Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Parties Want Representation in Election Committees

SRP MP Ho Vann
Tuesday, 30 August 2011
Chun Sakada, VOA Khmer | Phnom Penh
"Opposition candidates to the provincial and national election committees saw their applications rejected by the national committee."
Members of Cambodia’s non-ruling parties on Tuesday demanded that at least some members be allowed onto the National Election Committee, which they accused of ruling-party bias ahead of local elections next year.

Hopefuls for council seats in 1,633 communes nationwide will vie for votes in an election environment that independent monitors say favors the ruling Cambodian People’s Party.

As it does in national politics, the CPP has dominates the commune councils, holding nearly 8,000 of 11,500 seats.

Ho Vann, a lawmaker for the main opposition Sam Rainsy Party, was among those who met with NEC officials Tuesday. He said there are no opposition representatives on the National Election Committee, which is charged with ensuring fair elections and investigating complaints of unfair practices. This creates a “danger” for those parties, he said.


Opposition candidates to the provincial and national election committees saw their applications rejected by the national committee, he said, on the grounds they were not qualified.

However, he said that if each committee had a representative of each party, “our election would have “independence, transparency, effectiveness, confidence and acceptability.”

Pen Sangha, a representative of the royalist Norodom Ranariddh Party, said non-ruling parties were excluded from the committee unfairly.

However, NEC Secretary-General Tep Nitha said the law does not require representation of parties within the committee and that the committee has violated no procedural guidelines.

Still, having parties represented in local, provincial and national committees would help the parties accept the election results, said Hang Puthea, executive director for the Neutral and Impartial Committee for Free and Fair Elections.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

KI you should sue SOY SOPHEAP because he copy of his picture
from your KI site with out any
of your permission . look at in DAP
new today and the picture he copy
from your interview or may be he like the interview too much and let the KI know (HE IS READING AND WATCHING KI EVERY DAY)

Anonymous said...

We should change all old NEC.

Anonymous said...

"However, NEC Secretary-General Tep Nitha said the law does not require representation of parties within the committee and that the committee has violated no procedural guidelines."

Tep Nitha has certainly shown his lack of logic, fairness and competency with the above statement so he is disqualified to even be a member of NEC, much less its secretary-general.

Reason alone dictates that any party who runs candidates in the election should be invited to be member of the NEC even though the law fails terribly to address that issue.

Law and rule are made by man so they must be amended when found to be inconsistent with logic and reason.

Pissed off