Durban – Research conducted by the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) for the Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) has found that the growing critical views of democracy and accountability may significantly erode voter turnout at next year’s elections.
The Voter Participation Survey research findings showed that voters were dissatisfied with the current political system.
The national general elections are expected to take place between May and August next year, with President Cyril Ramaphosa still to officially gazette the date.
There was a clear difference in voter turnout between the first democratic elections in 1994, with its snaking queues, and the last local government elections in 2021.
The difference, the research found, is because of the general perception among the adult population that nothing much has changed and that the promises of those early days of post-apartheid democracy have remained unfulfilled.
Hope and trust in democracy, its institutions and processes has declined substantially, especially since 2009, reaching an all time low in 2021, the research revealed.
Speaking at an IEC event yesterday, Dr Ben Roberts, chief research specialist and co-ordinator of the SA Social Attitudes Survey at the HSRC, said that in the 2021 local government elections, the survey pointed to increasingly critical evaluations of electoral democracy among the voting public.
“In the last two elections, 2019 and 2021, we have seen the harshest political moods from public perception since 1994.
“KwaZulu-Natal tends to fare worse than other provinces, including Gauteng, with the satisfaction with democracy as low as 12% since 2021.”
Roberts said people in KZN were negative about how democracy functioned for them, and the efficacy of their vote or belief that their vote made a difference stood at 34%.
“If people’s views on the power of their vote are shaky then that will have a dramatic effect on turnout, and will have an impact on the duty to vote,” he said.
Roberts said that the massive discontent among the general voting public was countered by the trust in the IEC, which, he said, remained high.
“The sense is that accountability is not materialising, and this is spilling over into fatalism where people say ‘it does not matter any more’.”
Roberts said that this was a growing factor in KZN.
“If we see a breakdown in public duty to vote then we will see a shift in citizen norms.
“This may result in a new form of political norms that does not include the ballot box and may significantly erode voter turnout.”
Roberts said it was a major concern that youth were disengaged from the ballot box, with many youth of voting age having not had their first voting experience.
He said that disillusionment remained the core motivation for non-registration and planned electoral abstention.
“There is a growing polarisation between contented voters and the dis- illusioned masses.”
The survey said that while the IEC could not do much to change the political mood in the country, it had to emphasise the importance of voting and using one’s voting choice to promote electoral accountability.
It also suggested that the growing disillusionment among voters needed to be addressed swiftly, as the survey indicated that once political efficacy is lost, it is extremely difficult to recapture and inspire a return to the ballot box.
Thembelihle Mpungose, who spoke at the event yesterday, reflected on the research outcomes and warned that when a number of citizens were unhappy with how democracy was functioning, this led to unhappiness with the IEC.
“The blame for the current situation rests on the actions of those who were elected, and not the IEC.
“People are not happy with the IEC because they are advocates of the political system, but the electoral commission cannot hold politicians accountable,” she said.
Political analyst Professor Sipho Seepe said that people had become disillusioned with the election process because the country had become prisoner to a formula of voting every five years instead of the concept of democracy.
“Democracy is ‘government by the people, for the people’ and if a government loses its legitimacy it must be pushed,” he said.
“We model ourselves on Britain and Australia, yet there when a prime minister fails they resign.
“This is not the case in South Africa,” Seepe said.
THE MERCURY
