A woman casts her ballot in the commune council elections in Kandal province’s Takhmao town on June 5. Heng Chivoan
The interior ministry is planning orientation training for councillors nationwide who were elected in the commune council elections on June 5 and are to assume office no later than July 10, according to its director-general for administration.
The June 5 polls – the fifth quinquennial commune elections in Cambodia since 2002 – resulted in 11,622 out of 86,092 candidates being elected to the 1,652 commune councils, as members and chiefs, in the capital and the Kingdom’s 24 provinces.
Key topics to be covered during the training include the incumbents’ roles and responsibilities, the Law on Administrative Management of Communes (LAMC), the legal framework for the management of the public financial system at the commune level, and the preparation of commune development plans, Prak Sam Oeun told The Post on July 4.
Sam Oeun suggested that although no specific times have been set, the educational sessions would most likely not begin before September, in large part due to a precondition that individual councils must submit for ministry review a provisional outline of regulations and procedures for the administration of their jurisdictions.
He also affirmed that the training would take into consideration if members of the same council come from different parties, and underscored that adjustments may be made to the preliminary regulations and procedures that were submitted to the ministry, based on actual circumstances and needs.
Speaking to The Post on July 4, Candlelight Party vice-president Thach Setha voiced support for the training, which he believes will help bring together novice and veteran commune councillors.
He opined that the interior ministry must foster unity among councillors, and inspire them to work within their scope to serve the people equally and without political biases, as well as adopt commune development plans that complement each other.
Heng Srey Pov, chief of Kansom Ak commune in southeastern Prey Veng province’s Kampong Trabek district and a member of the ruling Cambodian People’s Party, told The Post on July 4 how invaluable orientation training could be for rookies to understand the intricacies of commune administration, reflecting on the head start her peers got when she was first elected to her post in 2017.
