Commune chiefs and councillors across the country are being sworn in this week for five-year terms that will end in 2017.

Sak Setha, secretary of state at the Ministry of Interior, told the Post yesterday all winning candidates had to take up their new positions no later than 14 days after June 24, when the government officially released results from the commune elections earlier in the month.

But he said each local authority could pick its own swearing-in date within the two-week time frame.

“After the new commune council is declared, the former must set out and revise the internal rules and transfer all local documents to the election winner,” Sak Setha said.

The official results released on June 24 stated that 1,592 communes went to the Cambodian People’s Party, 22 to the Sam Rainsy Party and 18 to the Human Rights Party.

Funcinpec took home one.

The swearing-in of commune chiefs and councillors happened yesterday in Boeung Prolet commune, in the capital’s Prampi Makara district.

The rest of the communes in this district will hold a ceremony today.

Keo Sakal, the commune chief from CPP in Veal Vong commune, which includes the disputed Borei Keila area, said she pledged to revise infrastructure and drainage systems, and equip all residential houses with street lights.

Sakal, who has held the position for 10 years, added that the land dispute at Borei Keila, where people are living in squalid conditions awaiting the promise of housing, cannot be solved at the commune level. Only the national government could provide a solution, she said.

“It is beyond my ability in the name of authority to solve the land dispute in the Borei Keila area. However, I, on behalf of CPP members, will ask the party instead to examine this because there are more than 100 remaining families,” Keo Sakal said.

SRP commune chief Tek Nim, from Omlaing commune in Kampong Speu province’s Thpong district, said a land dispute was a top priority in her commune.

To contact the reporter on this story: Chhay Channyda at [email protected]