ROSE appealing to Sarawakians to register as voters
KUCHING: Rise of Sarawak Efforts ( ROSE), a non-partisan, civil action group made up entirely of Sarawakians, is appealing to people in the state who are aged 21 years old and above to register as a voter as soon as possible.
ROSE chairperson Ann Teo in making this appeal, said Sarawakians should no longer delay in registering as a voter as the process of applying to be an elector takes between four to six months.
“Please do not start applying only when Parliament is dissolved. It will be too late! It is like buying a ticket to watch a movie so to speak ... without the ticket you cannot go in to watch the movie,” he told The Borneo Post yesterday.
In order to facilitate the people to register as a voter and to fill the gaps in voter registration, Teo said ROSE had started its voter registration exercise in February this year and would continue every weekend in March as well.
“Over the last two weekends, 250 people had come to our booth to apply to be a voter.
“We were getting mostly people in their thirties and upwards and a lesser number of those in their 20’s. We would hence continue to appeal to those who are aged 21 and above to do so.”
Besides registering themselves through voter registration drives by non- governmental organisations like ROSE, the people can also register at any Election Commission office and computerised or online post offices.
Meanwhile, Teo said ROSE, together with like-minded NGOs in Sarawak are also taking part in the ‘Bulan Daftar Undi’ campaign organised by Bersih.
The ‘U Campaign’ is targeted at the approximately four million Malaysian citizens who are still unregistered and to draw awareness to the importance of registering to vote.
“We shall be distributing leaflets soon in the lead- up to the launch on March 11 and for the rest of the month.”
Teo said: “If there are those asking the question ‘so what if I register to vote?’ and ‘ will it change anything?’, then we will ask him or her back: ‘What will happen if the four million eligible Malaysians think like you and decide not to register themselves and not to vote?
“The rest will then be the ones deciding for these four million (who have yet to register themselves as a voter)’”
For updates regarding ROSE activities, visit http://www. sarawakrose.org/ or like ROSE – Rise of Sarawak Efforts in the Facebook.