‘Politics isn’t for me’: Five myths stopping young people from voting

“My vote won’t change anything.”

“Politics isn’t for me.”

“I don’t know enough to vote.”

If you’ve heard one of these phrases from a young South African, you’re not alone. You may have even said it yourself.

Young people have grown up surrounded by corruption scandals, broken promises, unemployment, and service-delivery failures. Politicians often become extremely available just before an election, only to seemingly vanish afterwards.

Yes, there are reasons to feel cynical. But some of the most common arguments for staying home on election day don’t quite hold up.

/explain/ spoke to the Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC), Ground Work Collective chief executive Mbali Ntuli, and young South Africans themselves about five of the biggest myths keeping young people away from the ballot box.

Myth one: ‘My vote won’t make a difference’

Twenty-one-year-old Zinhle Diko isn’t registered to vote and this is exactly how she feels.

“I honestly don’t think my vote will make a difference because I feel like things stay the same,” she said. “It feels like the same party will win again.”

This is probably the most common argument against voting. One vote among millions can feel pointless. But Ntuli says the problem begins when millions of people think the same way.

“When enough people believe that, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy,” she said. “If millions of young people decide their vote is meaningless, they collectively hand enormous power to a much smaller group of voters who do turn out.”

This matters even more in local-government elections, where ward races can be decided by relatively small margins. The IEC’s Gauteng spokesperson, Boitumelo Monaki, makes the same point: democracy is built from individual votes adding up. One vote alone may not feel powerful. Thousands of people making the same choice definitely are.

Myth two: ‘Politics isn’t for me’

Every time you complain about potholes, water cuts, electricity problems, rubbish collection, unsafe public spaces, or a library that never seems to be open, you’re already talking about decisions influenced by the government.

“You don’t have to become a politician,” Ntuli said, “but you should participate in deciding who governs your community.”

Local-government elections are particularly important because municipalities manage many of the services people encounter every day. These include water, sanitation, refuse collection, local roads, parks, and public facilities such as libraries and halls.

Myth three: Politicians only show up when they want votes’

Diko says politicians suddenly become visible when elections approach.

“They promise change, better infrastructure, and improved service delivery and you’ll see food drives, T-shirts, and all these campaigns to get people to vote,” she said. “Then, when the elections are over, it feels like nothing changes.”

Ntuli says politicians are unlikely to interpret silence as a protest. “Silence is often interpreted as disengagement, not protest,” she said.

Her argument is that people who are unhappy should use elections as one way of making their dissatisfaction visible, then keep applying pressure after the votes are counted.

This can mean attending ward meetings, contacting councillors, joining community organisations, and asking what happened to those campaign promises everyone suddenly became very passionate about in October.

Myth four: ‘I don’t know enough about politics to vote’

“No one is expected to be a political expert before voting,” Ntuli said. Being an informed voter simply means doing enough homework to make a considered choice. That could mean finding out which candidates are running in your ward, reading what parties are promising, and checking what they have achieved where they already govern.

Monaki agrees. “Voting doesn’t require someone to be a political expert. You don’t have to know every politician, every policy document or the entire history of coalition government,” she said. “You just need enough information to decide whose plans make sense to you.

Myth five: ‘Young people don’t care about voting’

The numbers suggest otherwise.

During the first registration weekend on 20 and 21 June, the IEC recorded 477 174 new registrations. Of those, 379 767, or almost 80%, were young people. During the final registration weekend on 1 and 2 August, young people accounted for 485 757 registration transactions nationally, or 26% of the total.

They also made up 46% of all new registrations that weekend. Although youth disengagement is a real concern, there are also hundreds of thousands of young people actively entering the electoral process.

Twenty-three-year-old Tebogo Manamela is one of them. She admits she once believed her vote would not matter.

“I realised maybe my vote could be that one vote needed among thousands that also want to see change,” she said. “My silence won’t make a change, but my vote will.”

Eighteen-year-old Boitumelo Lekoane is less convinced. She registered because she wanted to experience voting for herself, not because she has suddenly developed a deep passion for politics.

“I don’t really have a deep interest in politics itself, but I wanted to see what it’s like to cast my vote,” she said.

Lekoane still worries one vote won’t change much. But she chose to register anyway.

This is perhaps a more realistic picture of young voters than assuming everyone arrives at the ballot box overflowing with faith in democracy. You can be sceptical and still participate.

Where to from here?

Young South Africans have good reasons to feel frustrated. Many have grown up in a country where youth unemployment remains painfully high, corruption scandals are common, and election promises sound suspiciously familiar.

Registering to vote doesn’t magically fix those problems. Neither does voting itself: dropping a ballot into a box isn’t the end of anyone’s democratic responsibility. But sitting out achieves nothing.

As Ntuli puts it: “Whether you vote or not, someone will decide what your community looks like for the next five years.”

The question is whether you want to have a say in who that person is.

If you’re still deciding whether politics is “for you”, perhaps start with a simpler question: Do the decisions politicians make affect your life? If the answer is “yes”, then politics has already found you.