If South Africans are unhappy with the ruling ANC, they should turn out in large numbers at next year's national and provincial elections and vote for another party, Democratic Alliance leader Helen Zille said on Friday.

In her weekly newsletter, published on the DA's SA Today website, she warned that those who did not register could not vote.

"In a proportional representation electoral system, every single vote counts. At the last national election, in 2004, 77 percent of registered voters cast their ballot."

However, because not all eligible voters had actually registered to vote, only 56 percent of South Africans aged 18 and older had actually voted.

"Most of the people who stayed away from the polls were young people. If every person over the age of 18 had voted, the outcome of that election may have been very different."

Zille said if people were not happy with the African National Congress, then they should vote for an alternative.

"By abstaining from voting, or ruling themselves out of the equation altogether by not registering, South Africans are tacitly condoning the ANC's failed policies, corruption, abuse of power, stalled service delivery and maladministration. They are condoning the decline of education."

Zille said South African politics has entered a new phase, with the disintegration of the ruling party and the realignment of political parties under the banner of the Constitution.

The 2009 election would be a watershed event.

"It will be the most important election since the first democratic election of 1994 — perhaps even more significant than that historic occasion.

"That is because the real test of a democracy — the ultimate test, in fact — is whether power can change hands peacefully through the ballot box," she said.

The Independent Electoral Commission is set to open thousands of stations around the country this weekend, and has called on South Africans to turn out and register for the coming elections.

Sapa