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Young South African Voters Are Not Big Fans of Nelson Mandela's Political Party

South Africans who are just old enough to vote are hungry for a viable alternative to what they see as the corrupt and ineffective ANC.
Photo via Associated Press

Last December, Ayanda Mahlaba, a student at South Africa’s University of Cape Town, watched Nelson Mandela’s funeral from her dorm room. As world leaders lauded Mandela for freeing South Africans from the shackles of apartheid, Mahlaba thought of her parents and what they endured as they fought and protested for a new South Africa.

“My parents couldn’t vote,” Mahlaba tells VICE News. “To honor my parents and to honor myself, I have to vote and ensure my democracy is continued.”

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Mahlaba is a member of the so-called Born Free generation — people who were born after apartheid ended in 1993. South Africa’s 2014 national election, which will be held tomorrow, will be the first in which the Born Frees are eligible to vote. Not that their participation will have any effect on the outcome for the presidency; just as it has been since the 1994 elections, the African National Congress (ANC) — the party of Mandela — is guaranteed a presidential victory.

But based on what Mahlaba and other Born Frees are saying, this may be the last election in which that's the case.

“My friends and I, we’re sick and tired of the ANC.”

* * *

Every year, there are fewer voters in South Africa who can recall first-hand a time when the ANC was a resistance organization leading the fight against apartheid. And every year, there are more voters who know the ANC only as a political party plagued for years by scandal and the failure to deliver on promises. These voters are the Born Frees, and the ANC has seemingly alienated almost all of them.

That Mahlaba intends to vote at all makes her somewhat unusual amongst her peers. A recent poll of South African voters by the market research firm Ipsos showed that only about one in three 18- and 19-year-olds has registered to vote. That’s compared to more than 90 percent of older South Africans. While Mahlaba, like many of her peers who are actually voting, is resigned to voting for the ANC, she says she's only doing so because of an absence of other viable options.

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South Africa’s second most powerful party, the Democratic Alliance (DA), is still widely seen as the party of the country’s white minority. While the DA has gone from capturing 9.5 percent of the vote in the 1999 national election to 24 percent of the vote in the 2011 municipal election, it won’t be able to capture enough of the black South African vote, which makes up 79 percent of the electorate, to be a serious contender this year. Tomorrow the ANC is projected to pick up more than 65 percent of the vote — about the same as it won in the previous election five years ago.

'The ANC is not convinced we’re facing a crisis. We're not in a state of panic at this point.'

Robert Schrire, a political analyst and professor emeritus at the University of Cape Town, explains that the Born Free generation is far more apolitical and far less likely to vote than their parents — but if they do vote, few of them see the DA as a viable alternative to the ANC.

“The youth, to a large extent, share the prejudices of their parents — just not the passion,” he says. “They find it very difficult to vote for the opposition.”

In comparison to the ANC and even the DA, the most successful third parties still fair relatively poorly in South African elections. In the 2009 parliamentary elections, the Congress of the People won 7.4 percent of the vote. In the 2011 municipal elections, the Inkatha Freedom Party picked up 3.6 percent of the vote, and the National Freedom Party won 2.4 percent of the vote.

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Mpiyakhe Dhlamini, a 22-year-old black South African, voted for the DA in 2009, and says he will vote for the party again this year. He’d prefer a third party with strong black leadership, but says there simply isn’t one. He cites the country's 25 percent overall unemployment rate — it's closer to 50 percent for young South Africans — as a failure of the ANC, and believes the DA is better suited to solving the country's problems.

“It’s very rare to find a black person who votes for the DA,” he says. “I’m the only person I know who supports the DA in [the ANC-dominated province of] Kwazulu-Natal.”

Not that young people are the only ones fed up with the ANC. The party has faced relentless criticism from highly respected apartheid warriors, including retired Archbishop Desmond Tutu. Back in 2011, the Nobel peace laureate predicted that one day South Africa would pray for the fall of the ANC. Last December, he spoke out against the ANC’s decision to exclude the Afrikaner community from Mandela’s funeral because it ran contrary to the message of tolerance and inclusion Mandela preached after the fall of the apartheid. And late last month, he confirmed that he would not be voting for the ANC in tomorrow's election.

At Mandela’s funeral, President Jacob Zuma, who came under fire for spending $20 million in taxpayer money on what he claims were security upgrades to his home, was roundly booed. The following week, the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa, which wields a great deal of political power in the country, made the somewhat shocking announcement that it was withdrawing its longtime support for the ANC and instead choosing not to endorse any political party.

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Though the DA cannot by itself present a viable opposition to the ANC, a coalition including the DA and several third parties could in theory band together to become relevant parliamentary opposition. Tomorrow, the newly formed Agang party, which offers itself as an alternative to the ANC, and the Economic Freedom Fighters, which was founded by expelled ANC Youth League President Julius Malema, are expected to win most of the third-party votes.

Says Schrire: “There are increasingly new voices being heard — more credible than the DA."

* * *

For many Born Frees, the ANC's “A better life for all” slogan serves as a reminder of the party's failure to provide most South African citizens with adequate infrastructure or opportunities.

But Bram Hanekom, who is part of the interim ANC Youth League leadership, says the ANC is “not convinced we’re facing a crisis. We're not in a state of panic at this point.” He argues that low youth political participation is not necessarily an indication of disillusionment, but rather a possible sign of satisfaction with the ANC leadership.

Hanekom says the ANC will get tougher on corruption, and points out that the party has distributed millions of dollars in social grants, implemented education programs, and built houses and roads, all of which has resulted in South Africa being in “the best situation it’s ever been." Many South Africans, particularly young ones, would no doubt argue with at least the spirit of that statement. In addition to the rampant unemployment, the country's poverty line is set at $43 a month — and 47 percent of citizens live below it.

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So why aren't more young people voting to change their circumstances? Lwazi Somya, a 20-year-old ANC member at the University of Cape Town, says youth apathy is exacerbated by his party’s failure to court their votes and address their concerns. But much like Mahlaba, Somya believes that the ANC is the only party that's a viable option… at least, for now.

“There’s no other proper alternative that could replace the ANC,” Somya says. “And so lots of [youths] simply do not vote. The political involvement will begin when the youth define their own struggle."

Follow Cindy Huang on Twitter: @Chuang2012