The Committee for Free and Fair Elections (Comfrel) criticized the National Election
Committee (NEC) January 17 for the fact that it has not set up a system to allow
political parties to broadcast their programs on national television or radio during
the election campaign.
"We are concerned that the NEC has not made any preparations that will allow
political parties access to the media system," said Panha Koul, executive director
of Comfrel.
Panha said he regretted that the NEC had thus far not decided to help the political
parties gain access to TV and radio. The NEC had only offered a 70 minute slot on
TVK, the national channel, for each political party registered for the election.
"We have also noted that all the private television and radio stations are hesitant
to accept the program for voter education as requested by the political parties and
NGOs," he said.
Panha's comments came after Comfrel released a report from the organization's media
monitoring unit, which analyzed media coverage between January 4 to 15. The report
found the CPP gained far and away the majority of TV and radio's political coverage.
A summary listing the report's findings stated that in all media combined, the activities
of the CPP, including those of Prime Minister Hun Sen, garnered 85 percent of total
political news coverage.
"I think that each political party will find it faces difficulties in accessing
broadcast media," he said. "The election campaign will not be fair unless
all political parties can access the media."
CPP registered 90 percent of coverage, Funcinpec around 10 percent, and the SRP an
insignificant share. Comfrel warned that there was only a limited amount of time
left for other political parties to access the media in time for the commune elections.
Panha said Comfrel would continue its efforts to provide voter education, but warned
that time for that was limited. The body also said that instances of political intimidation
and threats were continuing and in fact had become more frequent.
"Comfrel is concerned over the steady increase in the number of acts of violence
and security matter including threats affecting the feelings of voters, intimidation
and killing [of] commune candidates and party activists," the press release
stated.
