French newspaper "Libération" reveals massive election fraud in Cambodia

Excerpts from/translation of an article from Paris-based newspaper Libération , September 12, 2008 .
Full original article in French at http://tinyurl.com/6nnrcm

Cambodian legislative election was a big mess, Anything but a real election
[Original title in French: Le "grand n'importe quoi" des législatives cambodgiennes]

Vote tallies show in detail the extent of fraud in a poll that gave a landslide victory to the Cambodian People's Party (CPP).

Reading vote tallies related to Cambodia 's July 27 legislative elections is breathtaking (…).

Grotesque. In a vote tally seen by Libération , one can notice, for instance, that there were 115 ballots cast at a polling station in the constituency of Prey Veng (in the south-eastern part of the country). But there is a little arithmetical problem: the document specifies that the CPP alone obtained 224 votes, versus 82 for the HRP and 72 for the SRP, which are the main opposition parties (Document # 1).

[All the documents, with English translation, mentioned in this article can be read by clicking at http://tinyurl.com/6pzfc5]

In even more grotesque proportions, the mistake repeats itself in the constituency of Kampong Speu (a province south-west of Phnom Penh ): a vote tally sheet shows a total of 526 ballots cast. But, before reaching this total, it is written that the CPP has grabbed as many as 1,139 votes (Document # 2).

Other vote tallies show how many votes each party has collected but without indicating the total number of valid votes cast at the corresponding polling stations (Document # 3), or they do not specify the number of registered voters at a specific polling station (Document # 4).

[Sometimes, even worse, there are no indications whatsoever for both the total number of votes actually cast and the number of registered voters at a specific polling station (Document # 5)].

Another frequent irregularity: a voter register lists twice [or even three times] the same name (Document # 6). Sometimes [in the same voter list for a given village or polling station], four voters are registered twice (Documents # 7 and # 8), etc.

[The CPP used names of ghost voters and names of persons who are registered more than once, to issue forged voter identification documents to illegitimate voters to inflate the CPP votes. See reports on "1018 Forms" at http://tinyurl.com/5eo33w and http://tinyurl.com/57vdu8].

[All the documents from # 1 to # 8, with English translation, mentioned in this article can be read by clicking at http://tinyurl.com/6pzfc5]

Cambodian opposition parties take election grievances overseas

PHNOM PENH, Aug. 29 (Xinhua) -- The Sam Rainsy Party (SRP) and the Human Rights Party (HRP), which are two opposition parties of Cambodia, have written to the leaders of 18 nations who signed the 1991 Paris Peace Agreement, complaining of alleged irregularities in the July 27 general election, local media reported Friday.

Signed by SRP President Sam Rainsy and HRP President Kem Sokha, the letters expressed the opposition parties wish to bring to signatories' attention the extent to which political developments in Cambodia have departed dangerously from the path laid out in the Paris Agreement, the Cambodia Daily newspaper said.

According to a copy of the letter, the two parties reiterate their complaints of "systematic and massive electoral fraud."

They also accuse the ruling Cambodian People's Party (CPP) and the National Election Committee (NEC) of deleting "hundreds of thousands" of pro-opposition voters from the election list.

Meanwhile, CPP lawmaker Cheam Yeap told the newspaper that he was not surprised by the opposition's letter-writing campaign but also believed that it would do them little good because other countries, a number of whom monitored the election, are confident the poll went smoothly enough.