Cambodian People’s Party should cooperate with the Opposition for NEC reform Or It should change its name to a Coward People’s Party

By Pang Sokheoun

The supporters of Cambodian People's Party (CPP) including Hun Sen himself always boast that the leaders of CPP are very competent, tolerant, strong,  hard-working, respected, compassionate, and patriotic which make the majority of Cambodian people to support the CPP to win the election from mandate to mandate. 

But the Opposition, NGOs, and the international community think differently that the CPP has won the elections with an unfair and unfree environment. This is because it is thought that the CPP has controlled National Election Committee (NEC) and media and resorted to threat, fraud, and vote-buying. 

Now the election seasons are coming closer and the requests to have NEC reformed have been submitted again by both political party and NGOs in order to have an independent NEC so that the upcoming national election can be guaranteed with free and fair competition. 

With this, I also encourage the CPP supporters to join hands with the opposition and NGOs in order to push for the reform as proposed because to allow NEC reformed it will justify which party is REALLY the stronger one that our people have democratically supported. 

The following points are necessary for NEC to be reformed in which some points have been already raised by individual, the Opposition, and NGOs: 

• NEC should be separated organizationally and physically from the Ministry of the Interior. It should have its own premises in both the capital and the provinces. 
• The Committee leadership, the top policy and decision-making body, should be restructured and reduced from the present 11 members to 5 or 7 for it will produce swifter, more corporate and effective management. 
• Membership should be non-political, genuinely neutral and they should enjoy the confidence of the people and civil society, and the respect of the political parties.

• The permanent staff of the NEC should consist of election administration and support professionals only. The level of staffing should be based on organizational need, i.e. actual workload at national, provincial or local levels. The NEC should have one secretariat office, instead of several, connecting the NEC members with the staff. Having several offices (recently introduced as a reform) has engendered confusion, lack of co-ordination and high personnel costs.

• NEC should devote to settling complaints with accountability and emphasize transparency by holding public hearings on important controversies.

• NEC should invite more national and international independent observers to help guarantee the free and fair election.

• The amount of budget for election campaign must be determined by national election law and it must be transparent.

• Fine and punishment for any one or any political party that violates the election law like vote-buying, threat, and illegal use state property during the election campaign must be more serious.

• The ballots should be counted at their respected polling places like the 1993 UN election law.

• NEC should amend the election law (National Assembly) on “Seat Allocation” in its article 118 by re-adopting the previous 1993 UN election law´s formula in which the “Greatest Remainder formula” was used.  The use of the “Highest Average Formula” of the amended 1997 election law under the coup d’état government has not represented the real voice of our people. It is the formula that the bigger party gains its seats at the expense of the smaller party.  

Below is the example of how different each party needs votes per seat which can also tell us how CPP gains its 19 additional seats adding to its actual 71 seats won in the election at the expenses of other parties. Be noticed that the average votes per seat is proportional to 48864 votes.

We should also understand that this is one of the reasons that CPP has tried to divide all of its strong oppositions to create more small opposition parties in order to divide votes. It means that the more the small parties created the more victories are waiting ahead for the CPP. 

• Lastly, it is just an appeal to Constitutional Council, the highest institution for solving election complaints, to be non-partisan in order to help reinforce independence, professionalism, and confidence of NEC so that we can together guarantee free and fair election.

If these points are reformed, an independent NEC is expected. Then, there would be no more problems of vote-buying, illegal Vietnamese vote, irregularity of voter registrations, threat, and violence and we would truly have our democratically elected government. 

Lastly, I strongly hope that the CPP will push for NEC reform to prove that they are a REAL fighter, but not a coward and cheater.