Registration Turnout Low In Provinces

Voter registration in two of Cambodia’s populous provinces has been beleaguered by a low citizen turnout and other complications due to poor logistics and the problems of getting equipment to remote communes, Battambang and Kompong Cham election officials said.

Officials in the provinces of Battambang, with a population of 800,000, and Kom­pong Cham, with a population of 1.6 million, both complained that not enough people were coming to register for the first elections in the country’s 1,621 communes.

“The village chief should push people to come here because not that many know about it,” said Nuon Sarin, a Sam Rainsy Party monitor at a registration site in Tuol Ta’ek commune, in Battam­bang province’s Tuol Ta’ek district.

On Friday, the first day of registration at the Oh Takom site in Tuol Ta’ek, 50 people had registered by mid-morning, said Lorn Bunluy, a commune election council member. But the process was hampered by a lack of information, and registration was delayed from the scheduled starting date of July 24 because materials were not delivered on time.

“Some people don’t understand about where they should register,” he said, adding that some of the commune’s 17 registration sites did not have enough materials.

“For the many people who have voting cards from 1998, we want them to use their old cards,” Lorn Bunluy said. “We don’t want to issue new cards because we don’t have enough.”

In Kompong Cham province, about 100,000 of 801,693 eligible voters have registered, according to Mao Phirun, second deputy governor. Mao Phirun said some farmers in the provinces were too busy with work to register yet, but was confident they would.

“I believe 90 percent of the eligible voters will register,” he said. “If people can register up to 80 percent, it’s successful.”

Not all of the registration sites opened on time, because equipment arrived late, said Ros S’dang, a provincial election committee member in Kompong Cham town.

“It was not easy to transport the equipment 140 km from the provincial town to the remote areas,” he said.

Ros S’dang said election workers had a difficult time educating people about the registration, which was supposed to begin July 21 but didn’t start until two days later for some remote areas. There was not enough radios to get the information to remote regions, he said.

“It has not reached enough people yet,” Sam Rainsy Party Senator Kong Kom said of the registration process.

The officials in charge of the election are “too slow,” said Kong Kom in Kompong Cham town. Also, he said, many of people who were working far from their home communes as teachers, civil servants and others need permission to go home, but by the time they get to their respective communes, “they are missing the registration sites.”

There have also been isolated reports of intimidation. CPP soldiers were looking over the shoulders of some people at registry sites, forcing some of them to leave the site without registering, according to Neang Sovath, a human rights worker for Adhoc.  (Additional reporting by Brian Calvert)

 

Related Stories

Latest News