Sam Rainsy and Kem Sokha jointly challenge general election result

Cambodge Soir

26-08-2008

The presidents of the Sam Rainsy Party (SRP) and the Human Rights Party (HRP) read out a joint statement to challenge the outcome of the July 27 ballot.

During a press conference held at SRP headquarters on Monday August 25, both opposition leaders reasserted their joint opposition to the mismanagement of the general election. “We have been working together at all stages of the election process. Each party has a working group and views and information are exchanged between Son Chay, SRP representative and Keat Sokun, HRP representative. An alliance might be on the agenda but the modalities need to be fixed and this can only happen once the electoral issues have been solved” declared both political leaders.

Sam Rainsy and Kem Sokha have declared that they will start an “evidence campaign” to collect evidence, including thumb-prints of witnesses, to denounce the ballot irregularities. “We focused on the entire country before filing our complaint to the national community”, they said. Both presidents have also sent a joint letter informing the French and Indonesian authorities of the ballot irregularities, as these countries co-chaired the 1991 Paris Agreement. Further on they will inform the authorities of the other countries that signed the Agreement. “ Our goal is primarily to inform France and Indonesia that the 1991 Agreement is being breached and that thousands have had their right to vote denied because their names were deleted from the rolls; they could not vote and several forged documents were used”, they stated without going into further detail. “According to this Agreement, Cambodia is a multiparty democracy, but this is not the case as the Cambodian People’s Party’s (CPP) goal is to rob us of the seats that we should obtain”, Sam Rainsy said. He also added that the CPP took 29 seats from both parties.

“Therefore the National Assembly of the fourth mandate will be illegal”, continued the SRP president. As for Kem Sokha, he announced that he would not be able to attend the first National Assembly session or to take an oath with those who stole his party’s seats. This announcement was accompanied by applause from Sam Rainsy.

The SRP calls for new elections to be held in the provinces of Svay Rieng, Pursat and Kampot, whereas the HRP would like re-votes in the provinces of Kampong Cham and Kampong Speu. According to them, if there had been no irregularities, they would have won at least a seat each in each of these provinces. “To prevent an individual from voting is a serious matter but to lose a seat is extremely serious. With 30 seats for our parties we could table a censure motion”, pointed out Sam Rainsy. Presently the SRP has 26 seats and the HRP three, according to the temporary results given by the National Election Committee (NEC).

The two opposition leaders also highlighted that they did not request any concessions from the CPP but that they would like their complaints to be resolved by the NEC and the Constitutional Council. According to them, people whose names were deleted from the rolls would have voted for parties other than the CPP.

Sam Rainsy introduced to journalists three of his party supporters who were victims of violence. Two of them were hit; another jailed and Sam Rainsy’s wife acted as his legal counsel.