Preventing the CPP from distorting the people's will at next Sunday's commune elections

May 30, 2012

PREVENTING THE CPP FROM DISTORTING THE PEOPLE'S WILL AT NEXT SUNDAY'S

COMMUNE ELECTIONS

As a general pattern the ruling CPP has two combined ways to manipulate elections so as to secure a landslide victory before Voting Day: Disenfranchisement and Impersonation.

I- SYSTEMATIC DISENFRANCHISEMENT TO REDUCE VOTES FOR THE OPPOSITION There is a massive disenfranchisement affecting citizens that CPP-affiliated village chiefs and other local officials throughout the country have identified as non-CPP supporters or potential opposition voters. Based on political reports from CPP grassroots agents, the CPP-controlled National Election Committee (NEC) establishes voter lists in such a way as to exclude as many opposition voters as possible. According to independent observers from COMFREL (Committee for Free and Fair Elections in Cambodia), up to 1.5 million Cambodians representing 17 percent of the electorate will lose their right to vote in the upcoming commune elections due to irregularities in voters' registration lists (*).

II- SYSTEMATIC IMPERSONATION TO INFLATE VOTES FOR THE RULING PARTY At the same time that countless real citizens and legitimate voters are excluded from voters' registration lists (see Point I related to disenfranchisement), the NEC slyly keeps countless ghost voters' names in voter lists in order to allow illegitimate voters paid or manipulated by the CPP to cast votes through impersonation with the use of controversial voter identification documents fraudulently issued by CPP local officials who control the country. According to independent observers, ghost voters represent up to 10 percent of registered voters in many polling stations. The controversial voter identification documents are a new version of "Form 1018" now called "Identification Document" with similar characteristics as "Form 1018" that easily allow fraud (**). Moreover, with more and more CPP-affiliated state employees being encouraged to register as voters more than once at different places (see evidence presented by the opposition SRP at their May 29 press conference) and also with the increasing number of migrant workers who will not be able to vote at the place where they were originally registered as voters, the CPP will be in a position to make use of a larger number of ghost voters' names for impersonation through illegally issued voter "Identification Documents", thus allowing them to bring a larger number of illegitimate voters into polling stations on Voting Day. Those illegitimate voters will be fraudulently given the names and voting rights of ghost voters to inflate votes for the CPP.

There are three transparency-based measures that could prevent the implementation of the CPP impersonation voter fraud scheme:

1. Before Voting Day, all CPP commune chiefs assisted by CPP-appointed commune clerks must issue a public report giving detailed information on voter "Identification Documents" they have issued in their respective communes purportedly for voters who don't have any other ID documents.
2. On Voting Day, a copy of all officially and legally issued voter "Identification Documents" to be used by a limited number of voters at each polling station, must be posted at the corresponding polling station, thus allowing election observers to detect any voter fraudulently issued with "Identification Documents".
3. On Voting Day, all remaining blank and unused forms of voter "Identification Documents" as well as the commune stamp validating any official documents, must be locked in a place that can be seen by everybody, thus ensuring that no voter "Identification Document" could be issued on Voting Day, as prohibited in election regulations (***).

If the CPP and the NEC are not willing to implement the three above measures they are confirming that they want to proceed with their plan to manipulate elections and distort the people's will.

Sam Rainsy

Elected Member of Parliament

Leader of the Opposition

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(*) Please read reports from The Cambodia Daily http://tinyurl.com/7fedv8e and Radio Free Asia http://tinyurl.com/899t9f7

(**) In their final report the Election Observation Mission from the European Union asked the Cambodian government to abolish the use of "Form 1018", which they claimed was fraudulently issued at polling stations during the last national elections in July 2008 http://tinyurl.com/crr9jrt

(***) The use of "Form 1018" and its new version "Identification Document" is essential in the implementation of the CPP impersonation voter fraud scheme. This explains why the CPP-led government has shown no willingness to issue standardized National ID Cards to all citizens. Once all citizens have in their possession the same National ID Card, all "Forms 1018" and other controversial voter "Identification Documents" would disappear and the CPP would not be able to manipulate elections on such a large scale as now.