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| Sunday, 25 January 2004 |
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Mbeki hits the road as S.Africa fights voter apathy JOHANNESBURG, Jan 24 (Reuters) South African President Thabo Mbeki went door-to-door on Saturday to urge people to register for elections amid fears young people are shunning politics 10 years after blacks won the right to vote. Mbeki, due to announce the date for South Africa's third democratic elections on February 11, halted his motorcade at the Orange Farm area of squatter camps and small houses south of Johannesburg. South African television showed Mbeki holding a cloth sack of registration forms and chatting with a woman standing in a shack made of scrap metal and cardboard. Mbeki's ruling African National Congress, which under Nelson Mandela led South Africa from apartheid to democracy in 1994, is expected to score its third major election victory in this year's polls with about two-thirds of the vote. A media drive encouraging registration, including billboards and television adverts, has boosted the voters' roll, but participation in urban townships and among young people is still thin. The apathy stands in stark contrast to the long, winding queues of black voters who patiently waited to vote for the first time in 1994. "It is a concern -- (youth registration) is lower than all other sectors we have in the South African community," said Mosotho Moepya, deputy chief electoral officer. Some 37 percent of those aged 18-25 have registered so far compared to the international average of 50 percent, he said. "One of the problems is there isn't a culture of registering when one reaches a certain age," said ANC spokesman Steyn Speed. Total registrations so far total 19.4 million, 1.3 million more than were registered in the last 1999 poll and compared to 27.4 million who are eligible based on the last census in 2001. South African citizens 18 and older are eligible to vote and can register until rolls are closed when Mbeki announces the election date, widely expected to be in late March or in April. Political analysts say the ANC wants to complete the election process in time to allow Mbeki to be inaugurated for his second term on April 27, which will mark the 10th anniversary of the end of apartheid. |
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