Sometime during the current monthlong voter registration period, They Sokuntheavy will return to her home village in Kompong Cham province to add her name to the commune’s voter list.
Like hundreds of thousands of young Cambodians across the country, the 18-year-old National Institute of Management student is eligible to vote for the first time in a national election this year, and she believes democracy is a form of governance in which “people dare to speak out, dare to do anything without fear.
“Changing our leaders through an election is the best way to improve our country through peaceful means,” she said. “No one wants to see an election that has violence.”
They Sokuntheavy is a member of the large generation of Cambodians born after the Pol Pot regime was toppled in 1979. The National Election Committee and other organizations estimate that there are as many as 1 million Cambodians who have turned 18 since the 1998 elections, making them a potentially significant new voting bloc.
Young voters “could introduce a new dynamic into a political culture that will have to increasingly adapt and respond to this new constituency’s hopes, views and impatient expectations,” Ok Serei Sopheak, coordinator of the Cambodia Development Resource Institute’s Center for Peace and Development, wrote in the October-December 2002 issue of the Cambodia Development Review.
“Whether political parties are sensitive to these changes, and have the capacity to respond, will be critical to the continuing evolution of the democratic process,” he wrote.
The Sam Rainsy Party, for one, has seen the importance of appealing to the 18- to 22-year-old age group. The party is giving away prizes to 1,000 young voters who have registered to vote in an effort to “encourage” young people to add their names to the voter rolls.
Sam Rainsy said the party is also distributing tens of thousands of educational leaflets around the country to young people. The Committee for Free and Fair Elections is also handing out leaflets and is broadcasting registration information on the Women’s Media Center’s FM 102, Comfrel President Koul Panha said.
Additionally, the Youth Council of Cambodia, which is funded by the US-based International Republican Institute, has organized a series of pop music concerts in five provincial towns during the registration period to educate young eligible voters about the election.
Upcoming concerts are also scheduled to take place in Prey Veng town, Svay Chrum district in Svay Rieng province and Tram Kak district in Takeo province, council secretary Mak Sarath said.
On Monday and Tuesday at the National Assembly, Funcinpec President Prince Norodom Ranariddh said he is concerned that there is a lack of enthusiasm among new voters—a group that includes not only the 18- to 22 year-old age group, but older adults who did not register in 2002.
The prince called for an extension of the registration period if 95 percent of new voters have not registered by Feb 15, the scheduled end of registration.
Funcinpec Deputy Secretary-General Nhiek Bun Chhay said last week that the party has asked its commune-level party officials to make a special effort to persuade young voters to register. The party will also push to get the estimated 800,000 people who registered but did not vote in the 2002 commune council elections to the polls in July, he said.
Several young adults said recently that they plan to register and vote, even though they believe that the election’s outcome has been pre-determined.
Some said they recognize the importance of holding elections and thought that most people are enthusiastic about the July vote, while others said they do not have confidence in the voting process because of the turmoil that followed the 1993 and 1998 national elections.
“I have heard that the CPP has already won the coming election,” said Sao Sothy, a 20 year-old student at the National Institute of Management.
She said she “dares to speak like this” because Prime Minister Hun Sen has several times stated in public that he would continue to be Cambodia’s leader for the next five to 10 years.
“My vote can eventually help to solve society’s problems. It is just a little to bring change, but it is still change,” Sao Sothy said.
The CPP is popular with many people in Svay Rieng, the home province of 21 year-old Kouch Lyna, because of the ruling party’s “good governance,” she said.
“Each person’s thinking is different. Sometimes I think that one party is good, but others think that another party is better,” she said.
Ly Kasaro, 21, said his parents and relatives have urged him to vote and have told him that living under democracy is much better than living in a society dominated by the war and turmoil of the 1970s and 1980s.
Sam Rainsy on Monday claimed that some commune election officials are making it more difficult or refusing to register monks and 18 to 22 year-olds because the government believes they will vote against the ruling party.
John Malott, a former US ambassador to Malaysia who led a mission last week to assess voter registration for the International Republican Institute, said he saw a similar pattern when he was in Kuala Lumpur.
“They are new [to the election process], and you don’t know how they are going to vote,” he said. “[And many] 18 year-olds don’t really care what you did when you liberated them from the Khmer Rouge. They care that there is unemployment.”
(Additional reporting by Saing Soenthrith, Matt Reed and Lor Chandara)
