Empty promises, unmotivated youth contributed to poor voter turnout

In her City Press article, Palesa Dlamini explains that the 2019 general elections recorded the lowest voter turnout since South Africa’s first democratic elections in 1994.

In this year’s elections, the registered South African voter population came in at 26 779 025, a 5.47% increase from 2014. However, the actual voter turnout this year was only 65.99%, an 11% decrease from 2014, according to the Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC).

The IEC reported that 25 388 082 South Africans registered to vote in the previous elections (2014) and 18 654 771 of those registered voters cast their votes, resulting in a 73.48% voter turnout.

In an effort to find out reasons behind the poor voter turnout from last week’s national election, Citizen Surveys – a marketing and social research consultancy, specialising in national research studies- conducted a survey to determine whether or not a lack of trust in political parties had contributed to the abstention.

To read the full City Press article, click here.