Original report from Washington
01 August 2007
Opposition leader Sam Rainsy said Wednesday the ruling Cambodian People's Party has deleted thousands of names from voter lists under a pretext of cleaning them up.
Voters who support the opposition are being wiped from the lists, he said.
The lists will be an essential part of voting across the country when Cambodians vote for national leaders in July 2008.
CPP officials could not be reached for comment Wednesday.
With deletions of opposition voters, the CPP will not have a competitive party to contend with "and we know the result of the election right now," Sam Rainsy said.
Commune elections held earlier this year saw remarkably low voter turn-out, and small parties complained the process had been tainted and complicated for opposition supporters.
Koul Panha, director of the independent Committee for Free and Fair Elections, said his monitoring group found voting irregularities in 160 of Cambodia's 1,621 communes following the elections. These would likely affect the outcome of the national elections too, he said.
Voters who support the opposition are being wiped from the lists, he said.
The lists will be an essential part of voting across the country when Cambodians vote for national leaders in July 2008.
CPP officials could not be reached for comment Wednesday.
With deletions of opposition voters, the CPP will not have a competitive party to contend with "and we know the result of the election right now," Sam Rainsy said.
Commune elections held earlier this year saw remarkably low voter turn-out, and small parties complained the process had been tainted and complicated for opposition supporters.
Koul Panha, director of the independent Committee for Free and Fair Elections, said his monitoring group found voting irregularities in 160 of Cambodia's 1,621 communes following the elections. These would likely affect the outcome of the national elections too, he said.
1 comment:
The tactics of CPP to win their rivals are not new, but very subtle now. However, former effective tactics of CPP are still using now:
1. Voter-lists manipulation (not independent NEC)
2. Intimidation (culture of impunity, the unjustice court and lowless government)
3. Vote-buying or vote-bribing (voter-list manipulation, disfranchisement, poll-counting and name-deleting...etc)
If SRP or other parties want to win CPP, they have to deal all these issues first.
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