocates Electoral Reform and Voting Duty - 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