Township youth feel the system neither sees nor serves them. Will 4 November deepen that alienation, or begin reversing it?

On 4 November, South Africans will elect the councillors who run their towns and cities – but in the Ekurhuleni and eThekwini metros, many young people say they won’t be voting.

In the 2021 local elections, registered voters in their 20s had the lowest turnout of any age group, at 35%. This is often regarded as apathy. But what young people recently interviewed by the Institute for Security Studies (ISS) describe is deeper: alienation from a democratic system they believe neither sees nor serves them.

Will next week’s election reinforce that alienation, and what, if anything, could reverse it?

In September and October, ISS spoke to 41 residents and community leaders from townships in the two metros, most aged 18 to 35. The interviews were part of ongoing initiatives to strengthen community engagement and resilience to prevent violence. What emerged was a deep disaffection towards politics and government systems.

Politicians, they said, arrived at election time, made grand promises and vanished. ‘We are ignored,’ said a 36-year-old unemployed man living on the R370 Social Relief of Distress grant. ‘Once we vote, they disappear. What kind of system is that?’

Similarly, in a 2024 Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) survey for the Electoral Commission, 69% of young respondents said their vote would not make a difference, and 78% said all parties were the same once elected.

Three main features of this alienation stand out. First is an unfulfilled expectation that education will lead to employment. Young South Africans are better educated than ever: a 2025 Afrobarometer survey found that 97% had at least secondary schooling, compared with half of those over 55. Yet 47% were unemployed and seeking work, and 96% said government was failing on job creation.

An unemployed 25-year-old interviewee with an engineering diploma has never registered to vote, he told ISS. His mother has voted for the same party for years, ‘and then there’s no change,’ he said. Like many interviewed, his view suggests that party loyalty is not passing to a generation that has not seen its rewards.

The second feature is that local government, which is closest to people, is experienced as mainly absent or unconcerned with young people’s needs. The HSRC’s research in eThekwini found the same. The complaint is about recognition of needs as much as services.

The third is that alienation from party politics is not the same as withdrawal from public life. Despite their disaffection, many interviewees volunteer as community policing forum patrollers, at care centres or as health activists. Formal politics fails to draw on this civic energy.

That failure leaves space for others. Much of the anger at foreign nationals reflects a broader disaffection, aimed at the most visible target. ‘We call them names because we are angry and hungry,’ a 21-year-old in Ekurhuleni said. In some spaces, anti-migrant movements such as March and March have tapped into this anger. Their mobilisation style is more immediate and accessible to youth than party politics.

An Ekurhuleni community health activist said young people were told that once foreign nationals were driven out, they could take over their stalls, spaza shops and workshops. Sometimes the pitch was electoral: vote for a particular party, and ‘you become a mechanic.’

March and March leader Jacinta Ngobese-Zuma has urged supporters to vote for parties that back the movement. However a community pastor said residents went without bread for days after foreign-owned shops were closed, and the jobs supposedly created ‘are not recorded anywhere.’

Young people are not easily fooled. A 27-year-old told ISS that parties ‘only act when it’s going to benefit them.’ The engineering graduate, who sympathises with March and March, still stays home: ‘I know the [election] results, they are not always good.’ Many are tired of being used by parties chasing votes or by movements pursuing their own agendas.

Fear for women’s safety ran through the interviews, which were conducted at the time when 12 women were found murdered in Ekurhuleni. A 23-year-old was ‘sure’ foreigners were responsible, though she offered no evidence. Unlike general anti-migrant sentiment, here, real fear becomes scapegoating. Young men, by contrast, mostly described tensions with foreign nationals as competition for jobs, business and even intimate partners.

In many democracies, alienated young people are turning to those who offer someone to blame. In Germany’s 2025 election, youth showed growing support for the radical parties. About 21% of 18- to 24-year-olds voted for the far-right Alternative for Germany, up 14 points from 2021, while the largest share of young voters (25%) backed the radical left.

In the United States, President Donald Trump’s support among young men rose 15 percentage points between 2020 and 2024, as working-class men who felt overlooked found recognition in his grievance politics.

In South Africa, no single party has captured this youth discontent, though several are courting it. The danger is that if low youth turnout produces councils chosen mainly by older voters, and governance continues as before, the cycle of disaffection will deepen.

There are however positive signs that may point to a reversal, with young candidates entering the council race. They include proportional representatives, political activists and grassroots organisers from diverse backgrounds who hold different political viewpoints. Hopefully, they will give young South Africans the opportunity to have a say in and shape their futures.

The youth interviewed by ISS know what they want, and their demands are modest and local: learnerships with stipends, affordable business permits and fair access to municipal projects. Just as important is recognition: councillors who meet with young people regularly, not only around elections, and who draw in the volunteers already holding townships together.

Young people in Ekurhuleni and eThekwini have not given up on politics. They have given up on being ignored. The question is, who is ready to listen?

Written by Thandi van Heyningen, Senior Researcher, Justice and Violence Prevention, ISS Pretoria