Cambodia appoints new electoral body

By Lauren Crothers

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia

Cambodia’s National Assembly voted on Thursday for a new election committee, ushering in a new era of electoral management following a widely disputed general election two years ago.

However, a leading election monitor said that while the introduction of the National Election Committee indicated reform was moving in the right direction, only time would tell if the new body would oversee a free and fair election in 2018.

Yim Sovann, a spokesman for the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) – which, with the ruling Cambodia People’s Party (CPP), put the new committee together – said lawmakers voted almost unanimously for the committee.

“There were 113 in favour, one against, two abstentions and one void,” he told The Anadolu Agency on Thursday.

He also confirmed that eight people named in a Cambodia Daily article on Thursday had been proposed for membership of the committee.

The CPP candidates were a CPP lawmaker Sik Bunhok, former Interior Ministry official Duch Sorn and two members of the former election body, Em Sopath and Mean Satik.

CNRP lawmaker Kuoy Bunroeun, teachers’ union leader Rong Chhun, Supreme Court prosecutor Hing Tirith and former civil servant Te Manirong, the only woman, were nominated by the CNRP.

They are to be joined by Hang Puthea as the committee’s neutral ninth member.

Sovann lauded the move as a “result coming from the culture of dialogue,” which followed a protracted deadlock after the July 2013 national election when both parties claimed to have won.

The CPP took its seats but the CNRP refused to enter the assembly for 10 months until a deal was struck to discuss electoral reform.

Two of the key points of contention were the composition of the election committee and the manual process of compiling the voter list for a general election.

The old election committee was stacked with CPP loyalists and electoral monitors raised serious concerns about how voters’ names were added to or deleted from the electoral roll by commune clerks, many of them loyal to the CPP, which has been in power for more than three decades.

“We hope that the elections in the future will be free and fair,” Sovann said. “Anything can change or be improved but at least in the present time, according to the situation, I think this is the best way to organise the elections freely and fairly. However, we will wait and see.”

Koul Panha, executive director of the Committee for Free and Fair Elections in Cambodia, told AA he was pleased to see consensus in selecting committee members.

He highlighted Chhun and Puthea, who represent civil society, as non-partisan members.

As for the next national election in 2018, “it’s too early to make [any] conclusion” about whether they would be free and fair, Panha said.

Kol Preap, executive director of Transparency International Cambodia said: "The new NEC does give some level of believe that it would administer the elections better than the previous one but it is too early to judge."

“It can't be called an independent body due to a bi-partisan appointment. We will see how they perform their duties in the coming months and years."

Welcoming the new body, the EU said in a statement: “It is an encouraging development and a positive result of the political dialogue the two parties have been pursuing… The EU stands ready to bring assistance to Cambodia to ensure that future elections are transparent, inclusive and credible.”

The NEC can begin work once it is formalized by the Senate and the king.