Organized chaos at today’s commune elections

June 3, 2012
5:00 am Cambodia time

ORGANIZED CHAOS AT TODAY’S COMMUNE ELECTIONS /
KEY ISSUES OBSERVERS MUST FOCUS ON

Independent Observers Must Be Aware of the Ruling Party’s Evolving Tactics


Cambodia’s commune elections today risk falling victim to chaos
organized by the CPP unless independent observers appreciate the
increasingly sophisticated methods used by the ruling party to distort
the will of the electorate.

The CPP, in power since 1979, has long experience of effectively
fixing elections while ensuring a veneer of virtual compliance. The
tactics that they are using today include the following:

1. Changing the location of polling stations at the last minute.
Voters who can be counted on to vote for the CPP will be warned of the
change in advance; supporters of the opposition Sam Rainsy Party (SRP)
and other parties won’t be told where to go. Opposition voters will
find it hard to work out where to cast their votes. This is designed
to maximise the influence of CPP-appointed village chiefs who will
organise the ferrying of CPP voters to the polling stations. The trick
is cunning as, on the surface, taking one’s supporters to the polls is
a legitimate tactic commonly used in western elections. Observers must
not be deceived.


2. A variation on this theme is to leave the polling station in its
original location but to transfer voters identified as supporting the
opposition to different voting stations, with the prior name transfers
being made only yesterday. Non-CPP voters who in some cases have made
long and costly journeys will actually be deterred from casting their
ballots.

3. The CPP will make use of its bottomless supply of ghost voters’
names to manufacture extra votes. These ghost identities will be
systematically distributed – through fraudulently and massively issued
“Statements of Identity” – to countless illegitimate voters such as
people under 18 (the legal minimum age to vote), foreigners, migrants
or passers-by with no legal voting right. These people will be paid or
manipulated by CPP local authorities to vote for the ruling party.

4. The CPP will intimidate, threaten and/or try to buy party agents
from the SRP, the only opposition party to have trained and posted
party agents/observers at every polling station throughout the
country. With the possible “neutralisation” of opposition party agents
at any of the 18,107 polling stations all over Cambodia, the CPP will
just stuff the ballot box at the corresponding station, the maximum
fraudulent votes being only the number of ghost voter’s names.

The above innovations will take place in the context of fear and
intimidation to which voters in Cambodian elections are well
accustomed.

The SRP, the largest opposition party in Cambodia, calls on
independent observers to recognize the logistical complexity of the
electoral fraud carried out by the CPP in its desperate attempts to
hold on to its weakening national and international legitimacy.

Sam Rainsy
Elected Member of Parliament
Leader of the Opposition