Are you an active voter?

I was listening to the radio on my way back from work yesterday evening. The announcer on RedFM was running a radio poll asking listeners to tell the station whether they were active voters or inactive ones.

By active voters, the criterion was that they must have been voting consistently at every general election since registering as voters. Inactive voters would be those registered voters who have not been exercising their rights to vote and also included those that chose not to register in the first place.

Although the announcer did not say how many people sent in their votes, he gave the results as 68 percent active voters and 32 percent inactive ones. This means to say that 32 out of every 100 people out there listening to this radio station admitted they had not bothered to vote at the general elections.

This is the group of ambivalent people who couldn't care less whichever political party is in power. Unfortunately, these are among the people who complain the loudest about common-day issues that affect them.

I'm rather pissed off. In my opinion, people who choose not to exercise their right to vote have no business to complain. Why complain when in the first place, they do not care about who they want to lead them in government? It's not that they supported the ruling party or the opposition. When you exercise your right to vote - even if your choice of candidate did not win - you have a legitimate right to complain about the way laws are made in this country, complain about the way laws are implemented in this country and complain about the way laws are interpreted in this country. In general, you have a right to complain about the way this country is run. But when you choose not to vote, please lah, what is there for you to say? Nothing at all...

So go out there today and register yourself as a voter. If you know what's best for you, make your presence and your vote count in the next general election.