As the local elections have drawn to a close and the ballots are added up and totalled, most people are anxiously waiting to see if their vote has made a change. But in the same breath, there was a large number of people who didn’t vote; with 26.2 million that registered and only 8 million actually voted.
Having only been in existence for 20 of the 27 years of democracy, I can’t necessarily say I understand democracy. Now don’t get me wrong, I paid attention to all my history lessons and have taken it upon myself to understand this history of our country, but when it comes to politics, the lines most definitely are blurred.
When the registration period for voting opened, I opted to register online as I hoped it would be quick and I wouldn’t have to hunt for a registration centre. However, I was left stuck when I went online to register and saw the infamous phrase: System is down. It also seems that my age group shares the sentiment, as most also couldn’t register.
With the age group of 15-34 making up 37.4% of our population, it seems that there’s no connection between political parties and the youth. When asking a few age mates about the elections, there was a recurring theme of lack of knowledge and trust.
Most of us know we want change but we don’t know who’s going to provide it having only just reached the legal age to vote, while some share the view that politicians aren’t trying to make an improvement, rather just trying to “prove they’re better than the last guy”.
Being a “born free” is definitely something we value but not every member of the youth has the privilege to access the correct information about politics. “Democracy is as real as Father Christmas” a friend of mine said. “If we’re all voting for change, then where is it?”
Political parties have tried to make the move to having a social media presence to hopefully draw in the youth more but are we really interested in having the leader of a political party retweeting us or providing a solution to our many issues in the community? The future is really in our hands, but are we ready to use them?
Although I have quite a few elections ahead of me that I can vote in, I hope there’s a lot more information to help my generation with such crucial decisions, beyond those who have the privilege to access it.
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