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| Hang Puthea, executive director of the Neutral and Impartial Committee for Free and Fair Elections Photo: by Heng Reaksmey, VOA Khmer |
Sok Khemara, VOA Khmer | Washington, DC
“So if people lose the original will, then society will lose as well.”
The campaign period for commune elections has seen a mix of allegations of vote buying and gift giving, among other irregularities, politic analysts and election monitors say.
Ten parties are competing for commune council positions across the country for June 3 polls. Campaigning end June 1.
“If the politicians try to buy people, that causes people to lose original will,” Hang Puthea, executive director of the Neutral and Impartial Committee for Free and Fair Elections, told “Hello VOA” Thursday. “So if people lose the original will, then society will lose as well.”
While it is normal to want to sway voters, he said, it is better to explain your political platform than to buy their support. That, he said, “will be a good process of democratization.”
Political analyst Lao Monghay said the campaigning has taken place without much tension, but pressing issues like crackdowns on protests and continued land grabbing remain serious issues. Vote buying has become more popular, he said.
Hang Puthea said campaigning this year has been better than elections prior, because party and election officials have more experience. “Even though there are some problems in the provinces,” he said.
The commune elections are a chance for the government to decentralize power, if local leaders are given more authority to make decisions, Hang Puthea said. Currently, commune chiefs take orders from the party, rather than their constituents, he said. “That’s a detriment to the people.”
2 comments:
free asia and VOA staffs are chinese and vietnamis khmer.....no honesty for kkhmer people, these guys are secret agents and germs for khmer society. they look a like chinese and viet. spoke khmer, also KI-MEDIA STAFFS created this website to check how khmer treat each other, these germs is trying to stir khmer people's privileges and society in order to swallow cambodia easily. let's take a look now in this KI-MEDIA and in cambodia, we're cambodian painting each other, fighting each other and the benefits going or already went to china and vietnam's interests. think about it , khmers!!! stop painting each other. Our enemy being this germs from generations. we killed each other much enough, let's find the ways to cure this together. Like the prophecy that i've heard from old timer said ( this is the time that all khmers sees each other AS AN enemy, GOOD AS BAD AND BAD AS GOOD.
Dear Compatriots,
Please do not sell your votes.
If you did, the monnies you got bought you only a few fish. But Yuon and CPP will own your fish pond
forever.
A Khmer Patriot
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