The National Election Committee (NEC) on Thursday announced that
state-run TVK will air a series of pre-recorded promotional spots for
the eight political parties contesting the July 28 national election,
but questions were raised about the format, which will prohibit any
inter-party debates from taking place.
A two-hour slot will be given over to the eight parties—15 minutes
each—to be aired in the morning and afternoon on the television
station, as well as state-run FM 96 MHz and Wat Phnom station FM 105.7
radio between June 27 and July 26.
The parties can use their allotted 15-minute spots to deliver an
individual message or they can participate in a group setting in which a
representative from each party would get 15 minutes to read out
prepared remarks about party policies.
But the absence of debate, spontaneity and ability to challenge each
other in the TV spots is a problem, said Cambodia National Rescue Party
(CNRP) spokesman Yim Sovann, who is also running as a candidate in the
election.
“There is no debate in place like other democratic countries because all the shows are pre-recorded,” he said.
“The group show also consists of no debate because we will just sit
and read our party’s political platform,” he said, adding that some
spots had already been produced.
The upcoming election will determine which parties gain seats in the
123-seat National Assembly, which the ruling CPP has dominated since
1998. More than 9.6 million Cambodians are registered to vote in an
election that has seen the number of parties contesting seats dwindle
from 23 in the 2003 elections to just eight.
Chan Yet, deputy president of the little-known Republican Democracy
Party, said he regretted that the TV spots would not allow parties to
challenge each other on policy and platform.
“Our party’s platform is to find justice and serve Cambodians” who
have been affected by land disputes and social injustice, he said.
Laura Thornton, country director for the Washington-based National
Democratic Institute, said her organization was trying to forge ahead
with plans to hold radio and TV debates for the candidates, as they have
done in previous elections, but was facing obstacles from Prime
Minister Hun Sen’s ruling CPP.
Even though the ruling party has participated in such debates before,
which have been approved for 2013 by the NEC, “the CPP has questioned
the legality of holding national candidate debates by referring to [The
Law on the Election of Members of the National Assembly] Article 5 and
we are trying to resolve it,” she said.
It is not clear why the CPP has flagged that particular article,
which says that elections must be fair and the electoral system
proportional, with provincial and municipal representation.
“I think there’s nothing in the law that prohibits them [the TV spots] from being creative and interesting,” Ms. Thornton said.
NEC Secretary-General Tep Nytha said that all political parties were responsible for filming their own spots.
“They are responsible for covering the expenses and can film wherever they want,” he said.
(Additional reporting by Lauren Crothers)
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