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- A law student is taking the lead in mobilising 4.3 million registered young voters for the upcoming elections.
- Thaafir Mustapha started an Instagram account, SoWeVote.
- The goal is to educate young voters about political parties, manifestos, and the intricacies of the politics.
Amid the anticipation of 4.3 million registered young voters gearing up for the upcoming national and provincial elections in May, a 19-year-old University of Cape Town (UCT) student is taking the lead.
Thaafir Mustapha, a first-year law student, has created an Instagram account to educate young voters about political parties and their policies.
"I was always civic-minded in the way that I wanted to get involved and make a difference. It was just, how do I do it," he told News24.
"It's nice to speak about young people being the leaders of tomorrow and then say, no, they're actually the leaders of the day, but that doesn't mean much, unless we all see that within ourselves."
Mustapha saw that young South Africans had become disillusioned with politics, so he started connecting and networking with people on Instagram.
"We asked them if they were registered to vote and, a lot of the time, we would get a 'no' as a response - and the reason for that was because they didn't know how the process worked," he said.
Mustapha started an Instagram page, SoWeVote, which has already gained more than 1 000 followers. The platform aims to educate young voters about political parties and what they stand for - and to encourage young people to vote.
"In terms of the South Africa context, [finding out what parties stand for] is not very accessible for us because, even if a party has an Instagram account, they're normally posting this super-long statement, where you have to do some close reading to understand what's going on," he said.
Mustapha and the three volunteers in the team hope to encourage youngsters to go to the polls.
Mustapha says he phones MPs and quizzes them about their policies, and then posts graphs on Instagram.
"I ask really pointed questions, and often they tell us that they wouldn't have even considered this kind of policy position if we hadn't asked them what our stance was," he said.
Mustapha believes that's the kind of accessibility the youth want from politicians.
He said the name of the page was inspired by the Soweto Uprising of 1976.
"We wanted something that can show what we do. So, it's two-fold. The first one is a punchline. We often hear complaints about the public. So, how do we address it? We vote. Yes, we have load shedding .... so we vote.
"The second part has to do with Soweto and young people, as the fact that a lot of experts regard the Soweto Uprising as the turning point in apartheid," he said.
Mustapha believes there will be a big difference in the voting turnout this year.
"I think that, from what I've seen, a lot of people have been talking up the fact that 2024 is like the 1994 class. And, in some ways, I agree.
"I don't think that this election is going to be, like, the be-all and end-all in terms of whether we are going to see a change that's gonna be earth shattering. What I do think is that we're going to see an influx of younger voters," he said.
"Young people deserve better."
