Friday, March 30, 2007

Cambodian election authority bans SMS on election day

March 30, 2007

The National Election Committee (NEC) of Cambodia has requested to close the Short Messaging Service (SMS) from March 31 to April 1 at 3:00 p.m., because it can be used as a tool for election campaign by political parties, a statement from the NEC said on Thursday.

Presently, many Cambodian people have cell phones, so they can receive political parties' campaign messages by SMS, Secretary General of NEC Tep Nitha said in the statement, adding that on the other hand, these days are "quiet days" according to law.

"It is a must and we all exercise correctly according to law," he said.

The Ministry of Post and Telecommunications of Cambodia has agreed with the NEC's request, Tep Nithay said, adding that the three main telephone service providers, including Mobitel, Camshin and TMIC, were requested to close their SMS services respectively.

According to official statistics, 102,266 candidates from 12 political parties have been campaigning for 11,353 seats in 1,621 communes nationwide, during Cambodia's second ever commune councils election.

Altogether 7,799,371 registered voters are expected to cast their ballots on April 1 and official announcement of the results will be made on April 24.

Source: Xinhua

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