NGOs Call for Vote Reform, New Election

A re-election should be held in 2015 following the implementation of a comprehensive series of electoral reforms, an umbrella group of local rights organizations and independent election monitors said Friday. The organizations, including the Committee for Free and Fair Elections (Comfrel), Adhoc, the Community Legal Education Center, the Cambodian Center for Human Rights and NGO Forum, made the call for a revote at a press conference in Phnom Penh, saying that irregularities during the July 28 election had favored Prime Minister Hun Sen’s long-ruling CPP. The reforms should encompass an overhaul of the National Election Committee and the Cambodian Constitutional Council, a re-jig of the voter registration system and a new law on party financing, the groups said in a statement released after the conference. “This statement is also about resolving the current political situation and to curb the conflicts and social ills that keep happening,” Preap Kol, executive director of Transparency International Cambodia (TIC), said, referring to violence that has broken out at some post-election protests. …

 Khuon Narim
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/ngos-call-for-vote-reform-new-election-50066/