SA youth comes out of apathy to register to vote…

There are strong signs that the youth of South Africa is emerging from its apathy to take part in next year’s general elections. This after a surge of voter registrations the past weekend by people under the age of 40. The Independent Electoral Commission’s (IEC’s) Manager in Electoral Matters, James Aphane, says there were 568,374 new registrations. Giving a breakdown by age, he says: “Under the age of 29, we have 158,000 females and 130,000 males, and the total is 288,000. But if I were to just say, all the people that registered new amongst the 568 000 under the age of 40…that is actually 90% of them that accounts for that figure. So we have a very high number of registrations that are people under the age of 40, or 40 years and younger. So we are very impressed with these figures, because it means the younger generation is actually participating in this election.”- Chris Steyn