Cambodia: The Cambodian People´ s Party Consolidates Power

Abstract

Cambodia held national elections on 27 July; they were the fourth general elections to be held since the end of the Cambodian conflict in 1991. In 2007, the National Electoral Committee (NEC) revised its national voter list and removed 586,160 names due to death, duplication and other reasons. The list of deregistered voters displayed publicly for thirty-five days and citizens were given the right to contest their deletion. According to a U.S. Embassy assessment, virtually all who took steps to protest the deletion of their names were re-instated.1 Nonetheless, an audit by the National Democratic Institute (NDI) found that as many as 57,401 voters (or 0.7 per cent of the total) were deleted. This figure challenged by the NEC and reduced to 49,340 voters (or 0.6 per cent of the total) who may [have been]... improperly and unintentionally disenfranchised.2 The U.S Embassy noted that the deletion of as many as 57,000 legitimate voters was a high price to pay for the successful removal of over 450,000 ghost voters.3 The final official list totalled 8,125,529 registered voters.