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00:00 A civic education session in Cape Town at Forest Heights High School.
00:04 Electoral commission agents encourage young people to vote and explain how to do so.
00:09 So if you don't vote, you can't complain.
00:14 Of 35 voting age students in this class, only two have registered to vote.
00:18 They say they have lost faith in the democratic process.
00:21 There's no party that is completely made up of angels.
00:24 There are people in their party divisions that want personal gain.
00:30 We are discouraged by the empty promises and false hope.
00:34 Like, look at the school, look at the sanitary wave.
00:37 They promised that they would give us better education, they would give us better stuff,
00:40 but it never happens.
00:41 We're trying to get the message to them that we are not going to vote because you guys
00:46 are also not taking action.
00:47 Disenchantment with the election also pervades South Africa's universities, particularly
00:52 amongst the so-called "born free" generation, born after the end of white minority rule
00:57 in 1994.
00:58 Studies show that they are not apathetic, but rather they have lost confidence in their
01:03 systems of government.
01:05 If you look, for example, at the activism over there, or you look at other spaces where
01:10 young people are involved, it's not necessarily that they don't want to be involved.
01:15 It's just this frustration with the options which are presented to them.
01:20 Despite the Electoral Commission's best efforts, of 40 million South Africans of voting age,
01:25 13 million are expected to stay away from the polls.
01:28 We are not yet there because we are an increasingly young population, but we have benefited from
01:34 the online self-registration as it relates to younger persons.
01:40 Some hope more education can erode some of the disillusionment and misinformation that
01:44 have demotivated South African voters.
01:47 Maybe we should do it earlier when elections are coming up, that there's conversations
01:52 and that you actually get your history teachers on board.
01:57 Electoral Commission staff have promised to return to this high school to help register
02:00 everyone over the age of 18, but after the May 29 elections.