UNITED NATIONS RECOMMEND DRASTIC REFORM OF CAMBODIA’S ELECTION SYSTEM PRIOR TO JULY 2013 POLLS
Overseas Cambodians should be allowed to vote in their countries of residence
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]
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