The National Election Committee (NEC) has identified three key tasks to be completed simultaneously this year as it prepares to hold the third mandate district, provincial and municipal council elections in May.
Meanwhile, civil society organisations said the ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) will win a landslide victory.
NEC secretary-general Tep Nytha said at a training session on Tuesday that the important assignments to be achieved this year are voter screening and registration, the district, provincial and municipal council elections themselves, and provincial and municipal secretariat member selection.
“The legal framework and plan for these three tasks have been prepared and have been worked on simultaneously since the end of 2018,” he said.
Nytha requested his members and all relevant parties to pay close attention to the verification of voting data, such as correlating the voter list with formal identification documents.
“We need to arrange the calendar properly, in a timely and effective manner, to conduct provincial and municipal training. We need to assign clear duties to the municipal and provincial election committees and the election secretariat."
“And we need to strengthen cooperation between relevant parties, with the NEC providing support and security services,” he said.
The council election will be held nationwide on May 26, with 11,572 commune council members casting ballots to elect 559 provincial and municipal councillors and 555 town and district councillors.
NEC spokesman Hang Puthea told The Post on Wednesday that no political party or civil society organisation had yet registered to be observers or to monitor the council elections – political party registration will last for days from March 7 to 11.
“All political parties should register themselves and their members according to the announced schedule. Political parties who do not have a parliamentary or commune council seat also have the right to file an application to compete in the upcoming elections,” he said.
Sam Kuntheamy, the director of the Neutral and Impartial Committee For Free and Fair Elections, said although many political parties will register to compete in the elections, nothing will change as it has been clearly shown that no party can compete with the ruling CPP because all the constituencies are held by it.
“Other parties are only registering for the elections for the sake of it, in order to create a picture of multiparty polls, but the result remains the same. Nothing will change. The CPP will control all the parliamentary, senate and commune council seats. The CPP will win 100 per cent,” he said.
Puthea dismissed Kuntheamy’s statement as an illogical personal opinion since no-one can predict what will transpire. The real result will be disclosed when the votes have been counted, he said.
