Political analysts have blamed the long weekend, COVID-19 and lack of trust in the existing political parties for the dismal turnout for this year’s local government elections.
South Africa has a total of 38,5-million eligible voters and 26.2-million of them are registered to vote for this 2021 municipal election.
The Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) puts its official turnout at 34.22%, that’s about 8.9 million voters who cast their votes between Saturday and Monday.
This is the lowest voter turnout since 1994, even for municipal polls. The lowest turnout South Africa has had in a local government election was 47.3% in the year 2000.
But political analysts say there are reasons for this.
“The first one is that it was a Monday and it was a long weekend. Secondly the [COVID-19] pandemic might have played its role and possibly the most important factor is that many voters don’t want to vote for the existing political parties. They have lost trust in them. They feel they are lost, especially when it comes to service delivery,” said Professor in Political Sciences at Unisa, Dirk Kotzé.
Another political analyst, Jamie Mightie, said the low voter turnout may lead to more hung municipalities.
“I think this is the most shocking election result in that the series of events that took place may lead to more hung councils than expected. We know that the turnout was low. This could be attributed to the choice of a Monday [voting day] making it a long weekend, including other factors such as COVID-19,” said Mightie.
The voter turnout in 2006 was 48.40%, then 57.6% in 2011 and 57.94% in 2016.
Mightie said the governing party, ANC, felt the pinch of the low voter turnout in the last local government elections.
“In 2016 when there was a lower turnout, the party that was affected the most was the ANC. They lost 700 000 votes as a result, compared to the last elections,” he said
