Opposition party accuses the NEC of collusion with the ruling party

During a press conference held on 20 September 2007, Mrs. Mu Sochua, Deputy Secretary General of SRP, reported irregularities on the voters list cleaning. On that sam day, she also filed a complaint at the Srah Chork Commune Office for listing her name on NEC's Form 10/25, marking her to be deleted from the official voter register for the false reason that she moved away from her commune (Photo: SRP)

20 September 2007
Mondul Keo
Radio Free Asia
Translated from Khmer by Socheata

The opposition party is accusing the National Election Committee (NEC) of intentionally helping the ruling party by inculding the names of people not belonging to the CPP in Form 1025 for removal from the voting list in the upcoming 2008 election.

During a press conference held on 20 September 2007, the deputy Secretary-general of the Sam Rainsy party, Mrs. Mu Sochua, accuses the NEC of intentionally helping the ruling party by including the names several thousands of SRP supporters in Form 1025 for removal from the voting list.

Mrs. Mu Scohua said: “Up until now, we observe that the NEC is intentionally organizing something for 2008. So where does the path to the 2008 election will lead to? It will lead to the victory planned in advance for the ruling the party.”

As an example to this collusion, Mrs. Mu Sochua shows her name being listed in Form 1025. She lives in Village No. 15, Srah Chak commune, Daun Penh district, Phnom Penh city, she said that the village chief, who happens to be a member of the ruling party, intentionally removed her name out of the voting list.

In response to this accusation, Hu Chanry, the chief of Village No. 15, explained that during the census, he did not see Mrs. Mu Sochua at home, so he thought that she may have moved, and (on his own doing,) he decided to place her name on Form 1025 (to be removed from the voting list), so she can come to protest, because he does not know who Mrs. Mu Sochua was.

Hu Chanry said: “I walked back and forth in this village every day, I never saw (her), and when I asked, there was no such name. I did not want to violate the law, it’s only that I am new here, and when I did the census, I did not see the person with that name in the village.”

Tep Nytha, NEC secretary-general, said that this lacking was done unintentionally by the authority, and that up to now, the NEC did not remove anybody’s name from the voting list yet.

Tep Nytha: “Therefore, to avoid this issue, the NEC requires that the list should be posted at the commune office, and this posting was done starting 02 August, and people can protest up until 10 October 2007. This is the legal mean that we pay attention to, and up to now, we did not remove anybody’s name yet. We are including their names on the list so they can protest.”

Nevertheless, Mar Sophal, director of investigation branch of Comfrel, said: “We found out that this involves members from all parties, from the CPP and from non ruling parties. Another set of problems are the technical mistakes which are the cause of the names removal.”

During each election, the opposition party accuses the NEC of siding with the ruling the party, whereas the NEC always reject these accusations, saying that they are exaggerations.

11.2 percent of Cambodia's eligible voters still not registered

September 07, 2007

More than eleven percent of Cambodia's eligible voters remain unregistered, according to a voter registration audit recently complete by a coalition of election watchdog NGOs, local media said on Friday.

Using a random sample of 682,000 voters throughout the nation, the report found that 88.8 percent of eligible voters were registered and 11.2 percent unregistered, reported Chinese- language newspaper the Commercial News.

The audit report was jointly prepared by the U.S.-based National Democratic Institute, the Neutral and Impartial Committee for Free and Fair Elections in Cambodia (NICFEC), and the Center for Advanced Study.

The registration of voters is more important than deleting ghost voter names from the voter list, said NICFEC Executive Director Puthea Hang, though he added that it is a high priority for the National Election Committee (NEC) of Cambodia to do the clean-up of the list.

Meanwhile, NEC Secretary-General Tep Nytha told reporters that NEC is updating the voter list according to accurate documents and fact.

NEC had verified that commune councilors were 91 percent accurate in listing voter names, he added.

Cambodia is to hold general election in July 2008 and a new government will be set up then.

Source: Xinhua

Sam Rainsy Denounces Election Committee Over Voter Lists [- NEC cleaning out Non-CPP voters from voting list?]

Chun Sakada, VOA Khmer
Original report from Phnom Penh
27 August 2007

Opposition party leader Sam Rainsy on Monday said the National Election Committee's removal of up to 654,000 names from voter lists ahead of national election amounted to fraud.

The NEC has said it needs to clean up the voter registration, proposing to clear from them thousands of names.

But Sam Rainsy said Monday he had found at least 2,500 eligible voters whose names have been proposed to be removed from the list, proving that some constituents were being excluded from the political process ahead of next year's national elections.

"We believe this is a political reason to remove the names of those who are suspected, or those who they know for sure will not vote for the ruling party, and might vote for the opposition party," he said.

The NEC denied any political motivation for the list clean-up.

"At the time of the registration of the voters, from Sept. 15 until Oct. 20, we are prepared to remove the names of those whose names should be removed from the voter list, and we will invite those who are of voting age to register to vote," NEC Secretary-General Tep Nitha said.

This year's commune elections saw decreased voter turnout, and critics charged that confusing procedures could have discouraged potential voters.

SRP: Voter List Cleaning Irregularities

Phnom Penh , August 14, 2007

Voter List Cleaning Irregularities

From August 2-7, NEC released the names of voters slated for elimination from the voter list. Upon examination of these names, SRP discovered many irregularities caused by village chiefs who did not properly follow the NEC's instructions.

Among these irregularities are:

• People whose residence remains in a village though they work in another province or commune;
• People who live in the village but the village leaders say that they have changed their place of residence;
• People still alive but declared dead by the village chiefs;
• People wrongly declared insane;
• People who left for another village for a short time period with intention to return.

The elimination process undertaken by the village chiefs show political discrimination, because many of the names to be deleted are SRP activists well known to the village leaders.

These irregularities are happening all over the country. Only one week after the publication of the names to be deleted, SRP found many irregularities. The party will regularly publish the cases it discovers.

SRP requests that the NEC take urgent action to solve this problem so that all eligible voters can be guaranteed that their names will not be unjustly deleted. At the same time, SRP requests that the NEC take action to punish those village chiefs who do not properly follow the instructions from NEC.

It is an act of discrimination to wrongfully declare a person dead or insane and to renounce the right to vote.

If NEC ignores this request and does not take any action to rectify the problem in time, it could mean that they are operating with an intention to illegally use electoral technicalities for the benefit of the ruling party.

Secretariat Office

For further information, call
Mr. Eng Chhai Eang at 012 731 111

A list of the irregularities provided by SRP is available by clicking here.