The Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) effort to encourage the youth, especially those who are still at higher institutions of learning to participate in elections continues.
This as the IEC will launch its annual national Tertiary Institutions Campaign at the Taletso TVET College in Lehurutshe outside Zeerust in the North West on Wednesday.
The commission said the campaign “seeks to improve voter participation amongst students at tertiary institutions as well as encourage participation in the country’s democratic processes.”
This year’s campaign is anticipated to expose more than 3 000 students enrolled at the institution to electoral processes.
According to the commission, more emphasis will be on increasing voter registration and increased participation in elections ahead of the upcoming municipal elections.
Head of the Elections in the North West Bonolo Modise told YOU FM Newshour that the campaign forms part of the commission’s outreach programme to engage students directly or in person to answer their questions and attend to whichever electoral difficulties they may be experiencing in registering to vote if they wish to do so.
In addition, Bonolo said that since its inception five years ago, the campaign has managed to assist many students with electoral processes changing the narrative of voter apathy among the country’s youth.
“There’s a narrative in the country that young people are not interested in participating in elections.
But in 2024 leading up to the elections we realised through the registration drives that we had that many young people came out to register in large numbers.
We are hoping that the same outcome would be seen later this year when we hold the local government elections or early next year depending on the date that will be announced.
So yes, this is a good effort that is beginning to yield good results for the electoral commission,” said Modise.
He highlighted that in the past four years, nearly 80 000 managed students registered during their campaign.
“Between 2022 and 2024, over 94 000 students were reached at universities with 6 292 registered while in colleges over 104 000 were engaged through direct contact resulting in 13 659 students registered during campus activations.
In 2025, a total of 197 tertiary institutions were visited, over 77 000 students were reached and more than 60 000 were registered,” explained Modise.
Modise said that some of the contributing factors to youth electing not to participate in electoral processes include some socio-economic challenges they are faced with every day.
“There might be those that are not interested in various reasons unfortunately in the space that we find ourselves in is that there are real community issues that people have to face every day and sometimes they stay away from participating because their issues are not addressed at local level,” remarked Modise.
Meanwhile, the Chairperson of the IEC Mosotho Moepya will lead the commission’s delegation, accompanied by the Deputy Director General at the Department of Higher Education and Training Sam Zungu, Taletso TVET College Principal MZ Nkomo and other key stakeholders.
