"Pilihanraya apa?" (What election?)
"Undi apa?" (What vote?)
"Saya tidak minat". (I’m not interested)

Last December, I volunteered with ROSE for a new voters registration exercise in Sarikei. ROSE set up a booth at a youth conference, a big gathering of about 1,500 people.

We managed to register 44 new voters in two days, most of which were under the age of 30. Honestly, I expected way more than 44, only to realize that rural work is hard work. This is my first experience in a rural area for voter registration, and the effort needed to secure one new voter is 10 times the effort as in the city. As compared to city folks who thank us for our effort in bringing the voters registration counter to them (so that they need not go to the post office to do it), I struggled with talking to these rural young people (partly due to the Iban language barrier) and had to explain to them what pilihanraya is.