National Election Committee (NEC) chairman Sik Bun Hok instructed his officials to uphold the law following a shake-up of department leaders and secretariat heads within the electoral body on Wednesday.

Bun Hok said at the ceremony in which the newly appointed department directors and secretariat heads assumed their roles that holding elections which are regarded as true to the principles of democracy and multi-party democracy is contingent on NEC officials upholding their roles.

“This conference is an opportunity to clear negative points in organising elections as a whole,” he said.

At the meeting, the appointment of five new NEC senior officials was announced, replacing outgoing officials who faced retirement.

Sam Savuth was appointed Head of the Operations Department; Vong Chamroeun as Head of the Internal Audit Department; Sum Bun Hong as Head of the Voter Education and Training Department; Sin Dara as Head of Administrative Department; and Dy Phirun as Secretariat of the General Secretariat of the NEC.

Savuth said he and his colleagues were committed to respecting to the Cambodian Constitution.

“We are committed to strictly implementing the law, legal documents and principles of the NEC in an effective manner,” he said.

About the new NEC appointments, Bun Hok said they were purely made following legal requirements and were not related to wrongdoing.

“When entering the civil servant framework . . . there is no official [that will] not be retired. It is impossible to not face retirement as it is stipulated in the law,” he said.

Bun Hok continued that he had often been pressured to practice nepotism when appointing staff at the NEC.

“A lot of friends have come to my house [to ask for jobs], but I never did it because of the consequences of not implementing the law,” he said.