Examples of Disenfranchisement of Non-CPP Supporters

August 21, 2008
Source: SRP

EXAMPLES OF DISENFRANCHISEMENT OF NON-CPP SUPPORTERS

The following is an August 16, 2008 e-mail from Prof. Paul E M Reynolds who knows Cambodia well.

"I spoke with some friends on the phone today. They are large families living in Russey Keo in the same small block on Road No 5 in Phnom Penh. They all went to the polling stations and none were able to vote. ALL of them have all their family members registered with the Sangkat with their Family Books. One family (very pro-SRP, despite the fact that the elderly father of the family is a driver for the CPP) were not on the list at all. The other family were on the list but 'someone' had already voted under their names when they got there. Their friends on the other side of the No 5 road were not able to vote either, they say, but I have no details.

Another friend who lives with his wife and two small children between Norodom and Monivong, South of Sihanouk, (he works at the S Korean Embassy) told me his name was not on the list despite a prior visit to his block by officials 'checking electoral lists'.

I have as yet, not found any Khmer person that I know in PP who was able to vote successfully."

Prof. Paul E M Reynolds
Global Economic Policy Institute
(University of Westminster)
paulreynolds@email.com

One Million Citizens Deprived Of Their Voting Right

July 29, 2008
Source: SRP

ONE MILLION CITIZENS DEPRIVED OF THEIR VOTING RIGHT

Civil society groups recognize that a large portion of the electorate could not vote because they could not find their names at the polling stations on July 27, 2008 as a result of organized confusion. Countless legitimate voters' names have been deleted from the voter registry. At least one million citizens suspected of sympathy for the Opposition have been disenfranchised.

The Sam Rainsy Party invites all victims of political discrimination in the current election process to gather for a protest at the SRP Phnom Penh headquarters on Wednesday, July 30, 2008 at 08:00 am.

Journalists and election observers are invited to come tomorrow to interview the participants.

See leaflet in Khmer below:

Click on the leaflet to zoom in

URGENT: A number of SRP activists who are currently distributing the above leaflet in the street in Phnom Penh have just been arrested by CPP-affiliated authorities and sent to jail.

For more information please call 012 788 999 or 012 831 040 or 092 888 002.

Khmer Intelligence News - 20 May 2008

20 May 2008

CPP's new strategy: disenfranchisement of non-CPP voters (2)

It has become obvious now that the ruling Cambodian People's Party (CPP) is implementing a new strategy, which was successfully tested in 2007, to secure another election victory even before Voting Day on 27 July 2008. In the voter list "clean up" process conducted by the CPP-controlled National Election Committee (NEC), some 600,000 names have been deleted from the voter registry. Names which should be deleted (ghost voters, foreigners with no voting right) have been kept on the list whereas names of real and legitimate votes have been deleted because related to those identified by CPP-affiliated village chiefs as non-CPP supporters.

Over the last five years, from the 2002 commune elections to the 2007 commune elections, the CPP has dramatically lost ground. In 2007 as in 2002, the CPP collected 61 percent of the popular votes. But there is a big difference between the two elections: in 2007, the voter turnout was only 65 percent whereas it was 87 percent in 2002, meaning that support for the CPP computed on the basis of the whole electorate dropped from 53 percent in 2002 to 39 percent in 2007. It was only through a massive disenfranchisement of non-CPP voters that the CPP could maintain its positions. The CPP is resorting to the same strategy in 2008.

Sam Rainsy in Paris, Marseilles, Brussels, Belfast and Berlin (2)

Opposition leader Sam Rainsy is currently in Europe to take part in several events. He was in Paris and Brussels for the launch of his book "Des racines dans la pierre " (Rooted in the stone) and gave interviews to several radio and TV stations (*). On May 15 – 17, he attended a conference of Liberal International in Belfast ( Northern Ireland , United Kingdom ). On May 18, he joined the Cambodian community in Marseilles to celebrate Visak Bochea in a Cambodian pagoda where he met with SRP supporters from several towns in the South of France. He is now in Berlin to meet with German government officials and to celebrate with his liberal friends the 50th anniversary of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom.

(*) Sam Rainsy's book can be ordered online at Amazon by clicking here.

"Hun Sen is Cambodia 's Mugabe" (2)

On May 16, Senegal's President Abdoulaye Wade, Zimbabwe's opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai, Cambodian opposition leader Sam Rainsy and many other prominent politicians from all over the world attended the 55th Congress of Liberal International in Belfast . Sam Rainsy was quoted as saying: "Hun Sen is Cambodia 's Mugabe. Hun Sen and Robert Mugabe are dictators who have been in power for nearly thirty years. Both of them have caused miseries to their peoples and will be defeated by the democratic opposition in the next few months." Morgan Tsvangirai is expected to win the final presidential election in Zimbabwe next month.

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