Editorial | Articles about Cambodia | Khmer

Monday, March 01, 2010

Sam Rainsy charges draw criticism

In this photo taken May 1, 2009, Cambodian opposition party leader Sam Rainsy stands in front of the national assembly in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. On Monday, Nov. 16, 2009, Cambodia's Parliament stripped the country's outspoken opposition leader of his immunity from prosecution for uprooting border markers on the frontier with Vietnam.

Meas Sokchea and Sebastian Strangio (Phnom Penh Post)

A COALITION of civil society groups has criticised the filing of new criminal charges against opposition leader Sam Rainsy, calling for a “political solution” to the current row with the government.

On Friday, government lawyers filed two more charges against the embattled Sam Rainsy Party (SRP) president, accusing him of falsifying public documents in order to prove Vietnamese encroachment into Svay Rieng province.

“In Phnom Penh we have charged him with two offences. The first is involved with falsifying public documents, and the other is for spreading disinformation,” Ky Tech, a government lawyer, said on Sunday. If found guilty on both counts, he said, Sam Rainsy could face up to 18 years in prison.

On Friday, the Cambodian Human Rights Action Committee (CHRAC), a coalition of 23 local NGOs, said the new lawsuits had shined a light on the shrinking of the country’s democratic space, calling for all parties to come together in a spirit of “national reconciliation”.

“CHRAC … urges our political leaders to mutually respect each other and negotiate with political maturity in order to address national issues,” the statement read.

The new charges come after Svay Rieng provincial court sentenced Sam Rainsy to two years in prison in absentia on January 27 in relation to an October incident in which he joined villagers in uprooting six temporary border markers in Chantrea district. Villagers alleged that Vietnamese authorities planted the posts in their rice fields.

In January, the SRP released what it described as “unprecedented evidence” that four Vietnamese border markers in Svay Rieng sit well inside Cambodia’s legal territory as defined by French and American maps.

CHRAC’s chairman, Hang Chhaya, said that using the court for an endless procession of lawsuits was useless and added that a political resolution would allow people to “live in peace”. “This is intimidation – it affects the democratic process,” he said.

“We must guarantee safety for people so that they can live in peace. Resorting to the courts for lawsuits like this is useless.”

When contacted on Sunday, SRP spokesman Kimsour Phirith said that, despite what he described as intimidation on the part of the ruling party, the opposition was not scared and would continue voicing concerns about the Vietnamese border.

“Their aim is to remove Sam Rainsy from the country so that he does not disturb their affairs which were done already. This is a political issue, not a criminal issue as they are saying,” he said.

Some observers said the new lawsuits were aimed at preventing the SRP leader from participating in the 2013 elections. “I think it’s a kind of threat, to give an example for other people who dare to do the same thing,” said Son Soubert, a member of the Constitution Council and an independent political analyst, comparing the attacks on Sam Rainsy to the treatment of Myanmar democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi.

“The government, for the interests of all Cambodian people, should seriously dialogue with the opposition. Instead of listening to that foreign country, they should listen to their own compatriots.” He added: “There should be a serious investigation of all the maps by a neutral party.”

The Vietnamese border issue last prompted a government crackdown in 2005, when critics came out in opposition to the government’s border-demarcation treaty with Vietnam – the basis, along with a 1985 treaty, for the current demarcation efforts.

Ou Virak, president of the Cambodian Centre for Human Rights, said the government’s offensive against Sam Rainsy was an indication that the situation on the eastern border was still a sore issue for Prime Minister Hun Sen even after the 2005-06 crackdown.

He also said it had distracted attention from Hun Sen’s own border stand-off with Thailand observing that the filing of the charges was bookended by two visits by Hun Sen to address soldiers at the Thai border and rally support for the military. “I’m sure the government is not happy that the issue is back again,” Ou Virak said.

Labels: hun sen, Sam Rainsy, Sam Rainsy Party

Thursday, February 25, 2010

The document shows violations of even the 1985 Border Treaty signed by the controversial People’s Republic of Kampuchea

0 Comments

The document shows violations of even the 1985 Border Treaty signed by the controversial People’s Republic of Kampuchea. Therefore, the current Phnom Penh government has no ground whatsoever to deny continuous border encroachment in Cambodia’s Eastern part.

1985 Treaty Boder and Current Border Markers (Rev 2)%5B1%5D

Labels: Border, hun sen, People’s Republic of Kampuchea, Sam Rainsy, Sam Rainsy Party

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Crusader Rowing Upstream in Cambodia

1 Comments

By SETH MYDANS (The New York Times)

Incumbent Mu Sochua, 55, is already campaigning for the 2013 parliamentary election

MAK PRAING, CAMBODIA — “I’m going to get my votes!” cried Mu Sochua as she stepped into a slender rowboat, holding one side for balance. “One by one.”

She was crossing a small river here in southern Cambodia on a recent stop in her never-ending campaign for re-election to Parliament, introducing herself to rural constituents who may never have seen her face.

The most prominent woman in Cambodia’s struggling political opposition, Mu Sochua, 55, is campaigning now, three years before the next election, because she is almost entirely excluded from government-controlled newspapers and television.

“Only 35 percent of voters know who won the last election,” she said.

She has no time to lose.

Ms. Mu Sochua is a member of a new generation of women who are working their way into the political systems of countries across Asia and elsewhere, from local councils to national assemblies and cabinet positions.

A former minister of women’s affairs, she did as much as anyone to put women’s issues on the agenda of Cambodia as it emerged in the 1990s from decades of war and mass killings. But she lost her public platform in 2004 when she broke with the government, and she is now finding it as difficult to promote her ideas as it is to simply gain attention as a candidate.

She says her signal achievement, leading the way for women into thousands of government positions, has done little to advance women’s issues in a stubbornly male-dominated society.

And like dissidents and opposition figures in many countries, she has found herself with a new burden: battling for her own rights. As she has risen in prominence, the political stands she has taken have become a greater liability to her than gender bias has been.

Most recently, she has been caught in a bizarre tit-for-tat exchange of defamation suits with the country’s domineering prime minister, Hun Sen, in which, to no one’s surprise, she was the loser.

It started last April here in Kampot Province, her constituency, when Mr. Hun Sen referred to her with the phrase “cheung klang,” or “strong legs,” an insulting term for a woman in Cambodia.

She sued him for defamation; he stripped her of her parliamentary immunity and sued her back. Her suit was dismissed in the politically docile courts. In August she was convicted of defaming the prime minister and fined 16.5 million riel, or about $4,000, which she has refused to pay.

“Now I live with the uncertainty about whether I’m going to go to jail,” she said in a recent interview. “I’m not going to pay the fine. Paying the fine is saying to all Cambodian women, ‘What are you worth? A man can call you anything he wants, and there is nothing you can do.”’

This gesture is one of the few ways she has left to champion the rights of women, the central passion of her public life.

As an outspoken opponent of the prime minister, she has found, her participation taints any group, action or demonstration with the stigma of political opposition.

“My voice kills the movement,” she said. “It’s my failure. Now I am the face of the opposition, a woman’s face in opposition. Women say, ‘We believe in you. We admire you. But we can’t be with you because the movement will die.”’

During her six years as minister of women’s affairs, Ms. Mu Sochua campaigned against child abuse, marital rape, violence against women, human trafficking and the exploitation of female workers. She helped draft the country’s law against domestic violence.

In part because of her work, she said, “People are aware about gender. It’s a new Cambodian word: ‘gen-de.’ People are aware that women have rights.”

But where political empowerment of women is concerned, she said, quantity has not produced quality, and prominence has not translated into progress for a women’s agenda.

Over the years, Ms. Mu Sochua has worked with nongovernmental groups to field thousands of candidates in local elections. Largely because of her activism, there are now 27 women in a National Assembly of 123 seats.

But 21 of these are members of the governing Cambodian People’s Party — window dressing, she said — and have little impact, following the party line like their male counterparts.

“They don’t speak out,” she said. “It’s hard to talk about this — I don’t want to antagonize women — but if women suffer from our silence, we are responsible. What are we doing to make their lives better?

“This is where women can hurt women. They are in politics, but they are part of the problem by keeping silent.”

Cambodia is still a traditional society in which women are expected to behave demurely and subordinate themselves to men. Schooled in the United States, Ms. Mu Sochua said she had to keep an eye on her own Westernized ideas and behavior, to be “careful I don’t push things too far.”

The daughter of a well-to-do merchant in Phnom Penh, she was sent to study in the West at the age of 12, ending up at the University of California, Berkeley, where she earned a master’s degree in social work and thrived on the culture of outspokenness of the 1970s.

“When I hit San Francisco, I knew that that was my city,” she said. “I began to shine. I let my hair grow. I looked like a hippie.”

She met her future husband, an American, when both were assisting Cambodian refugees on the Thai border after the fall of the murderous Khmer Rouge regime in 1979. Since 1989 they have lived together in Cambodia, where he works for the United Nations. They have three grown children living in the United States and Britain.

“I have to be very, very careful about what I bring from the West, to promote women’s rights within the context of a society that is led by men,” she said. “In the Cambodian context, it’s women’s lib. It’s feminism. It’s challenging the culture, challenging the men.”

She has this in mind as she walks through the villages of her constituency, a woman with power but a woman nonetheless. “I walk into a cafe, and I have to think twice, how to be polite to the men,” she said. “I have to ask if I can enter. This is their turf. I am a woman, and I should be sitting in one of these little shops and selling things.”

And so she paused the other day at the stoop of a little cafe here in this riverside village, an open-fronted noodle shop where men sat in the midday heat on red plastic chairs.

She had succeeded in halting a sand-dredging project that was eroding riverbanks here, and she wanted the men to know that she had been working on their behalf.

“I came here to inform you that you got a result from the government,” she told the men, showing them a legal document. “I want to inform you that you have a voice. If you see something wrong, you can stand up and speak about it.”

Asked afterward what it was like to have a woman fighting his battles, Mol Sa, 37, a fisherman, said, “She speaks up for us, so I don’t think she’s any different from a man. Maybe a different lady couldn’t do it, but she can do it because she is strong and not afraid.”

Fear was a theme as Ms. Mu Sochua moved through the countryside here. At another village, where cracks were appearing in the sandy embankment, a widow named Pal Nas, 78, said the big dredging boats had scared her.

“I’m afraid that if I speak out, they will come after me,” she said. “In the Khmer Rouge time, they killed all the men. When night comes, I don’t have a man to protect me. It’s more difficult if you are a woman alone.”

Mr. Hun Sen’s party holds power throughout most of rural Cambodia, and Ms. Mu Sochua said that party agents kept an eye on her as she campaigned.

Before she boarded the little boat to cross the river, a man on a motorcycle took photographs of her and her companions with a cellphone, then drove away.

Across the river, a farmer greeted her warmly, climbing a tree to pick ripe guavas for her.

“I voted for you,” he said as he handed her the fruit. “But don’t tell anyone.”

Labels: Election, Mu Sochua, Sam Rainsy Party, SRP

Thursday, February 18, 2010

Cambodia's One-Party Future

1 Comments

The opposition party has lost touch and Chinese patronage is threatening the prospect of multi-party democracy.

By BRENDAN BRADY
Phnom Penh

European Press Photo Agency
Opposition party members watch Sam Rainsy speak from exile.

A Cambodian court on Jan. 27 sentenced the country's main opposition leader, Sam Rainsy, in absentia to two years in jail, in a closed-door trial that opposition politicians and rights groups called blatant political persecution. The eponymous Sam Rainsy Party, the largest opposition party in Cambodia, says their power will not be affected by their leader's absence. He has, after all, fled the country before when facing a similar sentence, which was eventually annulled after negotiations with the ruling Cambodian People's Party and the king.

But when and if Mr. Rainsy returns, the promise of the opposition movement appears bleaker than ever—and his leadership is partly to blame. Many civil society groups that were once moved by Mr. Rainsy's calls for transparent and democratic governance are now critical of his party's current direction: They see the party as having lost touch with its original pro-democracy platform and focusing instead on emotional nationalistic disputes with the ruling party.

"The Sam Rainsy Party has become reactionary and lost their core liberal democratic message," says Ou Virak, president of the Cambodian Center for Human Rights. "They have become quite weak, and their future is in great trouble if they keep waiting for confrontational events to get media attention. They need to return to offering alternative policies." A survey released Feb. 2 by the International Republican Institute speaks to Mr. Virak's point. It found that Cambodians want to hear less bickering between parties and more about proposals for solutions to problems they face.

For ammunition, critics need look no further than the recent publicity stunt in which Mr. Rainsy helped villagers uproot posts demarcating Cambodia's border with Vietnam—the same act that earned his recent conviction. To score political points, the Sam Rainsy Party has revved up its criticism of Vietnam's alleged encroachment on Cambodian land, claiming that Prime Minister Hun Sen and his deputies were "letting" their more powerful neighbor do it. But relatively few Cambodians were actually affected by the demarcation of Vietnamese and Cambodian land in the isolated and scarcely populated border region; whereas thousands of Cambodians were evicted from their homes last year throughout other parts of the country.

The Sam Rainsy Party still has a popular leader in Mr. Rainsy's absence: Secretary General Mu Sochua. She is one of the few Cambodian politicians who can frequently be found walking through villages to talk to people about their problems, and her strident criticisms of the ruling party have earned her admiration in some quarters. But even she may not be able to save the party from decline.

To understand what the diminished strength of the Sam Rainsy Party means for Cambodia, it's important to understand the role the opposition party has played in the country's democratic development. Mr. Rainsy returned from to Cambodia from France in 1992, as the United Nations was beginning its peacekeeping mission in the war-torn country. Although the U.N. poured nearly $2 billion and some 20,000 soldiers and civilian staff into the U.N. Transitional Authority in Cambodia, it left in 1993 with only a fragile peace and political agreement in place between the country's factions.

Mr. Rainsy was at the forefront of the budding pro-democracy movement that inspired many at that time. When Mr. Rainsy started his own party in 1995, he distinguished himself from other politicians by putting democratic principles at the helm of his platform, and he claimed his movement would "mobilize millions of people" who shared the same ideals. Indeed, the Sam Rainsy Party offered a significant domestic voice fighting against graft and urging improved wages for workers and greater rights protections for all.

But now even this limited collective bulwark is breaking down—and not just because Mr. Rainsy is in exile. For the last couple of decades many of the most potent checks and balances against the ruling party have come from the leverage of Western aid donors, who attach stipulations of standards in governance and human rights to the hundreds of millions of dollars in aid money that flows into the country each year. But this equation is changing: With Beijing's patronage of Cambodia's government growing, the influence of Western countries to push for transparency and rights protections is weakening.

This was dramatically displayed last December when Beijing officials were able to lean on their counterparts in Phnom Penh to ensure a group of Uighur asylum seekers were sent back to China. Thanks in part to this phenomenon, the ruling party has been able to solidify its dominance over opposition parties by pushing through a constitutional amendment in 2006 that reduces the electoral majority it needs to stay in power.

Cambodia is beginning to look more and more like its neighbors, which are mostly one-party states. In the 1990s and early 2000s, the country's nascent multi-party democracy was riven by intimidation and violence, but there was space for competing ideas and parties to have a voice. Today, the main opposition party finds itself repeatedly muzzled. As China's influence in Southeast Asia continues to expand, this pattern may only grow stronger.

Mr. Brady is a free-lance journalist based in Southeast Asia.

Labels: Sam Rainsy, Sam Rainsy Party

Thursday, November 26, 2009

Watch: Villagers' grievances can be heard

0 Comments

During the Kathen religious ceremony at the above-mentioned pagoda on October 25, 2009, villagers living along the border with Vietnam complained to Sam Rainsy about the Vietnamese authorities grabbing their rice fields.

Labels: Border, Sam Rainsy, Sam Rainsy Party

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Cambodian opposition MPs stripped of parliamentary immunity

0 Comments

Cambodian opposition MPs stripped of parliamentary immunity

Cambodia's opposition says it's under attack because of what it describes as a new round of politically motivated lawsuits and a vote by the National Assembly which has resulted in two opposition MPs being stripped of their parliamentary immunity.

Mu Sochua, former Cambodian minister of women's affairs, and Ho Vann, a Phnom Penh municipality representative, had their immunity lifted after a single show-of-hands vote by the National Assembly. They both face defamation lawsuits in Cambodia's notoriously corrupt courts.

Presenter: Liam Cochrane
Speaker: Mu Sochua, Cambodian opposition MP

COCHRANE: High profile opposition MP Mu Sochua has been locked in a battle of lawsuits with Cambodia's Prime Minister Hun Sen for some weeks now.

But, now that the National Assembly has voted to remove the Parliamentary immunity from Mu Sochua and her fellow party member Ho Vann, effectively, the gloves are off...

SOCHUA: The procedures where the most undemocratic because we were not allowed a chance to speak at all and there was a vote by raising of hands, lifting immunity of two members of parliament at the same time in one vote.

COCHRANE: Let's deal with them separately, why was your immunity lifted?

SOCHUA: My case is from a lawsuit by the Prime Minister against me for defamation. The Prime Minister pointed very clearly at me when he went to my constituency and talked about a number of parliament, a women from the opposition party and called me by a name that is not acceptable to call me, he called me a hustler. Second he said that I went and grabbed men and thirdly it was related to meetings that I went to and I was not allowed to go in, and he said that I had a very thick skin. And fourth, which is very, very serious is that I incite my constituents and people against the government.

COCHRANE: And can you tell me about the other member of parliament whose immunity was lifted? Who was that and why was the immunity lifted?

SOCHUA: My colleague, Mr Ho Vann is a member of parliament elected in the municipality of Phnom Penh. He made a comment by responding to the media about honorary degrees that were received by some military officials. His comment was that he didn't think that these degrees were valuable, but if they were valuable then the quality of degrees should allow the numbers of the armed forces to help and then to protect the nation.

COCHRANE: Without parliamentary immunity you face the court as an ordinary citizen, what chances do you think you'll have of finding justice at the court?

SOCHUA: The chance of me getting justice is very close to zero.

COCHRANE: Mu Sochua you've said previously that you would rather go to jail rather than pay a fine if you are found guilty of this defamation charge. Are you still feeling that same way?

SOCHUA: Definitely I am very determined to face the court and I will not be surprised if the court finds me guilty. My stance will not change, I am ready, my conscience is clear about wanting justice, wanting a judicial system that can protect citizens of Cambodia. So I am ready, I am preparing to go to jail.

COCHRANE: There are rumours around at the moment that you are about to flee the country or you may have already fled the country. Is there any truth to those rumours?

SOCHUA: I have always been very transparent that I am not fleeing the country. I came back to Cambodia in 1989, I have never gone back to America to live. My country is Cambodia, I said from the very beginning that I will not flee, I will come back to face the courts.

COCHRANE: Mu Sochua, just finally, this is not the first time this sort of thing has happened. In the past opposition leader Sam Rainsy and Cheam Channy and others have had their immunity stripped, and in Cheam Channy's case gone to jail. Do you think this is a political action against you.

SOCHUA: Yes it's a political action against the opposition. Cambodia is walking more than one step backwards, democracy in Cambodia is in real jeopardy. I think the world community cannot ignore this and especially the government of Australia. What is Australia doing when democracy in Cambodia is facing such a serious set of going back to dictatorship?

COCHRANE: A representative from Cambodia's National Assembly was not available for comment on the issue.

Labels: hun sen, immunity, Mu Sochua, Sam Rainsy Party

Saturday, June 20, 2009

SRP WILL NOT REPLACE MU SOCHUA

0 Comments

SRP WILL NOT REPLACE MU SOCHUA

June 20, 2009

While pushing for the lifting of Mu Sochua’s parliamentary immunity, Prime Minister Hun Sen has been suggesting that she be replaced as a National Assembly member at the initiative of the opposition Sam Rainsy Party.

On behalf of the SRP, I can assure the Cambodian people and all Cambodia’s friends that Mu Sochua’s seat at the National Assembly will remain hers until the end of her legal term and that no replacement will be appointed.

Mu Sochua is the victim of an injustice. Hun Sen wants to eliminate her from Cambodia’s political landscape. It is a blatant abuse of power that is only possible with a subservient judiciary and a rubber-stamp parliament.

Replacing Mu Sochua would be like politically burying her alive and complying with Hun Sen’s insane desire.

When, in 2005, Cheam Channy, another SRP National Assembly member, was stripped of his parliamentary immunity and subsequently put in jail following a trumped-up criminal charge, there were also suggestions that he be replaced. But it was clear to us that replacing Cheam Channy would mean that we would accept the injustice done to him, let our colleague down, contribute to his political elimination and compound a personal tragedy. We proudly accepted to temporarily and practically lose a seat, a voice and a vote at the National Assembly.

We were right to stick to our principles. In 2006, Cheam Channy was released from prison, his immunity restored, and he recovered his seat at the National Assembly.

We are confident that adopting a similar position in the case of Mu Socha now is the right thing to do.

The same observations apply to the case of countless SRP-affiliated elected commune councilors, including commune chiefs, who have been arrested and sent to jail for politically-motivated charges. For instance, Mu Sochua’s case cannot be dissociated from the case of Tuot Saron, the SRP-affiliated elected chief of Pong Ro commune in Kampong Thom province’s Barai district. Tuot Saron is currently and unjustly in jail. But he will not be replaced. We will do all we can to help free him and to re-install him as commune chief as we are fighting to render justice to Mu Sochua.

Sam Rainsy
Member of Parliament
SRP President

Labels: Hu Sen, Mu Sochua, Sam Rainsy, Sam Rainsy Party

Friday, February 27, 2009

Sam Rainsy Lost his Parliamentary Immunity

0 Comments

Sam Rainsy Lost his Parliamentary Immunity

26 Feb 2009
By Leang Delux (Cambodge Soir Hebdo )

He challenges the decision of the Standing Committee of the National Assembly to lift his parliamentary immunity, and plans to write to the king asking him to pardon.

The Standing Committee of the National Assembly has shown a remarkable speed in deciding, Thursday 26 February, to lift the parliamentary immunity of Sam Rainsy, at the request of the Minister of Justice, Hang Vong Ratana. The leader of the opposition becomes a citizen like any other, although it has been condemned by the National Electoral Committee, to pay a fine of 10 million riels (U.S. $ 2 400), for having criticized the leaders of the PPC, during the legislative July 2008.

Chheang Vun, PPC member, member of the Standing Committee of the National Assembly and Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, confirmed that decision. "Under the Constitution, during the vacancy of the National Assembly, the Standing Committee can make that decision and inform the House plenary session," he said to "Cambodge Soir Hebdo." However, Article 80 of the Constitution provides an additional step: "The decision of the Standing Committee of the National Assembly must be submitted at the next plenary session for adoption by a majority of two thirds of its members. "

The Standing Committee plans to write to the Minister of Justice informing him of its decision to lift the immunity of Sam Rainsy.

Meanwhile, the leader of the opposition denies: "I have not lost my immunity because the Assembly has not yet decided in plenary session, the Standing Committee has no right to take this decision. "

Sam Rainsy criticized the process: "I take a while because I called the Constitutional Council to examine whether decisions condemning me are in accordance with the Constitution," he says.
The President of the PSR account out of this impasse by a spin: "I will write to the king gracie for me and I will pay 10 million riels to the Kanta Bopha Hospital. "

In 2005, Sam Rainsy had already lost his parliamentary immunity after defaming Norodom Ranariddh

Labels: Cambodia Parliament, Sam Rainsy, Sam Rainsy Party

Saturday, January 17, 2009

alliance between the Sam Rainsy Party (SRP) and the Human Rights Party (HRP)

1 Comments

The idea of an alliance between the Sam Rainsy Party (SRP) and the Human Rights Party (HRP) in Cambodia slowly but surely reached the successful shores of completion. The presidents of both parties, Sam Rainsy and Kem Sokha, signed on Thursday January 15th a common declaration officially establishing the “Democratic Movement for Change”, sealed with a frenetic handshake and a mutual smile. In Kem Sokha's own words, this “historic” moment was welcomed with profuse applause by elected representatives and campaigners from both opposition political formations gathered for the occasion at the SRP headquarters. From now on, the candidates will stand for election under one name but insisted their Movement was in no way the merging of their respective parties.

The idea of a Movement had been ripening for a while
When they registered their formations at the Cambodian National Election Committee (NEC) before the July 2008 legislative elections, the issue was raised. They eventually decided to stand for election as two different parties. After the July 27th 2008 elections, which confirmed the domination of Prime Minister Hun Sen's Cambodian People's Party (CPP) on the Cambodian political scene, SRP and HRP leaders, together with representatives of the FUNCINPEC and Norodom Ranariddh Party (NRP), presented a united front in their protest against the election results. A long crusade of denunciation ensued, but Sam Rainsy and Kem Sokha soon found themselves alone in the equation and battling side by side for their common cause.

Since then, they often aligned themselves with each other's ideas without however setting up any official rapprochement between their parties. On December 18th, Kem Sokha, back from a trip to North America, expressed his wish for the creation of the alliance they had mentioned many times before. The principle of the alliance seemed more or less established since on September 17th 2008, both parties had set up a technical committee in charge of laying the foundations for their union, composed of representatives from both formations.

Initiating change with a view to change society
The new “Democratic Movement for Change”, as its name suggests, aims at gathering “true democratic forces” with the continuous goal of operating “change in the Cambodian society”, Kem Sokha explained in an introduction to the press conference called for the occasion. “The creation of this Movement will allow citizens to make their choice more easily in future elections, and it is a response to a request made by our fellow-citizens”, he added.

Sam Rainsy, answering a question formulated by Mam Sonando, director of Radio Beehive (FM 105) who was in the audience among other journalists, publicly thanked him for having encouraged, very early, both parties to unite. To Mam Sonando's question on whether the formations had thought over the conditions of their alliance to prevent a potential separation in the future, the SRP president replied that discussions on that subject had started the very day after the legislative elections. “After the elections, we both made the same observation: time had come to change the direction of the country, and besides it is currently a trend in democratic countries. As a consequence we will elaborate a joint list to stand for the 2012 communal elections and the next legislative elections in 2013. I am convinced that other political formations will join our alliance”, he said, hopeful.

SRP / HRP? Who will hold the reins?
But what about the allocation of tasks and the roles of each within the Movement? The crowd of journalists was dying to receive an answer, but Sam Rainsy shrugged it off, insisting that “what matters is change”. “Cambodia and the Khmer people need change. And for democratic change to happen, the people must have a new choice!”, he maintained.

Neither of them set conditions on the way responsibilities will be allocated. “We do not need to do that. We will not compete, and rivalries between our parties will not matter much. If any competition there is, it will then be with another party. The goal is to have more influence than that party... [...] In a word, anyone will be entitled to be a candidate to the position of Prime Minister or president of the Movement, as long as these persons respect the principles of the Movement”, Sam Rainsy detailed.

Kem Sokha agreed with his political partner: “The problem is not there. What we want is to serve the interest of the nation and Khmer citizens. If we need power, it is democratic power we are talking about! Our Movement has a solid foundation and a position which is far from being inconsistent. We are not affiliated to any other Cambodian political party and we do not depend on any foreign group. [...] We will not argue about power, but we will act on behalf of the Democratic Movement for Change, not on behalf of the SRP or the HRP.”

“Should disagreements arise, this will not mean that we have become enemies. Unity will prevail, it is a principle!”, Kem Sokha asserted. As for Sam Rainsy, no concern to be raised on that matter either. He gave as an example the case of the United States: “Before being elected president, Barack Obama was Hillary Clinton's rival. But after the elections, he offered her the position of Secretary of State [the equivalent of a Minister of Foreign Affairs] and even kept the Minister of Defence from G. W. Bush's government!”

Perspectives on the long run
Sam Rainsy claimed he believed in the longevity of their Movement, “which must hold on at least until we meet our goal: achieving democratic change”. In a merely concealed reference to difficulties encountered by the FUNCINPEC and its alliances with the CPP, he promised that the Democratic Movement for Change would not be weakened by petty internal quarrels “like other parties” suffered in 1998 and 2003. He did not fail to have a dig at “some” who chose to rally to the ruling party in exchange for good job positions and money.

The SRP and the HRP will continue discussing issues to detail in depth the new structure of the alliance. Sam Rainsy already foresees good results in the next election polls since “as it was the case in the United States, people always need change”. As a reminder, the SRP won 26 seats in the National Assembly and the HRP, 3, in the last legislative elections, out of a total of 123 MP seats. Kem Sokha, for his part, also nourishes “great hopes” for the next polls. “Here, we have already gathered strength and responded to a wish expressed by many citizens. Now, we still have to fight for free and fair elections”, he declared, before calling SRP and HRP activists to “work hand in hand as from today”.

Besides, to those who might question the legality of their alliance, both leaders said their action was part of a “legal, peaceful and democratic frame”. They called intellectuals in the country, Khmer citizens from Cambodia and abroad and other campaigners from other parties potentially tempted to take part in the adventure, to join the new alliance, because “the time has come to speak with one voice”.

Labels: HRP, Kem Sokha, Sam Rainsy, Sam Rainsy Party

Wednesday, August 13, 2008

Election Results Adjusted for Fraud Give Fewer Seats to CPP

3 Comments

Sam Rainsy's letter as published in The Cambodia Daily, August 12, 2008

Election Results Adjusted for Fraud Give Fewer Seats to CPP

In "Opposition Parties Reiterate National Assembly Boycott Threat" (August 9-10, page 3), you mentioned figures about the election results adjusted by SRP for irregularities.

NEC's provisional figures published on August 9, 2008, reiterated that the CPP won 3.49 million votes and 90 seats versus 2.05 million votes and 31 seats for the combined opposition: SRP, Human Rights Party and Norodom Ranariddh Party.

''The true results of the election" that I presented -- 77 seats for the CCP, 35 for the SRP, seven for the HRP and two each for Funcinpec and the NRP -- were based on taking back from the CCP votes that were fraudulently collected after CPP commune chiefs had issued forged 1018 registration forms to its supporters. Another adjustment was made taking into account the fact that a significant portion of the electorate identified as non-CPP supporters, had been disenfranchised.

We have made our calculations based on two hypotheses.

1- Our minimum hypothesis is based on the assumption that:

a) An average of 10 forged 1018 forms were given out in the vicinity of each of the 15,254 polling stations, making a total of 152,540 forged forms and inflating the CPP votes by the same amount.

b) An average of 50 non-CPP supporters were disenfranchised at each polling station, meaning that a total of 762,700 voters nationwide were prevented from voting for non-CPP parties. Many independent observers acknowledge that up to 10 percent of the 8.1-million-strong electorate were prevented from voting.

2- Our maximum hypothesis is based on the assumption that:

a) An average of 65 forged 1018 forms were given out in the vicinity of each polling stations, making a total of 991,510 forged forms and inflating the CPP votes by the same amount (see July 29 SRP statement "What election observers did not see in a rigged election"). We now have proof that the 1018 forms were methodically and systematically issued by the CPP local authorities nationwide. This maneuver was conducted on an unprecedented scale.

b) An average of 65 non-CPP supporters were disenfranchised at each polling station, meaning that a total of 991,510 voters nationwide were prevented from voting for non-CPP parties (see the above-mentioned SRP statement). This figure is to be compared with the 2.1 million registered voters who did not or could not vote at the July 27 poll. Based on the much smaller number of people (less than one million) who did not vote at the previous national elections, we can infer that half of the above 2.1 million people wanted to vote but could not because they were disenfranchised. This led to the lowest voter turnout for a national election since the poll organized by the United Nations in 1993. The three opposition parties are now collecting petitions throughout the country from those voters who deplored the loss of their voting rights.

For each of the two hypotheses, we have revised the election results by:

a) Taking back from the CPP votes associated with forged 1018 forms.

b) Increasing, for the main non-CPP parties (SRP, HRP, NRP, Funcinpec), the number of their votes by the number of disenfranchised voters, using an allocation key that reflects the actual breakdown of non-CPP votes based on figures published by the NEC.

The minimum hypothesis shows the following results:

- CPP: 3.34 million votes; 78 seats

- SRP: 1.75 million votes; 34 seats

- HRP: 0.52 million votes; 7 seats

- NRP: 0.45 million votes; 2 seats

- Funcinpec: 0.40 million votes; 2 seats.

Total CPP + Funcinpec: 3.74 million votes; 80 seats

Total SRP + HRP + NRP: 2.72 million votes; 43 seats

The maximum hypothesis shows the following results:

- CPP: 2.50 million votes; 67 seats

- SRP: 1.87 million votes; 41 seats

- HRP: 0.56 million votes; 7 seats

- NRP: 0.48 million votes; 3 seats

- Funcinpec: 0.43 million votes; 5 seats.

Total CPP + Funcinpec: 2.93 million votes; 72 seats

Total SRP + HRP + NRP: 2.91 million votes; 51 seats

Furthermore, CPP lawmaker Cheam Yeap's statement about the "three opposition parties" having "representatives" in the National Election Committee is simply not true.

In all cases NEC members had to resign from their original parties; therefore, to say that NEC has political party members as its representatives is a mistake. In any case, no NEC members came from NRP and HRP and only two members were originally from SRP, versus five from CPP and two from Funcinpec, making a total of nine.

What's more, the representatives originally from SRP had actually protested in writing against NEC's plan to unfairly delete voters' names, but they were overruled, which is hardly surprising given they were by far in the minority.

Finally, Cheam Yeap advocated that the NEC's proceedings were observed for irregularities at all levels by international observers and party representatives. In this connection, what does this CPP official think about the assessment by the EU Election Observation Mission that the Cambodian elections of 2008 "fell short of key international standards"?

Sam Rainsy
SRP President

Labels: CPP, Election, hun sen, Sam Rainsy, Sam Rainsy Party

LAST LEG OF ELECTION PROCESS MAKES FAÇADE OF DEMOCRACY COLLAPSE

1 Comments

LAST LEG OF ELECTION PROCESS MAKES FAÇADE OF DEMOCRACY COLLAPSE

The SRP would like to draw the attention of the international community in general and the election observers in particular to the on-going treatment of the election complaints which is an integral part of the election process that international observers are supposed to monitor. The indication is that NEC, which acts as its own judge, is now undertaking the resolution of the complaints in a secretive and rushed way in order to do away with the whole issue as quickly as possible. SRP complaints are specifically processed in this way.

I- Concerning the deletion of names from the voter lists, we already have submitted lists of thousands of citizens who have complained about the loss of their voting rights. Petitions will shortly be available containing tens of thousands of more names from all over the country.

II- Concerning the forged 1018 forms, the SRP has lodged criminal complaints at the court alongside the election complaints lodged at NEC. We have provided a number of these forged 1018 forms to NEC. But we had to blind-fold the photos to preserve the security of the bearers. We can certify that the names on the forged 1018 forms are not real names. We have already shown those forged 1018 forms with the ID cards showing real names to international observers. http://tinyurl.com/5zb97k

In all cases however, the NEC should be able to know the real ID of the bearers as they delegated the power to issue 1018 forms to all commune chiefs. Different cases are possible:

1) If the NEC says that they are not able to know the real identities of the bearers, this means that they have been voluntarily negligent by giving blind power to the CPP commune chiefs as part of a plot to inflate votes for the CPP.

2) If the NEC claims that the name of the bearers reflect their real identities, we can prove the contrary by showing the bearers' ID cards.

3) If the NEC confesses that the names of the bearers are not real names, this is obvious evidence of fraud.

We have numerous indications that the forged 1018 forms were systematically and methodically issued nation-wide in a very organized manner on a very large scale, allowing hundreds of thousands of illegitimate voters to seriously affect the results of the election:

1) We have seized a number of pre-stamped and pre-signed empty 1018 forms. http://tinyurl.com/5gtsz6

2) We have in our possession photos of one venue where the forged 1018 forms were issued in a very organized way: the voter list was on one side of the commune chief, on the other side was a whole pile of 1018 forms ready to be issued. http://tinyurl.com/5nqcx4

3) We have the recorded confession of a commune clerk who says that over 200 forged 1018 forms were issued in his commune. http://tinyurl.com/5gbkoq

4) Each person who received a forged 1018 form can testify that they were never alone: in the queue there were always four or five people ahead of them and the same number behind them receiving those forms. This shows that the recipients of the forged 1018 forms were certainly not isolated cases.

SRP Members of Parliament

Last minute news (8.30 p.m.): we have just learnt that NEC has rejected all our complaints, with no exception, regardless of all the evidence that we provided.

Labels: Election, Sam Rainsy Party

Friday, August 01, 2008

Cambodia’s Election Stability, Sort of

2 Comments

Cambodia’s Election Stability, Sort of

Jul 31st 2008 | PHNOM PENH (The Economist)

WHETHER Cambodia’s general election on July 27th was a success or a travesty depends on what you compare it with. A team of European Union observers said it fell well below international democratic standards. Tens of thousands of opposition supporters were excluded from the electoral register. There was widespread impersonation of voters, plus the usual vote-buying and glaring pro-government bias by broadcasters.

However, the election was also the least violent since the United Nations-sponsored one in 1993 that marked the end of decades of civil war. The victory of the Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) and its leader, Hun Sen, means Cambodia is set for a further five years of corrupt and inept government but also, probably, of continued stability and rising prosperity.

Preliminary results suggest the CPP won around 90 seats (up from 73) in the 123-seat national assembly. The main opposition leader, Sam Rainsy, believes his party won around 27, up from 24 last time. The big losers were Cambodia’s once-powerful royalists. Divided and in disarray, the main royalist party, Funcinpec, shrank from 26 to perhaps just two seats; a splinter named after the exiled Prince Norodom Ranariddh did no better.

Though the Sam Rainsy Party (SRP) wants the world to refuse to recognise the outcome, diplomats in Phnom Penh, the capital, believe the CPP has genuinely gained popularity thanks to Cambodia’s strong growth—10.3% last year, producing a boom in fancy office blocks and rural land prices. Mr Hun Sen also won some votes from his tough stance in an armed confrontation with Thailand over a patch of land near the ancient Preah Vihear temple, which a UN committee recently put on its “world heritage” list. The EU’s observers said that given the scale of the ruling party’s victory electoral fiddles seemed unlikely to have altered the outcome.

Cambodia’s election Stability, sort of

Jul 31st 2008 | PHNOM PENH

Until fairly recently Mr Hun Sen’s critics had a tendency to die violent deaths. As he has felt surer of his position, politics has become more peaceful. Patronage and pilfering are rife and the justice system almost non-existent. But foreign donors fill many of the gaps—in particular, building lots of roads and other infrastructure. Roderick Brazier of the Asia Foundation, a think-tank, says the devolution of money and powers to local communes seems to be improving ordinary people’s lives, and the appearance of a few capable technocrats in central government may help more.

Tired and angry after the election, Mr Sam Rainsy remains defiant. The collapse of the royalist movement, he says, means that now, “we are the only serious alternative. It makes the political game clearer.” He argues that the SRP, hitherto an urban party, is gaining support in the countryside. But if he were to present a serious challenge, would Mr Hun Sen revert to his old brutal ways?

Labels: Election, hun sen, Sam Rainsy Party

Thursday, July 31, 2008

Cambodia's Ruling Party Forms Coalition, But Says Royals Are Out

3 Comments

Cambodia's Ruling Party Forms Coalition, But Says Royals Are Out

Jul 30, 2008, 18:10 GMT

Asia-Pacific News

Phnom Penh - Cambodia's ruling Cambodian People's Party (CPP) has ordered the leader of its coalition partner, the royalist Funcinpec Party, to stand down, but will retain the coalition structure, government spokesman Khieu Kanharith said Wednesday.

He said the CPP would form a coalition after Sunday's landslide victory, which sees the CPP take at least 90 of 123 seats - 64 more than it's nearest rival, the Sam Rainsy Party (SRP).

Funcinpec plummeted from 26 seats to just two on latest preliminary estimates, but despite the CPP dominance, axing a coalition which has existed since the first democratic elections in 1993 would potentially cause deep political instability.

'Opposition figures who want to join the government have to do so Wednesday or lose out, and we know many do,' Kanharith said. 'The CPP also orders that current Funcinpec leader Keo Puth Rasmei and his wife Princess Arun Rasmei resign and Nek Bhun Chhay take over.'

Bhun Chhay, an army general with the reputation of being a military bulldog, a love of former king Norodom Sihanouk but no royal blood, will be the first non-royal leader of Funcinpec.

After UN-organized elections in 1993, current Prime Minister Hun Sen forced the victorious Funcinpec into forming a coalition with him, but the UN then dictated that half the police force and army should be Funcinpec, as well as numerous government positions.

The CPP retains that coalition to avoid instability, and because it says it is incompatible with the opposition SRP, which snared at least 26 seats at Sunday's polls and is the second most popular party in the country. Funcinpec was expected to comply.

Labels: Election, hun sen, Royals, Sam Rainsy Party

Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Flawed System Sullies Cambodia's Election

0 Comments

Flawed System Sullies Cambodia's Election

By Lao Mong Hay
Column: Rule by Fear

Hong Kong, China (UPI Asia Online) — Cambodia held a general election on Sunday, and while the National Election Committee was still gathering the election returns, Prime Minister Hun Sen’s ruling Cambodian People’s Party already announced it had won 91 out of 123 seats, 18 seats more than in the last election and way ahead of its nearest rival, the Sam Rainsy Party, which had secured 26 seats.

The Sam Rainsy Party and three other parties that also won seats, according to the same announcement, quickly joined forces on Monday to denounce the results, charging that they had been “manipulated and rigged” by the ruling party. They cited “illegal and fraudulent practices” relating to “deletion of countless legitimate voters' names and artificial increase” in votes for the ruling party due to “illegitimate voters.”

The ruling party’s victory and the denouncement of it by the four non-ruling parties have come as no surprise. In fact this victory had been widely predicted even months before the polls. Some have cited the economic growth achieved over recent years by the ruling party and the electorate’s unity behind it in the face of Thailand’s recent encroachment on Cambodia as the main factors contributing to the win.

In fact, the ruling party’s victory should be attributed to the system of government it put in place when it was a full-fledged communist party in the 1980s. To this system was added a democratic veneer in 1993 when the country theoretically embraced parliamentary democracy, but it has remained basically intact and in firm control. The ruling party has utilized this system to get itself re-elected over and over since its defeat in the U.N.-organized election in 1993.

The ruling party has controlled all the state apparatus – including the National Election Committee, the judiciary, security forces, civil service and educational institutions – since the communist days. It has manned all important posts with its members, so that the state apparatus and the party apparatus are but one.

Such fusion can be seen in the proximity of the offices of the party, police stations and administrative offices, whose respective buildings are located next to one another in many provinces, districts and communities. Almost all village chiefs and heads of groups in villages are also members of the ruling party. All party cadres from top to bottom enjoy high social status, impunity and material benefits gained through illicit means.

Several months before the election, the ruling party was able to successfully tempt with such privileges thousands of members of the opposition parties, including some senior members of the opposition Sam Rainsy Party, to defect to it. The ruling party has proved very successful in enrolling members, so much so that just before this election one of its senior members claimed that his party had nearly 5 million members, and this out of just over 8 million voters in the country.

Through this extensive apparatus, the ruling party has been able to maintain firm control of the population. Members of each household must be registered in a police-issued family book and a residence book, and grassroots party officials must know each household and its members’ activities. Local party cadres who are also local officials can mobilize and induce the population to support the ruling party. They can also deny rival parties and even civil society organizations access to the population without prior permission. They can prevent, using force if need be, public meetings and training seminars organized by those parties and civil society organizations.

The ruling party has had a virtual monopoly and control of all the media, especially radio and television, on which the overwhelming majority of people depend for news and other information. It has been making use of this media year in year out, while its rival parties are deprived of it. Some press with limited circulation is freer, but the majority of newspapers are run by members or supporters of the ruling party, and it is rare that commercial companies dare put advertisements in newspapers known to be affiliated to any rival party.

The ruling party has been able to secure overwhelming resources for elections when it is in command of state resources and has a lot of support from private companies that seek favors for their business. Thanks to all these resources it has been able to buy votes though building social projects and giving hand-outs during election campaigns, and to fund other election expenses.

The ruling party has enjoyed all these privileges since there is no anti-corruption mechanism in place to take action against it. Furthermore, the National Election Committee also placed under its control has imposed no limit on donations to political parties and their expenses in elections campaigns. Nor has it verified and made transparent the accounts of all political parties. This system only favors the ruling party.

Last but not least, the police and courts of law which the ruling party also controls have acted more promptly and more diligently in criminal cases in which members of the ruling party are victims and members of opposition parties are suspected offenders than vice versa. Some months prior to the election, they showed only apathy toward reported threats and intimidation of activists of non-ruling parties, destruction of their signboards, and even the killing of some of them.

The system of government and social control which the ruling party has put in place and firmly controls leaves little room for free and fair competition among political parties, or for free choice among the electorate. This largely contributed to the outcome of the election, if it had not already determined it prior to the polling day. It also contributed to producing the irregularities which the four parties have used to claim that that election was manipulated and rigged by the ruling party.

(Lao Mong Hay is a senior researcher at the Asian Human Rights Commission in Hong Kong. He was previously director of the Khmer Institute of Democracy in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, and a visiting professor at the University of Toronto in 2003. In 1997, he received an award from Human Rights Watch and the Nansen Medal in 2000 from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.)

Labels: CPP, Election, hun sen, Sam Rainsy Party

CAMBODIA: Polls Were Fair - EU Observers

0 Comments

CAMBODIA: Polls Were Fair - EU Observers

By Andrew Nette

PHNOM PENH, Jul 30 (IPS) - An attempt by Cambodia’s four main opposition parties to reject the result of national elections, in which the ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) was returned in a landslide, has met with little support from local and international organisations monitoring the poll.

In a short statement released earlier this week, the four political parties called "on the public opinion and the international community not to recognise the results of the July 27, 2008 elections which were manipulated and rigged by the ruling CPP.''

Opposition parties argue the extent of CPP’s win reflects a campaign of intimidation, vote buying and dirty tricks orchestrated by the ruling party in the lead-up to the election.

They maintain CPP’s vote was further inflated on polling day by the deletion of many legitimate names from the voting list and the issuing of fraudulent ‘1018’ forms by local authorities controlled by CPP.

These forms are official documentation that voters lacking proper identification can submit to be able to vote. It is illegal under Cambodian election law for them to be handed out on polling day.

However, opposition calls of foul play have received little support from local and international election monitors, including a 130-member European Union election observation mission, in Cambodia since mid-June.

"I would say that on the basis of the provisional results published so far, CPP very clearly has a large majority and therefore any irregularities would have to be of a very large scale to invalidate the result," Martin Callanan, chief observer for the EU mission told the media in Phnom Penh on Tuesday.

"While it is fair to say we have some evidence of irregularities these are not of such significant scale," he said.

Although an official seat count has yet to be released, Cambodia’s main poll monitor, the Committee for Free and Fair Elections (COMFREL), has estimated CPP won approximately 57 percent in the weekend’s vote, giving it roughly 90 seats in the 123-member National Assembly.

This is broadly in sync with CPP’s own projections released to the media earlier this week.

In is also in line with the expectations of local and international commentators who were predicting the ruling party would win big in last Sunday’s election.

According to COMFREL, the next largest party, the Sam Rainsy Party (SRP), secured 21 percent of the vote. The Norodom Ranarridh Party, Funcinpec and the Human Rights Party hovered under five percent each.

While describing the general atmosphere in the lead-up to the poll as an improvement on previous national elections, Callanan stressed it still "fell short of a number of key international standards for democratic elections.’’

Despite improvements in transparency, he said the EU mission noted a lack of confidence in the impartiality of election administration among stakeholders, and that all aspects of the election process are dominated by the ruling CPP.

Within hours of the close of polls on Sunday, opposition parties had raised what they believed where serious concerns about the validity of the process.

Approximately 200 disgruntled voters who found themselves struck off the voter list had gathered throughout the day in the compound of the SRP headquarters in Phnom Penh.

A SRP spokesperson said these irregularities including large numbers of people being deleted from the voter list and forged 1018 forms issued to pro-ruling party voters not on the voter roll, many of whom she said were "foreigners, not Cambodian nationals.’’

Speaking to IPS on election night, SRP’s leader Sam Rainsy claimed that the names of at least 200,000 eligible voters had been deleted from the rolls in Phnom Penh alone.

SRP has since handed out fliers on the streets of the capital claiming nearly a million people across the country were disenfranchised in Sunday’s vote although no hard evidence has been proffered to support this claim.

"I am aware of the comments of the opposition parties rejecting the results but I would encourage the parties to first use the complaint process established by NEC," Callanan said Tuesday.

Officials at the National Election Committee (NEC), the body responsible for overseeing the country’s elections, have said the deadline for complaints about the voter list had long passed and no action would be taken on the matter.

It is unclear what tactics the four opposition parties will now adopt to push their cause, although SRP has called a rally in Phnom Penh Wednesday to protest the result.

"The number of names removed on the weekend was no surprise to us because this is what we found in our audit," said Puthea Hang, Executive Director of Neutral and Impartial Committee for Free and Fair Elections in Cambodia (NICFEC).

NICFEC is one of several organisations involved in a June 2008 audit of the voter list, which found approximately 590,000 names had been incorrectly removed from list or 0.7 percent of the total electoral roll.

"Every vote is important," said Tom Andrews, a senior advisor to the National Democratic Institute, which worked with NICFEC on the audit and on training observers placed in 378 of the country’s 1,245 polling stations.

"But we need to base our conclusion on the evidence we have seen in the audit and our observers did not show what has been suggested by the opposition,’’ Andrews said. "It showed that people had been taken from the list but that the number was small and there was no clear pattern."

NGOs maintain they alerted NEC months ago about these mistaken deletions but the election body refused to restore the names.

"It is regretful that NEC did not take the opportunity to reinstate those names when they had the chance," said Callanan.

While Callanan agreed the issuing of 1018 forms on polling day was "in clear contravention of the election law," EU observers had only "found a relatively small number of examples" of these being issued.

Most groups monitoring the poll agree the elections were an improvement on the last poll in 2003.

All groups welcomed the decrease in violence compared to previous polls.

There is also general agreement that the technical aspects of the country’s electoral process, including the ballot and counting, are steadily improving.

"NEC proved its ability to organise technically good elections with the planning and execution of the recruitment and training of election staff and other important electoral activities being timely and well conducted," the EU mission said in its preliminary statement released Tuesday.

These improvements aside, monitoring groups say a long list of problems stand in the way of genuinely fair elections.

Many of these have less to do with what happens on polling day or even in the official four-week campaign, than they are the result of decades of instability and the dominant role played by CPP in the country’s political life since 1979, when neighbouring Vietnamese installed them after overthrowing the Khmer Rouge.

CPP almost completely dominates the electronic media, particularly TV, by far the most important source of information for Cambodians.

The EU statement said this situation is "to the detriment of the other parties to a degree which was not consistent with international standards of free and fair access to the media," the EU statement said.

On Jul. 10, NEC issued a warning to 13 television stations for broadcasting biased coverage of the elections. Ten of these were dominated by pro-CPP coverage, according to NEC.

"Not only do people have a right to vote but they have a right to an informed choice," said Andrews. "CPP domination of the media makes this very difficult."

The 2003 campaign also saw a widespread increase in the use of state resources by CPP during the campaign period, including the use of government vehicles and campaigning by government and military staff.

Other problems included widespread vote buying and the interference of village chiefs, the overwhelming majority of which are pro-CPP, in NEC’s voter education activities.

"I say take it as a whole, before the election and after balloting," said Andrews. "I think this (election) was a step forward on the longer road to a more vibrant and healthy democracy. But there are several steps more that need to be taken."

(END/2008)

Labels: CPP, Election, Sam Rainsy Party

EU Criticises Cambodia Election

0 Comments

A gardener works on the landscape in the front of the Cambodian People's Party (CPP) headquarters in Phnom Penh. Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen took nearly 60 percent of the vote in weekend polls, election officials said, but the opposition rejected his win and demanded a new balloting. (AFP/Pornchai Kittiwongsakul)

EU Criticises Cambodia Election

Monitors from the European Union Say Cambodia's Recent General Election Fell Short of International Standards.

By Guy Delauney
Tuesday, 29 July 2008 (BBC News, Phnom Penh)

They said the governing party dominated the media and the National Election Committee (NEC), and tens of thousands of people were disenfranchised.

But they also praised the smooth running of what was described as a "technically good" election.

The EU observers were among 17,000 local and international monitors who observed the election.

While their findings were a mixed bag, there was certainly more criticism than praise.

The key issue was impartiality and the role of the governing Cambodian People's Party (CPP).

Large majority

The EU team said the CPP had made "consistent and widespread" use of state resources for its own campaigning efforts.

The party dominated media coverage to an unacceptable degree, and the presence of officials connected to the CPP on the NEC compromised that institution's independence.

The monitors said the NEC had disenfranchised 50,000 registered voters by allowing their names to be removed from the electoral roll.

But the EU's chief observer, Martin Callanan, said that had not affected the result of the election.

"Under the provisional results that have been published, the CPP clearly has a very large majority," he said.

"Therefore any irregularities which were proved would have to be on a very large scale in order to invalidate that result.''

The opposition parties beg to differ.

Four of them have rejected the provisional results, which give the CPP an overall majority.

They claim that hundreds of thousands of their supporters were unable to vote and that similar numbers of ineligible people were allowed to cast ballots.

Labels: CPP, Election, hun sen, Sam Rainsy Party

Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Four Main Parties Reject 'Sham' Election

0 Comments

(L-R) Sam Rainsy Party (SRP) leader Sam Rainsy, Human Rights Party leader Khem Sokha, member of royalist FUNCINPEC Prince Sisowath Sirirath and member of Norodom Ranariddh Party Muth Chantha hold hands during a news conference, as they reject election results saying it was manipulated by the ruling Cambodian People's Party (CCP) at SRP headquarters in Phnom Penh July 28, 2008. CCP claimed a landslide victory on Monday in an election bestowing another five years in power on ex-Khmer Rouge guerrilla Hun Sen, prime minister for the past 23 years. REUTERS/Chor Sokunthea (CAMBODIA)

Four Main Parties Reject 'Sham' Election

By Heng Reaksmey

28 July 2008 (VOA Khmer )

Representatives from four non-ruling parties gathered at opposition headquarters Monday to reject Sunday's national election as "a sham," after the ruling Cambodian People's Party appeared to have won enough seats to form a single-party government.

Top officials of the Sam Rainsy, Human Rights, Norodom Ranariddh and Funcinpec parties signed a letter calling on "Cambodian public opinion and the international community not to recognize the results of the July 27, 2008, elections, which were manipulated and rigged by the ruling Cambodian People's Party."

There have not been five separate parties elected to the National Assembly since the 1993 Untac elections, and the joining together of four against one is unprecedented.

In 1998, the Sam Rainsy and Funcinpec parties joined together to protest election results in the wake of the 1997 coup.

That three-month crisis of government led to mass demonstrations in the capital and a brutal crackdown by government forces, where scores of demonstrators were disappeared and presumed killed.

In 2003, the government was deadlocked for 11 months, due to an alliance between Funcinpec and SRP that prevented a coalition government.

"We have already strengthened together to deny the results of the election, and also for the voters," opposition leader Sam Rainsy told a large crowd gathered at his headquarters Monday afternoon. "We need to revote across Cambodia."

"We appeal to the EU and the international community to deny the results, because there are so many irregularities during the election," Human Rights Party Presdient Kem Sokha told the same cheering crowd.

The parties "hope in the future will have an alliance together" and have the same goals, he said.

The main point for the alliance would be to send a message to the people "who love justice" to come to work together.

The four parties condemned "illegal and fraudulent practices" in Sunday's polls, including "deletion of countless legitimate voters' names and [an] artificial increase in the CPP voters to cast their ballots for the CPP."

The parties also condemned "the tricks and maneuvers of the National Election Committee, which is only a tool for the CPP to organize a sham election and present a façade of democracy."

"I'm not surprised about this information," NEC Chairman Im Sousdey told reporters Monday. "We always see after the election Cambodian political parties doing the same thing."

Government spokesman Khieu Kanharith said Monday unofficial results now showed the CPP with 90 seats, followed by the Sam Rainsy Party with 26, Human Rights Party with three, Norodom Ranariddh with two, and Funcinpec with two.

Khieu Thai Sarakmony, a 57-year-old from Phnom Penh who joined the crowd at SRP headquarters Monday, said he supported the cooperation of the four parties for the people.

"But it should have been earlier," he said, "before the election."

Labels: CPP, Election, Sam Rainsy, Sam Rainsy Party

Monday, July 28, 2008

Four Major Political Parties Reject Election Results

4 Comments

Click on above image to view larger

Four Major Political Parties Reject Election Results

28 July 2008

The undersigned political parties call on the Cambodian public opinion and the international community not to recognize the results of the July 27, 2008 elections which were manipulated and rigged by the ruling Cambodian People's Party (CPP).

The main illegal and fraudulent practices are related to deletion of countless legitimate voters' names and artificial increase in the CPP votes associated with 1018 forms issued by CPP-controlled authorities to illegitimate voters to cast their ballots for the CPP.

We call on the public opinion to condemn the tricks and maneuvers of the National Election Committee which is only a tool for the CPP to organize a sham election and present a façade of democracy.

For FUNCINPEC PARTY
SISOWATH SIRIRATH

For HUMAN RIGHTS PARTY
KEM SOKHA

For NORODOM RANARIDDH PARTY
MUTH CHANTHA

For SAM RAINSY PARTY
SAM RAINSY

For additional information:

FUNCINPEC 012 888 320
HRP 012 400 026
NRP 012 937 392
SRP 092 888 002

Labels: Election, Funcinpec, Sam Rainsy, Sam Rainsy Party

Sunday, July 27, 2008

SRP has collected countless 1018 Forms fraudulently issued by the CPP for illegitimate voters.

0 Comments

SRP has collected countless 1018 Forms fraudulently issued by the CPP for illegitimate voters (Click on image to view larger)

Labels: Election, Sam Rainsy Party

Facts and Figures on Cambodia's Parliamentary Elections

0 Comments

Facts and Figures on Cambodia's Parliamentary Elections

July 27, 2008 (AP)

THE SYSTEM: Bicameral parliament consisting of the National Assembly, or lower house, and the Senate, the upper house. The National Assembly is elected once every five years.
The National Assembly has 123 seats. Its function is to approve laws and appoint a new government. The king, who is the head of state, signs off on all laws adopted by Parliament. He wields no executive power.

The Senate will not be affected by Sunday's ballot. It has 61 members.

ELECTORATE: 8.1 million voters above 18 years of age, more than 50 percent of whom are women, in a country of 14 million people.
King Norodom Sihamoni does not vote and cannot hold political office. Many other members of the royal family are running in the election.

POLITICAL GROUPS: Eleven political parties are running for parliamentary seats in 24 constituencies across Cambodia. There are two front-runners: Prime Minister Hun Sen's Cambodian People's Party, a former communist party which has held power for the past 29 years; and the Sam Rainsy Party of former Finance Minister Sam Rainsy. In the outgoing parliament, CPP held 73 seats to the opposition's 24. Hun Sen has been prime minister since 1985.

THE CANDIDATES: There are a total of 1,162 candidates. Parties compete rather than candidates. Total votes received by a party in a constituency are used to calculate the number of seats occupied by its candidates in the National Assembly. There are no independent candidates.

THE ISSUES: Standard election issues like the economy, rising fuel and commodities prices, government corruption, poor health care and poverty have been upstaged by a tense border dispute with neighboring Thailand. The row prompted both countries to send troops to the border two weeks before the election. Nationalist pride was expected to propel Hun Sen to re-election.
Some 35 percent of the country's 14 million people live on less than US$.50 per day. The country depends heavily on foreign financial assistance.

VOTING HOURS: 0000 GMT to 0800 GMT, July 27.

VOTING SYSTEM: Each ballot carries the names and symbols of all 23 parties running for election. Each voter is allowed to select only one party.

Labels: CPP, Election, hun sen, Sam Rainsy, Sam Rainsy Party

Cambodian Ruling Party Heads to Poll Win

0 Comments

Cambodia's Prime Minister Hun Sen shows his ink-stained finger to the media after casting his ballot during the general election at a polling station in Takmoa town in Kandal province, on the outskirts of Phnom Penh, July 27, 2008. REUTERS/Chor Sokunthea (CAMBODIA)

Cambodian Ruling Party Heads to Poll Win

By KER MUNTHIT

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) — Cambodians went to the polls Sunday in an election dominated by a tense border dispute with neighboring Thailand that has fueled national sentiment, strengthening longtime Prime Minister Hun Sen.

Hun Sen's reputation as a strongman who intimidates rivals has served him well, with voters rallying around the leader as Cambodian troops face off with Thai soldiers for a second week at a disputed 11th century Hindu temple on the border.

Dressed in gray safari shirt and pants, Hun Sen flashed a broad smile and displayed a black-inked forefinger to waiting cameras after casting his ballot Sunday in a provincial town outside the capital, Phnom Penh. He declined comment to reporters.

Opposition leader Sam Rainsy called a midday news conference, claiming some 200,000 registered voters in the capital, where the opposition is strongest, were unable to cast ballots because their names had been left off voter lists.

The ruling party "is full of tricks. Scrap the election and do it again," he said. Allegations of vote fraud have plagued past Cambodian elections but never dented the ruling party's dominance.

Asia's longest-serving leader, the 57-year-old Hun Sen was forecast to win the vote even before the military standoff escalated earlier this month. But patriotic passions over Preah Vihear temple and Hun Sen's firm stance against Thailand have swayed many undecided voters in his favor, analysts say.

"Everybody now supports the government because this is a national issue," said Kek Galabru, a prominent Cambodian human rights activist and election monitor. "More people will vote for (Hun Sen) to give him more power to deal with Preah Vihear."

Chan Sim, a 72-year-old voter in the capital, cast his ballot for Hun Sen's ruling party "because of its good leadership and ability to keep unity."

A 24-year-old Buddhist monk, Chhuon Noeurn, said the standoff at Preah Vihear did not affect his choice for a leader, but added: "We Cambodians cannot afford to be divided on this issue."

More than 8 million of Cambodia's 14 million people were eligible to vote in Sunday's election. Buddhist monks and ordinary people, some holding toddlers with milk bottles, crowded polling stations when they opened at 8 p.m. EDT. Unofficial party results were expected a few hours after polling stations close at 4 a.m. EDT. Official figures were expected later in the week.

Eleven parties are vying for seats in the 123-seat National Assembly, the lower house of parliament, with the winner forming a new government to run the country for the next five years.

Hun Sen himself has voiced little doubt that his ruling Cambodian People's Party, which held 73 Assembly's seats during the past five-year-term, will return with an overwhelming majority.

Hun Sen has ruled Cambodia since 1985, when he became prime minister of a Vietnamese-installed communist government after the fall of the Khmer Rouge.

Internationally, he has faced criticism for alleged corruption and human rights abuses. But Hun Sen argues his tenure ushered in peace and stability after the Khmer Rouge's genocidal reign from 1975-1979, which killed an estimated 1.7 million people before being toppled by the invading Vietnamese army.

A former Khmer Rouge soldier himself, Hun Sen embraced free-market policies that have made Cambodia's economy one of the fastest growing in Asia, expanding at 11 percent in each of the past three years.

"The economic growth helps. And in a time of crisis, people feel they have to be united behind the power that controls the army," said Benny Widyono, an independent observer and former United Nations official during Cambodia's U.N.-brokered peace process in the early 1990s.

The opposition Sam Rainsy Party, which held 24 seats in the lower house of parliament, campaigned for greater attention to human rights, the country's poor and an end to alleged corruption.

But standard election issues have been upstaged by the military standoff with Thailand, a controversy revolving around 1.8 square miles of land that has been in dispute since French colonialists withdrew from Cambodia in the 1950s.

The International Court of Justice awarded the temple site to Cambodia in 1962, but anger flared in Thailand last month after Thai Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej backed Cambodia's successful bid for the temple to be listed as a U.N. World Heritage Site.

Thailand sent troops to the border July 15 after Thai anti-government demonstrators assembled near the temple. Cambodia responded by sending its own troops to the border.

The two countries plan to resume negotiations on the border row Monday.

Labels: CPP, Election, hun sen, Sam Rainsy Party

Saturday, July 26, 2008

Concerns and Recommendations for Electoral Observer and Monitors for July 26 and 27

0 Comments

26 July 2008

Concerns and Recommendations for Electoral Observer and Monitors
for July 26 and 27

The following is an updated version of a document released by the Sam Rainsy Party on 20 July 2008, detailing possible electoral fraud that international observers and monitors must pay attention to throughout election weekend.

1. Voter list manipulation

The ruling party has several methods to manipulate voter lists to their advantage. For example, they can erase the names of legitimate voters, especially non-CPP supporters. Alternatively, they can keep (or add) "ghost voters" on the list: deceased people, voters that were registered twice, and voters that have moved away permanently. The CPP can then use these ghost voters to inflate their number of votes in the following way:

They will identify people who are not eligible to vote (such as under-aged people, non-registered citizens and foreigners living in Cambodia) or people who are not interested in voting (such as migrant workers not registered as voters) and offer them money in exchange for a CPP vote. They will take these people to specific venues, where they will distribute 1018 documents (*) with the ghost voter's identity but the replacement voter's real photo. With this fake identity, they will be able to vote for the CPP.

Besides, they will wait until minutes before the end of voting hours to identify registered voters who did not show upat the polling station. They will then issue last-minute fraudulent 1018 forms with the identity of the absent registered voters to people who will vote for them.

Finally, the CPP can steal the votes of legitimate voters whom they suspect will not vote for them in the following way: they will forge 1018 documents with the identity of non-CPP supporters, and then bribe people (illegitimate voters) to vote for the CPP using this forged document. These fraudulent voters will go to the polling station as early as possible, before the real voter can show up. When the real voter does show up, they are turned down, as their name has already been used to vote.

Recommendations for Observers:

1) The 1018 form must be stamped in order to be issued. The stamp is detained by the commune clerk, assistant to the commune chief, both of which are affiliated with the CPP. Most ghost voter 1018 forms are distributed on or just before voting day, although it is illegal to issue them on Election Day. The CPP will have pre-dated these forms but they cannot pre-stamp them, as the stamp must be on the photo of the person who will vote using the ghost voter identity. Therefore, it is crucial for the stamp to be safeguarded on Election Day. The SRP has already proposed that the stamp be kept in a sealed and signed envelope, in such a way that its presence would be visible by all. We recommend that monitors support this proposal, push for its implementation, and monitor the whereabouts of the stamp on Election Day.

2) The CPP will hold gatherings to distribute the 1018 forms. The venues for the distribution will most likely be village chiefs' houses, commune chiefs' houses, or the local CPP headquarters. We recommend that monitors send delegates to these locations on Election Day and report any suspicious activity, such as unusual gathering of people. The mere presence of an international observer may be a sufficient deterrent to this practice. For the monitors staying at the polling stations, look out for ghost voters especially between the hours of 11:30-13.00 (lunchtime), and 14:30-15:00 (minutes before the closing of the polling station at 15:00). The SRP asks that a list of identified ghost voters be posted in every polling station and that voters using these fake identities be immediately identified and forbidden to vote. These lists are available and monitors should demand that they are used to eliminate voter fraud.

3) Observers must pay close attention to voters being turned down under the pretext that they have already voted. We recommend that you ask local agents and your local collaborators for more details on any voter being turned away and that you be aware of this CPP vote-stealing strategy.

2. Vote Buying

a. The Night of Barking Dogs

In previous elections, the night before Election Day has been referred to as the Night of Barking Dogs, because of the systematic door-to-door visits of CPP officials and dogs' reactions to these unannounced house calls. Tonight, they will distribute money and sarongs in exchange for votes. Observers must rely on local informants and collaborators for reports on such vote buying.

Recommendations for Observers: the sarongs and money allocated for this vote buying are stored in specific places: local CPP Headquarters, village chiefs' houses and commune chiefs' houses. Local observers and party agents will wait outside these warehouses throughout the night and follow CPP officials that come out with bribes in order to deter any illegal activity. We recommend that you take note of their reports.

b. Buying Opposition Party Agents

CPP party agents will bribe and intimidate other parties' agents (especially those of SRP) in order to ensure their silence in the face of vote-buying and ballot counting manipulation.

Recommendations for Observers: listen to party agents and be aware of these illegal practices.

c. Ten-House Groups

Early on the morning of Election Day, in each village the CPP will summon, in specific places, their supporters who are organized in communist-type cells of ten households each, which are under the supervision of the village chief. The official purpose of these ten-house groups is to facilitate voter transport to polling stations. However, during the transportation, CPP officials will pressure the voters and tell them how and who to vote for while giving them additional bribes, or making promises of additional bribes. Such coercion after the end of the official campaigning period, as well as the outright illegality of vote-buying, is a breach of electoral law. This is particularly serious as it is last-minute psychological pressure before these voters cast their ballots.

Recommendations for Observers: listen to local informants, including opposition party agents who may have infiltrated these groups, as they may serve as witnesses of this breach of electoral law. In addition, observers should follow the village chief wherever he goes.

3. Ballot Counting Process

a. Vote Announcements

The ballot number of CPP is four (4) whereas that of the SRP is nine (9). In Khmer these two numbers sound similar. Four is boun and nine is pram boun, often pronounced as p'boun.. Therefore, when spoken fast, the number nine can easily be confused as a four. As the ballot counting process is done through verbal announcement of ballot numbers, the NEC has given official instructions ordering that during the ballot counting process the party names of the CPP and SRP ballots have to be announced before the number. However, usually these types of instructions are given by the top levels of government to serve only as a façade and are not implemented at the local levels.

Recommendations for Observers: Observers must ensure that for the CPP and SRP parties, the announcers state the party name before the ballot number.

b. Null and Void Ballots

According to electoral law, any mark(s) within a single party's segment of the ballot (even outside the designated blank square) constitutes a valid ballot. However, if a mark is found in two different parties' segments, the ballot is rendered null. Throughout the voting process, CPP agents will contaminate ballots. At the voting stage they may give ballots that are pre-marked on the CPP segment (or a smaller party's segment) to people they suspect are not CPP supporters. At the ballot counting stage, CPP agents may discreetly add a second mark to another party's segment on SRP ballots, and if caught, claim this action was inadvertent. These two tactics are used to nullify votes for the SRP. If this is witnessed, SRP party agents will file complaints.

Recommendations for Observers: Ask to look at the ballots when there is an unusually large number of complaints. Ensure that the intention of the ballot be respected, because in some cases there is a clear tick or mark for a single party combined with a small mark in another party segment that was most likely not intended by the voter. Observers must also ensure that party agents' complaints are treated fairly and not systematically rejected by the NEC as was the case in previous elections.

c. 1104 Forms

1104 forms are minutes of vote counting for each polling station. These 1104 forms are essential for parallel counting. At the end of ballot counting, the 1104 forms reveal the breakdown of electoral results by polling station and thus serve as an accurate computation of the national results. Each party agent is entitled to a copy of the 1104 form from their polling station. In previous elections NEC officials invented pretexts to retain 1104 forms overnight, allowing them to manipulate the results of the votes without even touching the ballots (cheating at the reporting level). Opposition party agents can file complaints if they do not receive a 1104 form immediately after the counting. In the case of a legitimate complaint, the polling stations' ballot boxes must be reopened and the votes recounted. In 2003, virtually no recounting was allowed despite over 1,000 filed complaints. It is crucial that observers remain present during the final phase of the electoral process, even after the results are announced, to oversee the resolution of complaints.

Recommendations for Observers: Make sure that all party agents receive 1104 forms immediately after ballot counting is over. Secondly, make sure that all complaints are treated fairly.

4. Clean Finger Operation

In past elections, the CPP paid voters to vote for them but now having realized that people could accept their money and still vote for the party of their choice, they have resorted to a new strategy: paying people to abstain from voting if they are not known CPP supporters. When voters cast their ballot, their finger is dipped in ink that remains on their skin for several days, therefore a clean finger after the elections is evidence that a person has abstained from voting. The CPP will bribe voters before the election, and give an additional bribe after the election in exchange for a clean finger.

Recommendations for Observers:

We recommend that international monitors look out for this phenomenon by asking your local informants, translators, and voters for occurrences of the clean finger operation. It is important to be aware of this widespread practice and actively search for evidence, as it will not be visible in a polling station or on Election Day.

Finally, we recommend that monitors look out for CPP agents closing windows and doors of polling stations, faking electricity cuts, and detonating small explosives to create bomb scares. These are all tactics to limit transparency, and intimidate non-CPP voters to prevent them from casting their ballots. CPP voters, escorted by CPP agents, generally come at the early hours and will have already cast their votes.

SRP Members of Parliament

Labels: CPP, Election, Sam Rainsy, Sam Rainsy Party

Editorials TagsArticles

• Lending Scheme to Bring Solar to Cambodia’s Poor
• In Cambodia, brush back against street sweeps
• 1994 Murder of Aussie by Khmer Rouge Re-Examined
• Cambodia's Great Internet Firewall?
• Sam Rainsy charges draw criticism
• Cambodia Cooking: Czech Out These Angkor Nuts
• The document shows violations of even the 1985 Bor...
• Crusader Rowing Upstream in Cambodia
• Cambodia's One-Party Future
• The Stink of Corruption in Phnom Penh

• October 1997
• January 2005
• February 2005
• March 2005
• April 2005
• May 2005
• June 2005
• July 2005
• August 2005
• September 2005
• October 2005
• November 2005
• January 2006
• February 2006
• March 2006
• April 2006
• May 2006
• June 2006
• July 2006
• August 2006
• September 2006
• October 2006
• November 2006
• December 2006
• January 2007
• February 2007
• March 2007
• April 2007
• May 2007
• June 2007
• July 2007
• August 2007
• September 2007
• October 2007
• November 2007
• December 2007
• January 2008
• February 2008
• March 2008
• April 2008
• May 2008
• June 2008
• July 2008
• August 2008
• September 2008
• October 2008
• November 2008
• December 2008
• January 2009
• February 2009
• March 2009
• April 2009
• May 2009
• June 2009
• September 2009
• October 2009
• November 2009
• December 2009
• January 2010
• February 2010
• March 2010

Editorial | Articles about Cambodia | Khmer

Monday, March 01, 2010

Sam Rainsy charges draw criticism

Thursday, February 25, 2010

The document shows violations of even the 1985 Border Treaty signed by the controversial People’s Republic of Kampuchea

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Crusader Rowing Upstream in Cambodia

Thursday, February 18, 2010

Cambodia's One-Party Future

Thursday, November 26, 2009

Watch: Villagers' grievances can be heard

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Cambodian opposition MPs stripped of parliamentary immunity

Cambodian opposition MPs stripped of parliamentary immunity

Saturday, June 20, 2009

SRP WILL NOT REPLACE MU SOCHUA

SRP WILL NOT REPLACE MU SOCHUA

Friday, February 27, 2009

Sam Rainsy Lost his Parliamentary Immunity

Sam Rainsy Lost his Parliamentary Immunity

Saturday, January 17, 2009

alliance between the Sam Rainsy Party (SRP) and the Human Rights Party (HRP)

Wednesday, August 13, 2008

Election Results Adjusted for Fraud Give Fewer Seats to CPP

Election Results Adjusted for Fraud Give Fewer Seats to CPP

LAST LEG OF ELECTION PROCESS MAKES FAÇADE OF DEMOCRACY COLLAPSE

LAST LEG OF ELECTION PROCESS MAKES FAÇADE OF DEMOCRACY COLLAPSE

Friday, August 01, 2008

Cambodia’s Election Stability, Sort of

Cambodia’s Election Stability, Sort of

Thursday, July 31, 2008

Cambodia's Ruling Party Forms Coalition, But Says Royals Are Out

Cambodia's Ruling Party Forms Coalition, But Says Royals Are Out

Asia-Pacific News

Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Flawed System Sullies Cambodia's Election

Flawed System Sullies Cambodia's Election

CAMBODIA: Polls Were Fair - EU Observers

CAMBODIA: Polls Were Fair - EU Observers

EU Criticises Cambodia Election

EU Criticises Cambodia Election

Monitors from the European Union Say Cambodia's Recent General Election Fell Short of International Standards.

Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Four Main Parties Reject 'Sham' Election

Four Main Parties Reject 'Sham' Election

Monday, July 28, 2008

Four Major Political Parties Reject Election Results

Four Major Political Parties Reject Election Results

Sunday, July 27, 2008

SRP has collected countless 1018 Forms fraudulently issued by the CPP for illegitimate voters.

Facts and Figures on Cambodia's Parliamentary Elections

Facts and Figures on Cambodia's Parliamentary Elections

Cambodian Ruling Party Heads to Poll Win

Cambodian Ruling Party Heads to Poll Win

Saturday, July 26, 2008

Concerns and Recommendations for Electoral Observer and Monitors for July 26 and 27

Concerns and Recommendations for Electoral Observer and Monitorsfor July 26 and 27

Cambodia News

Radio News

Watch Video

Editorials TagsArticles

Concerns and Recommendations for Electoral Observer and Monitors
for July 26 and 27