Monday, March 05, 2012

SRP Press Conference on Validity of Upcoming Elections


March 5, 2012

SRP PRESS CONFERENCE ON VALIDITY OF UPCOMING ELECTIONS

The following problems must be solved before the 2012 commune elections and the 2013 national elections. Otherwise, the international community must not recognize the results of these elections.

I- MANIPULATION OF VOTER LISTS

According to Comfrel there are 8.8 million voters only, but NEC stated 9.2 million (+ 0.4M):
-        Some real and legitimate voters are not registered (disenfranchisement): About 0.5M (*)
-        Many ghost voters are on the (inflated) voter lists: About 0.9M
-        Net overstatement: - 0.5M + 0.9M = + 0.4M

II- CONTROVERSIAL VOTING DOCUMENTS

Form 1018 will be abandoned and replaced with another voting document called “Likhet Bancheak Ataksanhan” (LBA). But there is the same potential fraud as with Form 1018 even though LBA cannot be copied and requires a stub (Kul Banchi). Continuous danger: LBA still issued by CPP commune chiefs (Mekhum) and CPP-affiliated Clerks (Smean). How CPP trick works: As with Form 1018, LBA will be used in combination with ghost voters’ names: Fraudulent voters will be given the names and voting rights of the above 0.9M ghost voters in order to inflate votes for CPP (**).
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III- WITHHOLDING OF ID CARDS

The number of people without the standardized national ID Card is till high: more than 500,000. Many of them can be met everywhere complaining that they have been waiting in vain for two years to get their ID Cards. Comfrel estimates that 400,000 voters have been recently forced to use Form 1018 because they don’t have their ID Cards.

The danger of election manipulation is being compounded with the growing number of migrant workers: CPP commune chiefs know well who have migrated from their communes and they will use the absentees’ voting rights in favour of CPP by fraudulently giving LBAs (previously Forms 1018) to fraudulent voters to inflate CPP votes (**).

IV-FAIR ACCESS TO STATE-CONTROLLED BROADCAST MEDIAS

For the campaign for national/legislative elections, state-controlled broadcast medias are equally accessible to any political parties that have filed candidates in at least 1/3 of the country’s 24 provinces. What about the soon-to-start campaign for the commune elections with voting day on June 3, 2012? Will a party that has filed candidates in 100 % of Cambodia’s 1633 communes be treated the same way as a party that has filed ten or twenty times less candidates? The CPP tends to push for “equality” in order to reduce air time allocated to the opposition SRP, which would have to be equal to air time allocated to some much smaller parties that the CPP has helped to create.

V- NEUTRALITY OF THE NATIONAL ELECTION COMMITTEE (NEC)

The above points vindicate the Report issued after the 2008 national elections by the Election Observation Mission from the European Union. The Report notes in particular the "lack of confidence in the neutrality and impartiality of the National Election Committee (NEC)" and calls for a change in the composition and leadership of the NEC in order for Cambodia to meet “key international standards for democratic elections”.

Example: Case of O Saray commune in Takeo province’s Tram Kok district. A complaint was lodged last month by candidates from four different parties against the current president of the Commune Election Committee (CEC set up by NEC) who is a well-known CPP activist.

(*) The European observers already noted in 2008 "a significant number of mistakenly disenfranchised voters" due to the deletion of names from voter lists.
 
(**) The European observers already asked the government in 2008 to abolish the use of Statement of Identity Form 1018, which they claimed was fraudulently issued at polling stations.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

0.5 + 0.9 = 1.4

Anonymous said...

Could SRP party also spread the contents of this letter to the European Union,the United Nations and all other concerned parties...if not yet done.

Thank you!

Anonymous said...

TO KI Team,

Please post this as the front page, for a few more days, this statement is very important.

The issues must be addressed, it is clearly Election Fraud and it must be discussed.

Thank you