Faith-based political parties are hoping religious youths will vote for them in the May 8 elections.
The number two spot on the Al Jama-ah election candidate list is Aisha Nontobeko Mkhwanazi, a second-year student from KwaZulu-Natal.
The party’s leader, Ganief Hendricks, said Mkhwanazi joined the party after criticising it for not taking the concerns of Muslim youths on board in its election manifesto.
Hendricks said Mkhwanazi is the face of the party’s youths and their aspirations, adding that Al Jama-ah hopes to get at least three seats in Parliament.
“We are concerned that young, black, female Muslims feel marginalised,” he said. “Aisha is black, young; she wears the hijab.
Mkhwanazi (23) said the ANC, her former political home, did not “use Islam as the basis of their political ideology”.
In the 2014 election, Al Jama-ah narrowly missed winning a seat in Parliament. It did better in the 2016 local government elections, winning 36 238 votes. It now holds nine seats in six municipalities, including two in Cape Town, one in Johannesburg and one in Ethekwini.
The African Christian Democratic Party (ACDP) is also going all out to attract young voters, particularly in the Western Cape, where it has one seat in the provincial legislature.
Jobs and unemployment were high on the agenda, Swartz said. “Youth have realised that, with a godly organisation, things will take place. We don’t make promises, we give them our word,” he said.
The new Christian Political Movement is also trying to attract Christian votes. But those votes may be hard to come by. Statistics South Africa’s General Household Survey shows that 86% of South Africans describe themselves as Christians, but the ACDP won only 0.57% of the vote in 2014, which gave it just three seats in the legislature.
At 21, does Y tune into youth?