Preventing the CPP from distorting the people’s will at next Sunday’s commune elections

May 30, 2012


PREVENTING THE CPP FROM DISTORTING THE PEOPLE’S WILL AT NEXT SUNDAY’S
COMMUNE ELECTIONS

As a general pattern the ruling CPP has two combined ways to
manipulate elections so as to secure a landslide victory before Voting
Day: Disenfranchisement and Impersonation.

I- SYSTEMATIC DISENFRANCHISEMENT TO REDUCE VOTES FOR THE OPPOSITION
There is a massive disenfranchisement affecting citizens that
CPP-affiliated village chiefs and other local officials throughout the
country have identified as non-CPP supporters or potential opposition
voters. Based on political reports from CPP grassroots agents, the
CPP-controlled National Election Committee (NEC) establishes voter
lists in such a way as to exclude as many opposition voters as
possible. According to independent observers from COMFREL (Committee
for Free and Fair Elections in Cambodia), up to 1.5 million Cambodians
representing 17 percent of the electorate will lose their right to
vote in the upcoming commune elections due to irregularities in
voters’ registration lists (*).


II- SYSTEMATIC IMPERSONATION TO INFLATE VOTES FOR THE RULING PARTY
At the same time that countless real citizens and legitimate voters
are excluded from voters’ registration lists (see Point I related to
disenfranchisement), the NEC slyly keeps countless ghost voters’ names
in voter lists in order to allow illegitimate voters paid or
manipulated by the CPP to cast votes through impersonation with the
use of controversial voter identification documents fraudulently
issued by CPP local officials who control the country. According to
independent observers, ghost voters represent up to 10 percent of
registered voters in many polling stations. The controversial voter
identification documents are a new version of “Form 1018” now called
“Identification Document” with similar characteristics as “Form 1018”
that easily allow fraud (**).
Moreover, with more and more CPP-affiliated state employees being
encouraged to register as voters more than once at different places
(see evidence presented by the opposition SRP at their May 29 press
conference) and also with the increasing number of migrant workers who
will not be able to vote at the place where they were originally
registered as voters, the CPP will be in a position to make use of a
larger number of ghost voters’ names for impersonation through
illegally issued voter “Identification Documents”, thus allowing them
to bring a larger number of illegitimate voters into polling stations
on Voting Day. Those illegitimate voters will be fraudulently given
the names and voting rights of ghost voters to inflate votes for the
CPP.

There are three transparency-based measures that could prevent the
implementation of the CPP impersonation voter fraud scheme:
1- Before Voting Day, all CPP commune chiefs assisted by CPP-appointed
commune clerks must issue a public report giving detailed information
on voter “Identification Documents” they have issued in their
respective communes purportedly for voters who don’t have any other ID
documents.
2- On Voting Day, a copy of all officially and legally issued voter
“Identification Documents” to be used by a limited number of voters at
each polling station, must be posted at the corresponding polling
station, thus allowing election observers to detect any voter
fraudulently issued with “Identification Documents”.
3- On Voting Day, all remaining blank and unused forms of voter
“Identification Documents” as well as the commune stamp validating any
official documents, must be locked in a place that can be seen by
everybody, thus ensuring that no voter “Identification Document” could
be issued on Voting Day, as prohibited in election regulations (***).

If the CPP and the NEC are not willing to implement the three above
measures they are confirming that they want to proceed with their plan
to manipulate elections and distort the people’s will.

Sam Rainsy
Elected Member of Parliament
Leader of the Opposition


(*) Please read reports from The Cambodia Daily
http://tinyurl.com/7fedv8e and Radio Free Asia
http://tinyurl.com/899t9f7

(**) In their final report the Election Observation Mission from the
European Union asked the Cambodian government to abolish the use of
“Form 1018”, which they claimed was fraudulently issued at polling
stations during the last national elections in July 2008
http://tinyurl.com/crr9jrt

(***) The use of “Form 1018” and its new version “Identification
Document” is essential in the implementation of the CPP impersonation
voter fraud scheme. This explains why the CPP-led government has shown
no willingness to issue standardized National ID Cards to all
citizens. Once all citizens have in their possession the same National
ID Card, all “Forms 1018” and other controversial voter
“Identification Documents” would disappear and the CPP would not be
able to manipulate elections on such a large scale as now.