Latest Election-related News

Phnom Penh, January 8, 2007

ONLY FOUR PARTIES HAVE FIELDED CANDIDATES NATIONWIDE

According to the latest results from the candidate registration process, only four political parties have succeeded in fielding candidates in all Cambodia's 24 provinces or municipalities, which are themselves divided into 1,621 communes.

1. Cambodian People's Party (CPP): 1,620 communes.
2. Sam Rainsy Party (SRP): 1,597 communes.
3. Funcinpec: 1,454 communes.
4. Norodom Ranariddh Party (NRP): 1,434 communes.

Funcinpec and NRP are like twin parties which very often share the same candidates in the same communes.

The fifth party, the Hang Dara Democratic Movement Party (HDDMP) has succeeded in fielding candidates in only 130 communes situated in 5 provinces. The twelfth and smallest party, the Khmer Improvement Party (KIP) has put up candidates in only one commune.

SRP HELPS NEC TO DISSEMINATE ELECTION-RELATED INFORMATION

The National Election Committee (NEC) is spending over $13 million (half of which is provided by donor countries) to organize the commune council election that will take place on April 1 this year.

One of the most obvious shortcomings in the work performed so far by the NEC is related to voter information and voter education as evidenced by well founded criticisms from many different independent organizations during the recent voter registration process.

Apart from relying on village chiefs, who are all affiliated with the ruling CPP, to disseminate information to villagers, the NEC has never seriously tried to directly communicate with the public. Through costly advertisements in newspapers, it only invites the public to ask questions by electronic mail. This may look modern and sensible in the eyes of donor countries but is a real joke in present Cambodia given the country's level of socio-economic development and high illiteracy rate. Less than 0.5 percent of Cambodia's population are Internet users with adequate computer and English language skills (no more than 50,000 persons concentrated in urban areas out of a population of 14 million inhabitants).

Trying to be more pragmatic, the SRP has set up a phone-based information service to address the NEC's shortcomings. The SRP is providing election-related information and other news in Khmer language to the public through the telephone system. There are now nearly 1.5 million mobile phones in use in Cambodia and their number is growing at a rate of over 30 percent a year. The public can receive regular news and analyses from the SRP by calling one of the following numbers:

• 011 256 256
• 012 256 256
• 016 256 256
• 092 888 001

Source: SRP