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A voter looks for his name on lists posted outside a polling station in Prey Veng province on Sunday. Photograph: Derek Stout/Phnom Penh Post |
Tuesday, 05 June 2012
Joseph Freeman and Vong Sokheng
The Phnom Penh Post
“The state media has been used freely by the ruling party.”
While the main election monitor in Cambodia praised the lack of violence during Sunday’s commune elections, it also observed a host of irregularities, including the ruling party using civil servants and state media to campaign, polling sites set up in police stations and residences, and voters turned away for lack of sufficient ID.
The Committee for Free and Fair Elections in Cambodia met yesterday at its headquarters in Phnom Penh to discuss what monitors saw in the field and release initial results of an election in which the Cambodian People’s Party once again trounced all comers.
“There are many complaints from political parties,” Koul Panha, the director of Comfrel, told reporters.
Comfrel will investigate all of them, he said, but so far it hasn’t found any polling stations where the results are unacceptable.