By Zukile Majova
Political Editor
Julius Malema of the EFF and Fikile Mbalula of the ANC are leading the fight for the black youth vote even though both politicians are no longer exactly spring chickens – Malema is 40 and Mbalula 52.
Despite their ages, the two men remain popular with both committed and potential young voters – Malema has over four million followers on social media platform X (formerly Twitter), while Mbalula notched up more than three million followers earlier this month.
Mbalula, the ANC secretary general, remains the party’s main hope of enticing young voters to the ANC, even though President Cyril Ramaphosa often has to remind him to refine his speech and that he can no longer behave like a “young lion”.
While the ANC recently tasked its new ANC Youth League leadership with getting young voters back to the party, the real pull factor for young ANC-supporting people remains Mbalula, who has been the most visible leader of young people in the ruling party for at least two decades.
He paved the way for Julius Malema to be elected ANCYL president in 2008, but when Malema was expelled for ill discipline in 2012, young people in the ANC once again looked up to Mbalula as the de factor leader of the youth.
After he was expelled from the ANC, Malema walked away with almost the entire leadership of the ANCYL to form the EFF, which offers a radical alternative to the ANC and is campaigning against low economic growth, unemployment and the slow pace of service delivery under the ANC government.
Malema claims the youth vote lifted the EFF to win 10.8% of the national vote in 2019
In his latest quest to get more young people to the polls, Malema has threatened to take the Independent Electoral Commission to the Electoral Court to demand access to the database of people over the age of 18 who have not yet registered to vote.
“The system will have names, surnames and addresses of people who are not registered to vote, so that we can go to those people and convince them about voting,” Malema said.
“But the IEC is refusing with their data. I’ve asked for that, I have not been given it,” he said.
The youth – people between the ages of 18 and 35 – represent one-third of South Africa’s population and numbered 17,84 million in 2019.
Pictured above: Julius Malema and Fikile Mbalula are the main personalities fighting for the black youth vote.
Image source: X (formerly known as Twitter)
