28 August 2012
In the most recent report published
this week of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in
Cambodia, Professor Surya Subedi makes the following recommendations
regarding preparations for the national elections scheduled for July
2013:
1- The National Election Committee (NEC) should be reformed so as to have independent and autonomous status.
2- There should be consensus
among the major political parties represented in the parliament on the
appointment of the president and members of the NEC and the provincial
election committees (PECs).
3- Within the composition of
election bodies of all levels, there should be balanced representation
of all political parties with representation in the National Assembly.
4- The president and members of the NEC and the PECs should be appointed for a fixed term and have security of tenure.
5- New judicial bodies and
mechanisms must be established outside the NEC in order to properly
resolve election-related disputes.
6- All major political parties
should have fair and equal access to the mass media to convey their
messages to the electorate. The way forward could be to establish an
independent committee on the management and use of State-run television
and radio stations.
7- The Government must ensure
that all civil servants, police and military personnel do not
participate in political activities or use Government resources while
working in their official capacities.
8- The Government must ensure
that opposition parties are free to carry out their political activities
without harassment and intimidation not only around the dates of
elections but also in the lead-up to the elections and throughout the
parliamentary cycle.
9- Regarding the registration of
voters the Government should expeditiously provide necessary documents,
Khmer nationality identity cards, passports and other necessary civil
registration documents to all citizens for nominal fees and should
reregister voters using the data from those cards as a basis to
establish a new electoral roll.
10- Any Cambodian citizen
eligible to vote should be entitled to request registration with the
electoral and/or local authorities at any point during the year. Once he
or she is issued with an identification card, that card should be valid
for life.
11- Regarding the continuing
problems with voter identity documents, especially the issuance and use
of fraudulent documents (such as the old form 1018 and its new current
version) the NEC should review the process of issuing such documents to
ensure that the system is not abused by political parties in their
favour and that there are no electoral malpractices.
12- The NEC should devise
special measures to ensure that those who are homeless or have been
recently evicted from their land are not disenfranchised in the
forthcoming elections.
13- The NEC should make public
the names of polling officers and make the voter list available to
candidates from all political parties upon request, affording them an
opportunity to challenge the fraudulent inclusion of names on the list.
14- The NEC should appoint
professional election administrators to replace village chiefs during
voter registration and on election day and bring all commune election
officers and processes under its own stricter supervision mechanism.
15- The current law, which
requires a person to be nominated to stand for election by a political
party, should be amended to make it possible for independent candidates
to stand in the national elections.
16- The NEC should make it
possible for Cambodians living abroad to exercise their voting rights,
at least in the countries where it has diplomatic and/or consular
representation.
17- Regarding the situation of
Sam Rainsy, the leader of the Sam Rainsy Party, who has been convicted
on charges that are allegedly politically motivated, a political
solution should be found to enable him, as the leader of the opposition,
to play a full role in Cambodian politics.
[End]
No comments:
Post a Comment