South Africa’s Generation Z — about 12-million people between their late teens and mid- thirties — has the power to sway this week’s elections, but that’s only if they show up at the polling booths.
The IEC has said a total of 11.7-million of the 27.79-million South Africans who registered to vote are between 18 and 34 years — 42% of the voter’s roll, a stark contrast to 2013, where only 22% of registered voters were young.
Research from the University of Johannesburg’s Centre for Social Development in Africa released this week found this elections could be historic, as the country’s youth could favour opposition parties on Wednesday.
In Factors determining voter choice in South Africa’s 2024 national elections, researchers Leila Patel, Yolanda Sadie and Jaclyn de Klerk interviewed 3,511 participants — with 51% between 18 and 34. They listed promises to create jobs, improve people’s lives and improve delivery as the top reasons for a particular party choice.
“Youth were found to be 1.5 times more likely to vote for an opposition party than for the incumbent, the ANC, compared to the older age group, 35 to 60 years. Youth voter turnout in the elections could, therefore, have a major impact on the elections. For instance, a high voter turnout of youth will favour opposition parties.”
The researchers said young people’s reasons for voter abstention should not be construed as political apathy. Previous research has shown they demonstrate other forms of political engagement, such as protest, which they feel offer more direct results than elections.
Young people also feel disillusioned with party options and with the electoral process, often pointing out that they felt their vote would not make a difference.
Researchers said the youth have previously said they don’t identify with many party leaders, most of whom they view as being too old to understand their lives.
The findings dovetails with recent research by trend analysts FluxTrends in partnership with Student Village, a youth and student agency called “The 30/30/30 Project”, which collected insights from 30 South Africans, under the age of 30, 30 years into democracy.
FluxTrends head Dion Chang, who started tracking Gen Z about 15 years ago as the first generation of digital natives born into technology, said their “optimism against all odds is refreshing, especially in the South African context”.
“They are a resilient generation, critical of the traditional education system and are challenging corporate structures. It’s not going to be long until they start manifesting this change.”
Ronen Aires, founder of Student Village, said in the election context, Gen Zs — locally referred to as Born Frees because they have only ever lived under ANC rule — have developed trust issues due to increasing corruption scandals and service delivery failures.
He said they believe they were sold a dream that turned into unfulfilled promises offered by leaders they don’t look up to or resonate with.
The interviewed Gen Zs all described the most important people in their lives and those they looked up to most, were women — particularly grandmothers, moms and mothering figures in the workplace.
They are a resilient generation, critical of the traditional education system and are challenging corporate structures. It’s not going to be long until they start manifesting this change
— FluxTrends head Dion Chang
“And that is problematic for this country, because what emerges from that is a leadership vacuum. We have very few young leaders, what’s there is really old, patriarchal leadership that’s ignoring the role of women,” Chang said.
Parties, he said, offered no follow-through making big promises of change just before elections only to fail on delivering. And few were fielding young females with strong voices as candidates that could resonate with Gen Z voters.
“Their trust has been broken so many times that they have little interest in trying to change things and figure that not voting means simply sticking with the devil they know,” said Aires.
Rea Matswena, 26, who has many interests and describes herself as working in marketing, a freelancer, content creator and yoga instructor, agrees.
“I want relatability. People like me in positions of power representing me. Someone who thinks and talks and looks like me,” she said, explaining that there were no leaders she could look up to and no party drawing her attention.
Kyle G, a 21-year-old student doing education and psychology who asked not to be identified, said he planned on voting and was encouraging his friends too.
He said he firmly believed it to be the only way to bring about positive change, and not voting amounted to agreeing to allow corruption to continue.
Waseem Carrim, the CEO of the National Youth Development Agency, says what we are seeing in South Africa is not dissimilar to what is happening in other countries.
“In relation to places like the US, Britain, etc we are not seeing anything out of the usual when it comes to our youth and voting. In general, in most countries, the age group 18 to 25 vote less than other age groups. That is the norm,” Carrim said.
“One of the main reasons for people becoming more involved in the democratic process as they age is simply that they mature and become more embedded in the economic and governmental structures of our world. In most countries people only really start interacting with the economy and government from about the age of 24 or 25.
“Everything costs money and some of our youth have unique challenges they have to overcome. You also have youngsters who study away from home and then belatedly realise they must vote where they are registered. This is a frequent issue,” Carrim said.
Lukhona Mnguni, of political think-tank, the Rivonia Circle, believes Gen Z is still part of the political framework but there is work to be done.
“It is always important to break Generation Z down into bite-sized chunks. Research and our interaction shows that people aged 18 to 24 have the lowest registration levels,” said Mnguni.
“After 26 the registration rates keep on increasing. In my estimation that is partly due to several things. Those between 24 and 26 have no material relationship with the state as a concept. They may still be looking for further education opportunities. They have not yet been really integrated in the realm [of] the employed people, therefore paying taxes and feeling that government might be misusing their taxes and so on.”
“As they grow older and they feel themselves being locked out of opportunities — whether it is work opportunities or mobility opportunities and so on — they might feel that someone must be responsible for my condition and they may feel that someone is the government.”
Mnguni also believes Gen Z has found ways to find meaning, life and activism outside formal political processes.
