Political parties attending launch of the Independent Electoral Commission of South Africa’s (IEC's) 2024 national and provincial elections campaign have expressed their readiness for what is touted to be South Africa’s wastershed election since democracy in 1994.

ActionSA national chairperson Michael Beaumont tells Polity that the upcoming elections will be the first elections in which South Africans can voice their opinions on the country since loadshedding became a permanent feature as well as amid the ongoing controversies of Phala Phala, the ongoing degradation of the economy and the loss of jobs.

Beaumont says his party is “ready to take its campaign to the corners of South Africa. We have spent a great deal of time building structures on the ground across South Africa because contrary to popular belief it is those structures on the ground, talking with people directly, that wins elections more than social media or anything else.”

The IEC announced that young persons between the ages of 20 and 29 account for 3.7-million voters on the roll.

Beaumont shares that his party seems to be attracting young people and unregistered people, with the average age of the ActionSA member being under 38, which he said is very young “when we talk about political parties across the South African spectrum”.

“We have enormous responsibility ahead of all other political parties in this election to get [first-time voters] out to register to vote on the registration weekend of the 18th and 19th of November because we must be clear, people who haven’t registered up until now are not going to do so for a political party that they have had the option to register for for some time and who they feel let down by,” highlights Beaumont. 

Touching on the Multi-Party Charter, which recently welcomed the African Christian Democratic Party as an eighth member, Beaumont says that all members of the alliance are working together in a unified way to create momentum.

Meanwhile, Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) leader Velenkosini Hlabisa says his party is more than ready for the elections as it prepares for its policy conference in December which will inform the party manifesto.

Hlabisa urges the 13-million South Africans who are not registered to vote to use the voter registration weekend to be part of the election process because “we know our people are saying what is the point of registering because the government is not doing what we want it to do. The message is simple, if you want a change in the government you must be part of the election process. Use your vote to remove a government that is not delivering on your mandate. If you abstain, the status-quo will remain but if you participate, you will change things to what you want it to be.”

Hlabisa also appeals to the dormant 14-million voters who are registered but do not want to vote and reminds them their vote is the power in their hands.

He adds that protesting and abstaining from voting will not remove a government that is failing.

The IFP leader says the KwaZulu-Natal province is the party’s first target, as it wants to reclaim the province. It also wants to be part of a Gauteng coalition government.

Hlabisa told Polity that his party wants to cut the ruling African National Congress’s (ANC’s) electoral support below 50% nationally “so that the Multi-Party Charter for South Africa, as a coalition government, becomes an alternative government to save our country from crime, unemployment, loadshedding, poor education and poor health system.”

Hlabisa says the 2024 election is a turning point in South Africa and must be a watershed moment just as when the apartheid government was removed in 1994. He says the ANC must also be removed as it has failed South Africans.

Democratic Alliance (DA) leader John Steenhuisen says the upcoming elections are crucial as no party will win with an outright majority and every vote will count.

Steenhuisen says the IEC election campaign launch is vital as there are 13.8-million people who are of voting age but not registered.

“We need to get those people onto the voters roll because we can’t [just] complain about loadshedding, unemployment, crime and poor services, you have got to vote for change that will be able to fix those things and to usher in a new government that will put the country into a new trajectory,” he stressed.  

Steenhuisen told Polity that the DA’s Power to the Registered campaign has been focused directly at the youth and he is hopeful that change can happen.

He is happy about recent independent surveys that show that the ANC will lose its majority which means “it's game-on for every political party in the country and that’s the whole point of the Multi-Party Charter, bringing political parties together around the common set of values and principles to make a compelling offer to people in South Africa”.        

African Transformation Movement (ATM) leader Vuyolwethu Zungula adds that the IEC must play its role in voter education to ensure that people know the importance and power of voting.

He questioned why people in affluent areas are well versed in voter education compared with people living in rural areas and townships.  

He accuses the IEC of appointing presiding officers that are aligned to the ANC and South African Democratic Teachers Union (Sadtu) and who are also likely to commit crime during the voting processes.

Last year, a 37-year-old teacher, who cast 24 votes at the KwaZulu-Natal voting station she was a presiding electoral officer at, was sentenced to three years in prison.

She pleaded guilty to contravening the Municipal Electoral Act of 2000.

Encouraging people to come out in their numbers on the registration weekend, Zungula stresses that it is for people to realise that power belongs to them and not to the elite politicians who want to be “treated like celebrities”.

“People must realise that they put people into power to serve them. Otherwise we do not get to the core of what it means to live in a democracy, which is a government of the people, by the people, for the people,” says Zungula.

He reiterates that public representatives must always act in the best interests of the people.