Election candidates can now vote in electorate where they stand

By Touch Yuthear

The Mekong Times

For the first time since the 1993 UNTAC elections, candidates and their immediate family will now be able to vote in the electorate where the candidate is standing, rather than where they are presently registered, according to an announcement from the National Election Committee (NEC) on Sunday.The NEC said in the announcement that any candidate and their husband or wife and children wishing to vote in the electorate where the candidate is officially registered to stand must submit their transfer application with legal identification to the NEC by June 25, one day before the start of the election campaign. The NEC will not be responsible for late entries.The NEC said that this new allowance is in accordance with the parliamentary election law, the amendment of regulations law and the official procedures for the fourth mandate election.Tep Nytha, secretary general of the NEC, said that normal voters, who are non-candidates, can also in some circumstances have their voting electorate transferred, but this will only apply when the electorate to which the voter wishes to transfer to has less than 700 voters registered.“The fact that the NEC is [now] allowing election candidates to transfer their [and their family’s] names to the electorates where they stand is just encouragement for the relatives of the candidates to vote for the candidates. The law is encouragement for the candidates,” said Koul Panha, director of the Committee for Free and Fair Elections in Cambodia. According to the NEC, the total number of voter registration offices for the upcoming 2008 national election is 15,254, and 8,124,391 eligible voters will cast their ballots, of whom 3,776,986 are men and 4,347,405 are women.