Election 2008: Less parties but more representation

By Neth Pheaktra

The Mekong Times

Although there will be far fewer political parties competing in this year’s national election, the National Election Committee (NEC) has announced that party representation over the electorates as a whole will be much greater this year.Only 12 political parties have registered for this year’s parliamentary election, while in the 2003 election there were 23, and in the 1998 election there were 39. The NEC said that, although the number of registered parties has decreased, ten parties can field candidates to stand in all the electorates of Cambodia’s 24 provinces and municipalities, while the rest will only be able to field candidates in seven to nine of the country’s electorates. Koul Panha, director of the Committee for Free and Fair Elections in Cambodia, said political parties should not take the risk of offering candidates for all electorates. Rather, he stressed, they should only spend their money on the electorates where they can win majority votes.“It is important that parties have good election strategies or they will win nothing,” he said, adding that decline in the number of parties is due to some having lost hope after not winning any seats after running for three terms, and because some have run out of funds.He said the proportional voting system and position sharing formula gives a great advantage to the larger parties, but disadvantages the small ones, and that the system should be reformed to allow more parties to compete in the election.“[Allowing] small parties to have seats … will strengthen … democratic pluralism,” he said, adding, however, that the “50 percent plus one” formula, which facilitates the formation of a coalition government, will encourage small parties to compete in the election because they can more easily join together to form a government. NEC Secretary General Tep Nytha said that the reduced number of parties was due to the lack of confidence in the “50 percent plus one” formula and Cambodia’s current social, political and financial situation.