27 Jun 2019

The Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) says the number of youth who registered to vote in this year’s general elections stands at around 41 per cent, which is slightly above the 40 per cent who registered in 2014.

Making a presentation to Lobatse full council meeting on June 25, IEC public relations officer, Mr Osupile Maroba, said statistics indicated that youth participation in the general elections had grown over the past 20 years.

“We have seen improvement of participation of young people. When we started in 1999, young people constituted just 21 per cent of voters while it was 40 per cent in 2014. Looking at the registration figures now we believe that we are going to have youth participation of around 41 per cent this year,” said Mr Maroba.

He outlined that IEC used consultations, roadshows and media, among other platforms, to educate the public about the general elections.

Despite such efforts, Mr Maroba expressed concern about the persisting voter apathy experienced in the country.  

Out of the approximately 1.6 million eligible voters, he said 930 000 people registered during the voter registration process.

Figures indicated that a total of 14 425 people registered to vote in the Lobatse constituency, which was an increase of 11 per cent compared to the 2014 elections.

“We still have a large number of people who didn’t register to vote which shows voter apathy,” he said.

The IEC spokesperson explained that his organisation had done a lot to educate people about the importance of participating in the elections, but various factors contribute to voter apathy.

Mr Maroba said contributing factors included frustration among the public about issues taking place within various political parties and the state of the entire democracy.

He pleaded with politicians to help in sensitising people about the importance of voting.

Mr Maroba further said another concern for IEC was the high number of objections to the voters roll, which stood at more than 1 500.

Councillor for Maokaneng ward, Ms Tiny Dinoko, appealed to IEC to monitor the issue of voter transfers between wards in the same constituency.

She said the issue could lead to corruption in the election process as well as voter trafficking if not handled carefully.

Tsopeng north ward councillor, Mr Gofaone Kedise, said the issue of voter apathy was compounded by the fact that some people wanted politicians to buy their votes instead of treating voting as the responsibility of citizens. ENDS