Over 20 Cambodian political parties to join general election in 2008

September 05, 2007

There will be over 20 political parties of Cambodia to join the general election to be held in July 2008, local media reported Wednesday.

"Over 20 of all 46 political parties which officially registered at the Interior Ministry will join the general election in 2008," Tep Nitha, Secretary General of the National Election Committee (NEC) was quoted by the Koh Santepheab newspaper as saying.

The names of 650,000 voters will be omitted from the voters' list because some of them had double names, died or changed their addresses, he said.

"We are trying to clean the voters' list for general election in 2008," he added.

According to an NEC report, over 7.8 million of all 14 million Cambodian people have rights to vote in the commune council election in 2007.

Source: Xinhua

SRP: NEC Deletes Names of Eligible Voters But Keeps Ghost Voters on The Electoral Rolls for Ballot Tampering

August 4, 2007

NEC DELETES NAMES OF ELIGIBLE VOTERS
BUT KEEPS GHOST VOTERS ON THE ELECTORAL ROLLS
FOR BALLOT TAMPERING

A July 20 report from the Committee for Free and Fair Elections (Comfrel) says that officials in 10% of the communes had misunderstood directions about the voter list cleaning process. A newer, August 1, Comfrel report lists incidents observed through July 31 and shows "new irregularities that could affect the efficacy of the list cleaning process and lead to people losing their voting right." In a front page article in the August 2 edition of the Khmer newspaper Koh Santepheap, Tep Nytha, Secretary General of the National Election Committee (NEC), is quoted as saying that upwards to 1.4 million names could be deleted from the official voter rolls, nearly three times the number already submitted for deletion. The large number of names to be deleted and the high chance of irregularities is a serious concern if the election is to be deemed as truly reflecting the will of the electorate.

The NEC could decrease both its workload and the number of errors by restricting the set of names to be examined from all eligible voters to only those people who did not vote in the April 2007 commune election.

5.1 million Cambodians voted in April for commune councilors out of an official figure of 7.8 million eligible voters. The NEC has tasked village chiefs to examine every house in their villages to determine whether the name should be cleared. The work of the chiefs could be reduced to a third of its current level if the chiefs were tasked to investigate only the homes of people who did not vote in the commune election. The rolls from election day will show which persons voted and which did not. If, following the rationale behind the "cleaning" process, we are only seeking to delete names of people who do not exist (ghost voters), have died, moved, or double registered, all of these names will be found among the 2.7 million non-voters. The 65% of Cambodians who voted in April are obviously alive, residing in the village, and registered there. Chiefs should only investigate the 35% of names of people who did not vote - there will be a much higher concentration here of names that should be deleted, and we will overcome the great risk, noted by Comfrel, of deleting the names of eligible voters.

Actually, the NEC refuses to publicly investigate into the 2.7 million non-voters because it wants to keep ghost voters on the electoral rolls for ballot tampering at next year's election, while currently deleting names of eligible voters who have been identified by CPP-affiliated village chiefs as non-CPP supporters.

SRP Members of Parliament

Voters Lists Remain a Problem, Opposition Says

Neou Sarem, VOA Khmer
Washington
06 August 2007

Click here to listen to Neou Sarem hosts 'Hello VOA' in Khmer

Traditional systems for putting together voter lists and cleaning them up continues to give the Cambodian People's Party an advantage in elections, opposition leader Sam Rainsy said Monday.

The lists have emerged as a way to eliminate voters who do not support the ruling party, Sam Rainsy said, as a guest on "Hello VOA."

Independent monitors say the lists are a problem, and Sam Rainsy has said up to 550,000 names could be erased under a current program to clean them up ahead of next year's national elections. The CPP and the National Election Committee maintain that the lists contain the names of diseased or otherwise ineligible voters and need to be culled before the elections.

Sam Rainsy said he was countering this alleged strategy by informing members of his party to closely watch when voter lists are posted later this year and to bring any mistakes to the attention of election authorities and party leaders.

Sam Rainsy also said "ghost voters," such as soldiers who appear to have voted but no longer live in the areas where their ballots were cast, were also a problem.

He encouraged people to vote—especially in the wake of weak voter turnout in this year's commune elections—and to raise complaints sooner rather than later.

SRP: Voter List “cleaning” and Political Opponent Cleansing

Phnom Penh , 31 July 2007

VOTER LIST “CLEANING” AND
POLITICAL OPPONENT CLEANSING

The current process of “cleaning” voter lists provides the ruling party with an occasion to pre-determine the outcome of the 2008 National Assembly election, and the party is making full use of this opportunity. From July 12 to 26, 551,738 names were deleted from the voter rolls. Some of these, of course, represent people who have died or left the commune. But based on reports from our representatives, we believe that over two thirds of these names were deleted because the people are known or suspected opponents of the ruling party. This reflects a disenfranchisement of some 5% of the nation’s eligible voters.

Two methods are employed:

(A) Nationwide, village chiefs propose names to delete to commune councils, who vote to accept or reject the names. Many chiefs write up their names not by surveying the village, but rather by copying the names on the 2007 voter information notices that were not distributed. In theory, if a person did not receive a notice before the 2007 commune council election, then they no longer reside in the village and are therefore ineligible to vote. In reality, these notices were selectively distributed in 2007. Known or suspected opponents to the CPP were not given notices when the chief’s team did distribution. As a result, the information notices “left-over” after distribution represent not only people who had died or moved, but also known or suspected opponents of the ruling party. What was at first a one-off disenfranchisement of these voters only in the 2007 election is set to become a permanent deletion of their names from the official voting rolls.

(B) If the chiefs do canvass the village to ascertain presence or absence of persons, they often count as officially absent those voters who are not present at the time of canvassing. This of course is not correct, as many men and women leave their home communes seeking work in Phnom Penh or elsewhere, but return for holidays and voting. These people temporarily absent from their homes include migrant laborers and factory workers who generally do not support the ruling party. Their names are wrongfully erased from the voter list in their homes.

When officials are questioned, they respond that if a person feels victimized, they can come to the office to rectify the mistake. This is irrational. How would a worker who can barely afford to go home for holidays (a) know that his/her name is erased and (b) be able to afford the expense and missed work time in order to travel to the commune office to rectify this error? Such a burden is too heavy on the ordinary citizen. The authorities are creating problems that are solved only for those supporting the CPP thanks to discriminating assistance from the authorities.

Two responses can be enacted simultaneously to solve this problem:

(A) Information about the voter list cleaning should be broadly disseminated through state and private radio and television so voters are aware of the danger. On July 26, SRP President Sam Rainsy sent a letter to Im Sousdey to this effect.

(B) We must ensure that persons independent of the CPP power structure have a say in the process. The NEC therefore cannot rely exclusively on the state apparatus. The NEC should form or help to form an investigation team of people from NGOs or other political parties to monitor the name deletion. A free hand has already been given to the village chief to set the lists. We should not allow the commune council simply to rubber stamp the chief’s decisions. Now that the chiefs have submitted their names for deletion, the commune council should base its decision from recommendations from stakeholders beyond the chief, including NGOs and opposition parties.

SRP Members of Parliament