SRP claims multiple campaign violations

Wednesday, 30 May 2012
Meas Sokchea
The Phnom Penh Post

The opposition Sam Rainsy Party has produced documents it alleges prove that almost 100 employees of the part-state-owned Electricity Du Cambodge have been registered to vote twice and urged by a senior staff member to do so.

At a press conference yesterday, SRP spokesman Yim Sovann showed a list of 98 people, who he claimed were civil servants in the state/private enterprise, with separate voter registration numbers for communes in both Kampong Cham and Pursat provinces.

“This irregularity proves that Cambodian People’s Party has used civil servants in the system to serve its political interests that this act is an illegal act,” Yim Sovann said.

Yim Sovann provided a photocopied letter from a man only identified as Sovann, deputy president of the working team, that urged the people on the list to vote twice in upcoming June 3 commune elections, which he said had been leaked by a pro-SRP employee.

Keo Ratanak, director general of EDC, could not be reached for comment yesterday.

NEC secretary general Tep Nytha dismissed the allegation, saying that the duplicated names had been in the system since the previous election after moving home and reregistering without informing authorities.

“However, we will block them from voting two times. We have a very good ink for use in the election,” Tep Nytha said, adding that next year those names would be cancelled from the election lists.

Meanwhile, in Battambang town, SRP district councillor Khy Meng Lynh filed a complaint to the provincial court yesterday accusing a group of CPP members, led by senior commune officials, of attacking her rally and assaulting her.

“Before beating me, they drove a moto to knock me [down] because I was distributing leaflets,” she said, adding that the CPP members returned and one of them punched her, dislocating her collar bone.

Suon Sokhen, first deputy chief of Svay Por commune, denied his members had been involved in any fighting.

“She insulted them first ... I did not order, I do not know [what happened]. The Sam Rainsy Party started it,” he said.