March 24, 2013
CAMBODIA
International Community Must Burn Bridges With Illegitimate Government And Help Ensure Democratic Elections
Revelations this week from the National Democratic Institute (NDI) on
the state of electoral lists in Cambodia show that the country is run by
an illegitimate government which has maintained power over the decades
through falsified elections.
The conclusions of the enquiry driven by the US non-government
organization dedicated to promoting democracy globally, indicate
conclusively that recent elections in Cambodia rest on electoral lists
that have been manipulated and falsified to an extent that destroys the
concept of universal suffrage. The will of the people has been at best
obscured and at worst denied at successive elections.
The moment has now come to acknowledge that the current government in
Phnom Penh, controlled by the same party (Cambodian People’s Party) for
34 years and by the same prime minister (Hun Sen) for 28 years, has no
legitimacy.
According to the discredited National Election Committee (NEC), the
ruling CPP won 63% of the votes at the last communal elections on June
1, 2012, versus 31% for the united opposition made up of the Sam Rainsy
Party (SRP) and the Human Rights Party (HRP).
If the electoral lists hadn't been falsified, but established in an
honest and transparent manner to allow the popular will to be expressed
via universal suffrage, the results would have been significantly
different.
At a cautious, minimum estimate, the irregularities found by the NDI imply the following distortions:
1- An increase in the number of votes attributed to the CPP of 10% through the use of fictional or phantom voters.
These voters who only exist on paper are an automatic reservoir of
support for the ruling party. The NDI found that “10.4% of names on the
(official) voter list were unknown.” In these calculations, I assume
that almost all these fraudulent votes accrued to the CPP.
2- An increase in the number of votes attributed to the CPP of a
further 10% from the 25.8% of names who are on the electoral register
which belong to people who, in all likelihood, won’t vote at the
assigned place. The names of the absent people are often used to
create votes for the CPP by passing off one person as another, meaning
impersonation through fraudulent voter identification documents. I am
cautious and take only 10%, which is less than half of the figure given
by the NDI, as representing CPP fraudulent support. According to the
NDI, “17.9% of names on the list exist but live most of the time in
another location; 7.4% have permanently relocated, and 0.5% were
confirmed as dead.”
3- A reduction in the number of votes cast for the opposition by at
least 10% out of the 17.1% of citizens who were eligible but not
registered or de-registered. Here I take a little more than half the NDI
figure as representing lost opposition votes. Non-inclusion on the
electoral register is, in the first place, the result of political and
administrative discrimination at first enrolment, when citizens known to
be opposition supporters meet insurmountable administrative problems
with a village or commune chief who favors the CPP (98% of cases). Even
once enrolled on the register, electors can suddenly lose their right to
vote through the selective suppression of names by the NEC, which
affects only the opposition. Some of the removals are even more
surprising as they concern citizens who voted in the elections of 2008
and/or 2012. This is effectively disenfranchisement and shows that the
NEC is carrying out political cleansing for the CPP. According to the
NDI, "10.8% of eligible citizens who think they are registered were not
found on the voter registry. Further, 7.8% of eligible citizens are
currently unregistered even though they said they voted in the 2008
and/or 2012 elections."
4- The prevention of a potential increase of opposition votes of at
least 10% by creating all sorts of difficulties for voters on election
day. This is done through organised confusion along with political
and administrative discrimination against opposition supporters, notably
in the issuing of identity documents and in tolerance of inaccurate
information. According to the NDI, "Voter data (in 2012/2013) is less
accurate than in 2008. Only 63% of records show matching data for date
of birth, compared to 78.9% in 2008; and 86.4% of names match, compared
to 87.8% in 2008." Discriminatory measures aim to obscure the existence
of those citizens who are, or are suspected of being, supporters of the
opposition in order to prevent them from voting. The complex
administrative procedures put in place by the NEC have contributed to a
continuous decline in voter turnout from over 90% in 1993 (elections
organised by the United Nations) to 60% (including ghost and other fake
or fraudulent voters) in 2012. Lower turnout automatically penalizes the
opposition. The CPP uses the resources of state to get its supporters
to the polls and make sure they are in the right place to vote.
Opposition supporters face all manner of administrative obstacles.
In consequence, by partly correcting the impact of some of the
above-exposed election irregularities, the result of a democratic,
transparent and honest election would have been as follows:
- Ruling CPP: 63% - 10% - 10% = 43%
- Opposition SRP + HRP: 31% + 10% + 10% = 51%
The scope of changes made to the figures corresponds to the scale of the
irregularities and anomalies found by the NDI in the electoral
register, which are sufficient to completely overturn the expression of
the popular will.
The NDI said that there is "a dire need for fundamental change in the
voter registration and list compilation process in Cambodia to ensure
the right to vote for all eligible citizens and to prevent ghost voters
and potential for manipulation and fraud." Rather than the NEC, which is
controlled by members of the ruling CPP, an independent and
professional body should carry out voter registration, the NDI said.
New electoral lists are clearly needed if Cambodia’s vote is to be
meaningful. The experience of Bangladesh has shown that this can be
done. With cross-party political will and the support of the United
Nations Development Program (UNDP), a new high-quality electoral
register for over 80 million Bangladeshi voters was created in a matter
of eight months in 2008.
To allow the Cambodian people to express itself and to let the country
elect a legitimate government, the international community must increase
the pressure on the authorities in Phnom Penh to accept the
recommendations of the United Nations issued in 2012 for the
organisation of this year’s elections. These UN recommendations are
underscored by the NDI which details the steps to be taken to produce
an electoral register of sufficient quality to allow elections worthy of
the name.
Please help bring about democracy in Cambodia through free and fair
elections so as to render justice to the Cambodian people whose will has
been distorted for so long.
Sam Rainsy
Cambodia’s opposition leader
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