Cambodian Opposition Holds Protest Rally Amid Vote-Tampering Suspicions

A top court ordered Cambodia’s electoral body on Monday to unseal voting records in a second province as the main opposition party held a 20,000-strong rally with an ultimatum to the government to set up an independent probe on widespread irregularities in recently-held national elections of face a larger demonstration. In an urgent statement, the Constitutional Council of Cambodia ordered the National Election Committee (NEC) to open packages with secured ballot information in Battambang province “in order to verify votes and vote-counting records.” Last week, the Council, which is the final arbiter of the election results, had ordered packages with key voting data to be unsealed for Kratie province following claims by the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) of massive election irregularities, including one million voters delisted from the electoral rolls. In a stunning development, an RFA Khmer Service reporter who witnessed the opening of the Kratie packages at the weekend noticed that they had already been unsealed, raising concerns among election watchdog groups of vote tampering. … “The NEC stole our votes for the CPP and now they claim they want to find the thief,” he said. Prompting cheers from the crowd, Sam Rainsy and his deputy Kem Sokha said that if an independent committee to investigate irregularities is not established before the NEC announces official results of the polls, the CNRP will lead much larger mass demonstrations. … Meanwhile at the Ministry of the Interior, officials released a DVD that it said was aimed at documenting for foreign diplomats and nongovernmental organizations an alleged move by Sam Rainsy to overthrow the government by calling for mass protests . Ministry of the Interior spokesman Khieu Sopheak said the DVDs, titled “Documents Related to Holding Massive Demonstrations for Social Change,” were aimed at revealing the “bad intentions” behind Sam Rainsy’s calls for mass demonstrations. “It shows [leaders of the opposition party] campaigning to ask people to hold demonstrations to topple the government in 2013,” he said. He added that the government will fulfill its duty to protect the country if any mass demonstration turned into riots. …

http://www.rfa.org/english/news/cambodia/elections-08262013195332.html