Friday, 1 August 2008

SRP MPs call on international observers

Cambodge Soir
1-07-2008

The time of filling urns as an election-rigging technique has passed. According to the opposition, the reigning party has been using much more sophisticated rigging techniques.

A couple of days after the election, SRP MPs are still angry. They now turn their focus on the international observers. The latter could not have been aware of underhanded practices “the day before voting and far from the polling stations”.

According to these MPs, observers present on voting day can only report that the electoral process went well "technically” speaking. The members then summarised the two rigging techniques already denounced by the SRP leader on the evening of the election.

The first started in late 2007 when “15 000 pro-CPP village chiefs located opposition supporters and took them off the electoral lists,” while pretending to finalise them. The SRP representatives claimed that this represents a loss of one million votes for them.

Using the 1018 form, the equivalent of a provisional identification card for individuals waiting for one, the CPP allowed “underage, workers who could not travel back to their homes, as well as unlisted citizens” to vote under the identity of a deceased person, or a person who has moved or is listed twice. The SRP estimates that the CPP gained one million voters with this wangling.

Due to the extent of the rigging, the SRP parliamentary group alleged “to have inventoried countless cases including the real identity of the illegitimate voters, proved by their identification cards, and the false identities they used on the 1018 form which was provided by the CPP. Each document presents the same picture of the same individual”. The members invite observers to come to the party headquarters on Wednesday July 30th to witness the veracity of their allegations.

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