Voters cast ballots in the 2018 national election at a polling station in Phnom Penh’s Sen Sok district. Heng Chivoan
A total of 78,457 people – including 22,596 women – from 17 political parties have applied for registration as observers during the June 5 commune council elections. Observers will be present on the voting day and at the counting of ballots, the National Election Committee (NEC) said in an April 4 press statement.
The NEC said that based on the law, political parties that have registered candidates for the election must apply to the Commune Election Commission to register their observers within seven days of the posting of the official list of candidates.
By law, members of the commune council, political party candidates, village chiefs, assistant village chiefs, village guards and members of the armed forces are not eligible to act as observers, it added.
All observers are expected to abide by the regulations that are in place and adhere to the code of conduct that applies to all political parties, candidates and agents of parties.
Loek Sothear, a spokesman for the Grassroots Democratic Party, told The Post on April 4 that his party had placed observers in each of the communes they are contesting.
He added that as far as he knew, there will be more observers from political parties than from civil society organisations. He suggested that the dearth of observers from these organisations may be due to budget limitations.
“The observers registered by political parties are legitimate representatives who can file complaints if they observe any irregularities during the election or vote counting,” he said.
Kheuy Sinoeun, vice-president of the Cambodian Nation Love Party, told The Post that his party had only finished submitting their applications by April 5 as there had been some unresolved complaints against candidates in some communes.
Sam Sokuntheamy, executive director of the Neutral and Impartial Committee for Free and Fair Elections in Cambodia, said his organisation planned to observe the election, but may not have enough observers due to a lack of funding. He planned to visit certain target provinces and find volunteer observers.
“We have registered fewer observers this year because of budget limitations – there is no money to pay them. We will try to deploy as many volunteer observers as possible, but they will be spending their own money to do this important work,” he said.
