Report cites election day voter fraud
Voter
rolls at several polling stations appear to have been “intentionally
manipulated” in advance of the election to allow large groups of
individuals to cast fraudulent ballots in communes where they were
ineligible, according to a report released Saturday by rights group
Licadho.
One of the incidents cited describes hundreds of
university students being transported from Phnom Penh to Kandal’s Lvea
Em district to vote, allegedly under the instruction of their
professors, as one example of systematic voter fraud.
Another
observed incident in hotly contested Kandal involved more than 100
workers from a rock quarry in Kampong Speu who were brought to a newly
created polling station in Sa’ang district to vote despite not having
residence there, Licadho says.
The quarry is allegedly owned by a ruling party official from Sa’ang Phnom commune.
According
to the report, more than 30 per cent of names on the voter list at the
new Sa’ang polling station were duplicates, compared with a nationwide
rate of two per cent.
“We were expecting significant issues with
the voter rolls, especially in light of earlier reports of ghost voters,
drastic over-registrations and the like, but the indications of vote
rigging we saw went beyond that,” Licadho director Naly Pilorge said in a
statement.
“The observations detailed in this report
unequivocally demonstrate the need for further in-depth investigations
and additional procedures before the vote results can be finalised.”
Tep
Nytha, secretary-general at the National Election Committee, said the
NEC had received the report but that, whether it had evidence of
malfeasance or not, “the NEC will not investigate”.
“It is their
right to say what they see. The NEC receives those reports to look into
which points could be useful to make changes for the next election, so
we accept them. For points that we can’t accept, we just archive them,”
he said.
Koul Panha, director of election watchdog Comfrel, said
Licadho’s findings were “very consistent” with that of other civil
society groups.
He stopped short, however, of saying such premeditated vote-rigging was widespread.
“It
proves that it happened in some communes [where] there were problems of
intentional manipulation, but we want to do further investigation to
know the scale of the problem.”
The report also cites military
units being trucked in from their bases in Oddar Meanchey and Preah
Vihear provinces to vote en masse in newly created polling stations in
Siem Reap’s Varin district.
Cambodian People’s Party lawmaker
Cheam Yeap said yesterday that the transportation of voters to polling
stations where they are registered is fully legal.
“I just want to
inform [people] that wherever you vote, you must have [identification]
for elections that the NEC will allow you to vote with, and wherever you
find your name, you have the right to vote there,” he said.
“For
example, if a man works as a construction worker and has no time to go
back to his homeland, he might register his name in the area where he
works so he can vote.”
According to the Election Law, a Cambodian citizen must “have a residence” in the commune where they are going to vote.
Sin
Khandy, the rector of Chenla University – the institution accused of
bringing Phnom Penh students to vote in Kandal province – could not be
reached for comment.
Khandy is an undersecretary of state at the
Ministry of Environment, and the university, as noted by Licadho, has
previously posted photos of students taking part in a protest against
deputy CNRP leader Kem Sokha on its official Facebook page.
Cambodia
National Rescue Party spokesman Yim Sovann welcomed the report
yesterday. “[The report] reflects the reality and reflects the problems
that we encountered during the election. It also adds to [our claim]
that we should find justice for the people,” he said.
The report
cites an election day conflict that erupted between CNRP and CPP
observers in Prey Veng’s Reathor commune after opposition supporters
blocked more than 400 individuals “who could not speak Khmer and
appeared to be of Vietnamese ethnicity” from voting.
Although the
number of temporary Identification Certificate for Election (ICE) forms
issued in the commune was found to be more than 30 per cent, Licadho
still calls for an investigation into the “potentially improper
disenfranchisement of eligible voters based on ethnic discrimination”.
“We
advise our supporters and our members not to do anything against the
law and not to create violence.… We must not discriminate against
anybody if they live in Cambodia legally and they have the right to
vote,” Sovann said.
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