'SA's low voter turnout is something our democracy has to face up to'

Among the shocks last week's elections held, was the lowest electoral turnout in South Africa's democratic history.

The Electoral Commission of SA (IEC) is investigating why it is that just over 58.5% of registered voters cast their ballots.

Reasons proffered by analysts include poor voter education, while many ordinary and disillusioned South Africans hold the belief that 'nothing is going to change anyway'.

The IEC has also acknowledged that its new rule restricting voters to using only the voting station they were registered at, did lead to many people being turned away.

In real terms, 27.7 million South Africans registered to vote but, only 16.2 million votes were cast on election day.

John Maytham gets some insight into the numbers from Professor Bruce Bartlett, Associate Professor in the Mathematics Division at Stellenbosch University.

Prof. Bartlett says the number they are interested in, is a fraction - the number of people who voted, divided by the number who were eligible to vote.

"That figure is really low, somewhere around 42%. And that is the thing we really need to worry about."

"Registering is a technical thing. The amount of people who registered could go up, but the turnout as a fraction of the people who are eligible to vote could go down... so the ultimate figure is the number of people who voted divided by the number who could have voted in principle."

Prof. Bruce Bartlett, Associate Professor - Mathematics, Stellenbosch University

While he is a mathematician and not a political analyst, says the prof, this problem is something that our democracy has to face up to.

'People need to talk about it more', he emphasizes.

Prof. Bartlett believes South Africa could take some lessons from the many countries that achieve polling percentages in the mic-sixties or higher.

"India, with something like 990 million have just got a 65% turnout as a percentage of their eligible population, good numbers for such a huge population. Brazil with all its political instability gets 73% turnout. What are they doing right that we are not doing?"

"Our figure of 42% is not the worst n the world, but I think we can safely say they are countries with an unhealthy democracy as well, but you don't want to be below 50%, surely..."

Prof. Bruce Bartlett, Associate Professor - Mathematics, Stellenbosch University