KwaZulu-Natal citizens still believe in exercising their duty to vote despite having a pessimistic view of the efficacy of their votes and hopelessness in the fight against corruption.
That is one of the research findings on the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) that was presented by the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) at the University of KwaZulu-Natal on Wednesday.
The research mainly focused on voters' views, preferences and voting patterns as well as perceptions of the state of the country’s democracy, particularly in the province.
This type of research has been conducted since the late 1990s with the aim of providing an understanding of the electorate and how it is changing over time.
Dr Ben Roberts, one of the research leaders from the HSRC, said they did two main surveys: the Voter Participation Survey (VPS), which monitors the previous positions among the people of the voting age regardless whether they vote or don’t, and the Election Satisfaction Survey, which is conducted among people as they are leaving the voting stations on voting day, to monitor their experience.
They surveyed more than 25,000 and 120,000 South Africans through the two surveys respectively.
Presenting the findings of the VPS, Samela Mtyingizane, an HSRC researcher, said their findings from 2003 to 2021 show that KwaZulu-Natal has been trending below the national averages, except in 2011, in terms of their satisfaction with how democracy is working in the country.
Only 12% of respondents expressed satisfaction with democracy in 2021.
In terms of living standards, residents were required to evaluate the living conditions of their families and those of their communities over a five-year period.
The HSRC established that the majority of people in KwaZulu-Natal felt their family’s lives had worsened over that period, with only 12% saying it had improved.
Mpumalanga and the Western Cape each had only 11% of the population saying things had improved.
In terms of community satisfaction with the living conditions, only 15% of people in KZN said their experiences of life had been positive.
Overall, 90% of the respondents said corruption had worsened over the past five years, 89% said unemployment was worse, and 72% said crime and safety had deteriorated.
The province also scored low on the cost of living and service delivery.
Asked if they believed things would improve over the next five years, the majority were pessimistic. Eighty-one percent believe corruption will get worse, 75% believe unemployment will not improve, and 62% thinks cost of living will get worse.
Citizens' trust in political parties, or lack thereof, affects their belief in the power of their votes. People end up intending not to vote because of that
— Samela Mtyingizane, a HSRC researcher
People also showed a lack of trust in national government, parliament and local government as well as the IEC itself.
“When people lose trust in the major institutions in the country, the IEC is also affected even though it is not part of parliament or local government.
“If citizens are satisfied with the way democracy is working in the country, the public opinion is reflected in their satisfaction with the IEC and the same can be said if they are not,” said Mtyingizane.
Despite all their dissatisfaction with the state of affairs in the country, KZN citizens still believe in the need to vote.
KZN was trending above national averages in most years aside from 2012 in terms of their views on voting.
That view has been fluctuating though, from the high of 81% respondents in agreement in 2011 to 76% in 2021.
“Citizens' trust in political parties, or lack thereof, affects their belief in the power of their votes. People end up intending not to vote because of that,” said Mtyingizane.
KZN proved an anomaly though in terms of voter turnout intentions.
Seventy-three percent of people of people of voting age are registered, the second highest behind the Eastern Cape at 77%.
As well as KZN showing the least satisfaction with democracy (12%) in the country in 2021, Roberts said the situation did not improve in 2022.
He said KZN was part of the “good news story” for now in terms of electoral attitudes with 76% but warned that it was not sustainable with the citizen’s declining belief in the difference that their vote was making.
“Despite the harsh views throughout the way democracy is performing in key institutions, people believe quite strongly in the duty to vote,” he said.
“However, we’re seeing quite a substantive decline in the views about the efficacy of that vote. The sense that their vote makes a difference and the sense that the political representatives are acting in one’s interest and thus inspire to continue to want to vote is around 30%.”
“What we really need to worry about fundamentally is if those things about the people’s belief in the power of their votes continues to drop that very high duty to vote might begin to shake.
“It can change quite quickly, and it has changed quite significantly in other provinces but KZN has resisted that for now. It may have a dramatic impact on voter turnout because duty to vote, like the efficacy beliefs of the vote, are very strong predictors of turnout,” he said.
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