Why don’t young people vote?

This is a question many have grappled with since I was a teen, having learned in history how hard people fought for this right. I think I got my answer during the Cape Town mayoral debate hosted by the SABC on Tuesday 15 September.

Candidates from the DA, NCC, ANC, EFF, GOOD Party, PA and ActionSA argued their points on policing, community investment and gender-based violence, among others.

No offence to the panel, but what we were fundamentally missing is hope.

When you know the problems you face every day, you want leadership that inspires, to usher you to a new dawn. You cannot tell people they are better off when their family members and neighbours are unemployed, on a housing list for 30 years or falling victim to criminals. Given those stark realities, who would want to vote?

I have voted every chance I got. For me it’s a privilege to make my mark because that right was paid in blood. My vote is how I honour those who died during the apartheid struggle.

But across many conversations, I have come to understand why people don’t feel the same. They say: “I don’t vote because my vote doesn’t matter,” or “but if you don’t vote, you don’t matter, and you can’t complain,” or “they [politicians] are all the same.”

While I live in the past, believing I am doing what others fought for, I understand what my fellow young people see in the present. Our candidates are all the same; watching that debate made me realise why my peers don’t vote.

But it also made me think. . . What if Steve Biko ran in this local government election? What if Robert Sobukwe stood as my ward councillor? Their thoughts and ideas would make me believe my vote alone would change something.

So I ask: Where is our Biko, wherefore art thou, modern-day Sobukwe?

Times are different; we live in a post-apartheid democracy, not fighting a regime that openly thinks less of us, but the ideals of what they fought for can still be embodied.

Barack Obama did it in the USA almost 20 years ago with three simple words, “Yes, we can”, last year Zohran Mamdani activated New York City and on our own continent, though not democratically elected, Ibrahim Traoré, interim president and military leader of Burkina Faso, has captured the imagination of youths in Africa owing to his strong championing of African sovereignty.

People may think this column is a clarion call for Mamdani’s democratic socialism. It is not about left- or right-wing politics, but hope. Please stop importing American ideals into South African democracy; it is a square peg in a round hole.

Taking Mamdani’s lead and making people believe change is possible through accessible government structures is enough. He showed leaders can make this happen by colouring within the lines.

I am not talking about promising me a house. Make me believe that if I vote for you, your party will create the avenues for me and my peers to afford one, and then follow through on that promise.

Until such a candidate appears, it’s up to us to continue exercising a democratic right people died guaranteeing.

These local elections are not about who is president or mayor, but what happens when one has a burst pipe.

The logic that it isn’t political is not sensible. The roads one drives, with the street lights and drains – it is all political.

While we wait for hope, we need to create it ourselves. We can start asking the newly-elected ward councillor why the drains haven’t been attended to, the councillors why the budget does not reflect the community’s needs, and the mayor why it is easier for an expat to access services in the City than those born here.

That means becoming political. If one has the power to determine who gets elected then one has the right to know why there are potholes, and why the drains are overflowing.

This opens the mind to other questions, other demands: why there are new dog parks yet people have been waiting for a house for 30 years, which leads to our attending meetings where these matters are discussed, instead of coming to know of important matters after decisions have been made by just five people in a room.

Through active citizenship we create new local Bikos and Sobukwes.