A student from the University of Limpopo’s Turfloop campus says voters should be allowed to decide on who becomes their president, and not political parties.

"We should do away with the party system. A leader must be elected by the people. This thing of voting for parties, and then they impose a leader on us is not acceptable,” Justice Malemela told News24.

"These parties elect people that we as the voters don’t want to be our presidents. We should vote for individuals and not parties."

Malemela said he would not be voting on August 3, mainly because he was not moved by the manifestos of the various political parties.

"I’m not going to vote because I don’t think there is a party that will take the country forward. I looked at their election manifestos and none of them are convincing me," he said.

Malemela said another reason for his decision was the lack of service delivery he was seeing in Turfloop. He said they lacked proper water infrastructure and roads.

"Service delivery in Turfloop is very weak. The streets inside the area are not tarred. We also don’t have enough street lights. Water is also a problem and we can go for days without water," he said.

Being a student, he said government needed to look at prioritising affordable education and also ensuring that young people had opportunities to expand their horizons. He said he fully supported last year’s #Feesmustfall protests.

"Fees are expensive, but also the education standards need to improve. Our government is not investing enough in the youth. We go to school, but we don’t have enough structures and avenues for the youth to start their own businesses," he said.