Elections

Prime Minister Hun Sen has ordered authorities to arrest any politicians pledging to clear the debts of voters with micro-finance institutions (MFIs) and banks if their party wins the elections. ...

The Constitutional Council of Cambodia on Monday rejected the CNRP’s complaints against the first 76 of 2,441 people the opposition party says were unlawfully registered to vote last year, arguing, like the National Election Committee, that the opposition party lacked evidence to back up its ...

The Constitutional Council of Cambodia will today start hearing claims from the opposition CNRP that more than 2,400 non-citizens were recently added to the country’s voter rolls, days after the government’s National Election Committee threw out the same complaints. ...

The Interior Ministry will directly investigate the identification cards of some voters – alleged by the opposition to be Vietnamese – after a study showed that data was lacking. ...

The National Election Committee (NEC) yesterday changed its procedure for resolving complaints that allege some registered voters are Vietnamese by holding brief, private hearings to speed up the process. ...

Hundreds of registered voters are being called in to a tribunal set up at the Interior Ministry compound in Phnom Penh this week to face questioning about whether they are Cambodian enough to participate in upcoming elections. ...

The National Election Committee (NEC) yesterday dismissed seven complaints made by the opposition CNRP alleging that 181 Vietnamese nationals were allowed to illegally register on the electoral roll. ...

The opposition CNRP said on Tuesday it was preparing to submit complaints to the National Election Committee (NEC) about almost 5,000 Vietnamese voters it says were registered to vote without citizenship, a move criticized as continuing the party’s tradition of populist Vietnam-bashing. ...

At a press conference yesterday, NEC member and spokesman Hang Puthea said that in the process of posting the voter list to the website, the committee encountered two major problems – a slow access speed and an invasion by hackers. ...

Prospective voters ran into problems yesterday during the first publication of the country’s new voter lists. Citizens will have until January 14 to check their names and information on voter lists to confirm they are correct, either in person, at registration offices or online. ...

After a three-month registration period, the National Election Committee will release its preliminary voter list on January 3, giving political parties, civil society and election monitors until January 14 to lodge complaints for any discrepancies found in the rolls.​ ...

A senior member of the Electoral Reform Alliance yesterday appealed for the National Election Committee to be given special jurisdictional powers over certain areas around the country during election campaigns so that it can ensure freedom of assembly. ...

The National Election Committee (NEC) has discovered more than 2,000 names missing from the voter registry, which officials have attributed to a technical glitch. NEC spokesman Hang Puthea told Khmer Times that after having verified 90 percent of the voter list, 2,318 eligible voters from 13 ...

At its 40th party congress over the weekend, the ruling CPP predicted another victory in commune elections next year and national elections the year after on the back of recent populist policies including cheaper electricity and more land for the poor. ...

Claiming the public knows little about successful reforms being made by government ministries, an international nonprofit released a study on Friday lauding the top three governmental efforts of this year. ...

Acting opposition leader Kem Sokha has promised to use his new dialogue with Prime Minister Hun Sen to push for migrant workers to get a vote in the 2018 national elections. Celebrating Human Rights Day on Saturday at the CNRP headquarters, Mr. Sokha spoke to supporters ...

With voter registration wrapping up last week, the National Election Committee over the weekend issued a call for the public to submit their evaluations of the rules that will govern the June 4 commune elections – the first popular ballot since the disputed 2013 national ...

Just under 7.9 million Cambodians enrolled to vote in next year’s commune elections during the registration period that closed on Wednesday, results released yesterday show, with the figure well short of the goal of 9.6 million people older than 18. ...

King Norodom Sihamoni ordered last week that the Phnom Penh boundaries be expanded to include portions from neighboring Kandal province in a bid to improve the city’s development. In a royal decree dated November 11, but only released on November 21, King Sihamoni ordered the government ...

An official from the National Election Committee said yesterday the body was pleased to have registered more than 80 percent of Cambodia’s estimated 9.6 million eligible voters over the past three months, blaming overzealous estimates of available eligible voters, deaths and the weather for coming ...

Most of the 20 percent of eligible voters who did not register before the deadline yesterday are migrant workers, the National Election Committee  (NEC) concluded, echoing the opposition and civil society groups. ...

The National Election Committee (NEC) decided to extend voter registration by only one day after pleas from the opposition and civil society to extend the deadline due to more than one million citizens failing to register in time.​ ...

The opposition party will meet with the National Election Committee this morning to discuss a number of “problems” with the voter registration process, highlighting that 2 million people could lose their right to vote at upcoming elections. ...

Opposition leader Sam Rainsy has waded into the Twittersphere, using his first tweet to congratulate US President-elect Donald Trump on his victory, and later calling on the few Cambodians who use the site to register to vote in next year’s commune elections.   ...