Monday, October 23, 2006

SRP: Irregularities at vote registration offices

22 Oct 2006
By Sok Serey
Radio Free Asia

Translated from Khmer by Heng Soy

The National Election Committee (NEC) had extended the period for voting verification and vote registration by four more days, however, this extension is not sufficient in some areas because of the numerous problems encountered there.

Sok Pheng, SRP MP from Kompong Thom province, had noted that irregularities are encountered in larger number in several registration offices. Some offices do not have form 1022 needed for reporting problems, while at some others, the offices opening and closing hours do not strictly follow the NEC directive.

MP Sok Pheng said: “According to the directive, the opening of the [registration] offices is at 7:00 AM and the closing time is 5:00 PM. But, in some registration offices, the opening time is not 7:00 AM and the closing time is not 5:00 PM at all, some offices do not open until 8:30 AM, 9:00 AM and sometimes up to 10:30 AM. At an office in Dang Anteak in Dang Anteak village, Sala Visay commune, Prasat Balaing district, it is not until 10:30 AM for the secretary and the commune councilors to open the registration office.”

MP Sok Pheng express his regret that during the 4-day extension by the NEC, there is no legal application of the rule: “However, I regret that the extension does not take into consideration of locations where irregularities have occurred in the past, and where a large number of people have not yet verified their names on the voting list, or have not yet registered to vote. But now, the registration office is located at the commune office located up to about 10 kilometers from villages, poor villagers do not have the ability to travel to register to vote. Therefore, I am publicly calling for the NEC to rethink about the problems encountered because of lack of application of the NEC directives.”

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