As South Africa ticks off the days before final voter registration on January 26 and 27, the race is on to get particularly young South Africans to register to vote.
To this end, the DA has launched its Superpower campaign in which a car is up for grabs to anyone registering to vote – regardless of what party they vote for.
The campaign, styled around a superhero cartoon, offers a Suzuki Swift – which retails from R160 900 – to one winner whose registration as a voter can be verified.
According to DA national spokesperson Solly Malatsi, the Superpower campaign aims to encourage younger people to "fulfil their power and right to vote" by registering for and voting in the national elections "so that they can fulfil their civic duty".
Speaking to News24 on Wednesday, Malatsi said: "We have used DA youth leaders across the country in this campaign. [We want] to incentivise young people [to register] so that we can increase the number of those registered to vote, but also to participate in elections."
Citing figures from past elections, Malatsi said fewer and fewer young people participate in elections.
"This is a way of encouraging young people to be involved in politics."
Malatsi described the response to the campaign as "incredible", saying that the party hoped that "hundreds of thousands" of new voters would register.
'Shrewd campaign'
Political analyst Thabani Khumalo told IOL that all citizens had a responsibility to encourage people to participate in democracy.
"The party has done something shrewd with this campaign," he reportedly said.
Khumalo told IOL he believed the DA and EFF stood a chance of getting a huge number of votes from young people.
"The ANC's votes will mostly come from older people. The ANC targets older people using food parcels and talks of social grants," Khumalo told IOL.
News24's attempts to get hold of Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) officials on Wednesday through phone calls and text messages were unsuccessful.
However, IEC spokesperson for KwaZulu-Natal Mawethu Mosery told Daily News in Durban that the IEC welcomed campaigns such as the DA's.
"Only 20% of the young population are registered to vote, so we are always looking to get the remaining 80% registered," Mosery reportedly said.
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