Memories of 1998’s election violence, a weak government effort to inform them and their own spiritual conflicts are combining to keep Buddhist monks from participating in the voter registration drive this year.
Hundreds of monks joined the last parliamentary election in 1998. But those that protested against alleged vote-rigging and the ruling party were kicked and beaten by riot policemen.
On Tuesday, some monks who had participated in those riots said they were demonstrating as voters in 1998, not as Buddhist monks, to protect their votes from being unfairly rigged by National Election Committee members aligned with the ruling CPP.
Nevertheless, the monks’ protests drew criticism from other Cambodians, who said spiritual leaders should not get involved in politics, several monks recalled Wednesday.
“So now I feel reluctant to cast another vote. If we go to register, we have a moral obligation to protest if there is cheating. But when we protest, people say we are abusing Buddhist teachings,” one Wat Botum monk who requested anonymity said.
Pinh Vibol, at Wat Botum, said he does not feel free to exercise his voting rights this year.
“I want to be politically neutral because I am now eating the rice of the CPP, Funcinpec, and Sam Rainsy voters and party members,” he said, preparing his rice bowl for an offering.
Some monks, however, say that if they are informed and encouraged to register to vote they will go. But they will probably abstain from voting.
“Leave it to the lay people to decide this election,” monk Prum Sokun said.
By last Monday, one registration station inside Wat Botum had received only two of the wat’s 250 monks. Many said that unlike the 1998 national elections, no one had told them to register.
He added that only the CPP had come to distribute its list of preferred candidates. The election observer Commission for Free and Fair Elections has asked the NEC to ask all pagoda heads to announce the registration to the monks.
A Comfrel official said they plan to urge monks to register on 97.5 FM radio.
“The monks have the right to vote, so they should come register,” Kol Panha said.
