PHNOM PENH: After the end of the 5th Mandate Commune/Sangkat Council Election, some parties have issued statements on Monday, 6 June, sharing their evaluations of the election situation in Cambodia. Some parties have said that they saw Sunday's nationwide election as correct, fair, and non-threatening, while others have suggested otherwise.

The Cambodian Youth Party (CYP) and the Khmer United Party (KUP) issued statements on Monday morning saying that the Commune/Sangkat Council Election process in Cambodia was conducted smoothly, with good security, good order, and a free and fair environment, with no threat posed to justice, especially for voters who came out in large numbers.

The President of CYP, Pich Sros, told EAC News that the party released this statement to show their participation in revealing the truth about the election process in Cambodia, which he said was now more democratic and more mature.

"Participating in the election, not only do we want people to support us, but we also want to know the atmosphere of the election in Cambodia, so that we can observe democracy in the country towards development for the future," said the CYP President. "The Cambodian Youth Party has observed this election from the stage of registering political party candidates, the election campaign period up until the last day when people went to the polls on the 5th of June. It is during these three stages that we observed that the elections in Cambodia are better [than before], with both politicians and the people appearing more mature, and the implementation of democracy in Cambodia is growing well."

FUNCINPEC Spokesperson, Nheun Raden, told EAC News that the party observed that many people went to the polls for the 5th Mandate Commune/Sangkat Council Election, however, he said that party supporters had many complaints regarding the issue of identification documents.

He said, "The vote count is taking place, and we do not know the result yet. FUNCINPEC is waiting for the official results from the National Election Committee. Then we will look at the results and see whether FUNCINPEC will recognize it or not."

Grassroots Democrat Party Spokesperson, Leok Sothea, said yesterday's election was not fair, free, and transparent. He mentioned some irregularities he noticed, such as pre-election campaign donations, excessive use of vehicles in the campaign, and threats from local authorities.

"We are discussing this and we have not filed many complaints, just that in each office and commune, we have filed our own complaints regarding threats and irregularities," he said.

The Candlelight Party also held a press conference on Monday, where senior Candlelight Party official, Son Chhay, declared that the party was unhappy with Sunday's election, saying that it was not free or transparent, and instead unfair and involving intimidation. However, he said the party would still accept the results and had no plans to hold any protests.

He said, "We are not happy, not only regarding the result, because even if the result was better than this, we would still emphasize the inaccuracy and non-compliance of this democratic election as not just. We will raise this issue and file a complaint.”

The 5th Mandate Commune/Sangkat Council Election 2022 was held on Sunday, 5 June, with 17 political parties participating in total. These parties competed to hold 11,622 commune council seats from 1,652 Communes and Districts nationwide. More than 7.1 million people went to vote, out of the 9.2 million registered voters.

Speaking at a meeting with stakeholders to summarize the general events of the 5th Commune/Sangkat Council Election 2022 on Sunday evening, 5 June 2022, National Election Committee (NEC) Chairman, Prach Chan, said that despite some issues, such as bad weather, the election was still going as planned. He revealed that in the run-up to the election, there had been a breach of the election aggression plan, in which the Permanent Security Command of the Election and the NEC had issued guidelines on strengthening security for election events to control the situation and to ensure the election ran smoothly and safely.

“At the same time, due to the good cooperation between the mechanism and the election security at all levels, with the National Election Committee and Election Committees of all levels, our election process was successful, and held in a calm, secure and safe environment, with social order, no violence, and no threats present," said the NEC Chairman.

However, LICADHO, a Cambodian human rights group, has said that it received reports from 16 capitals and provinces regarding the presence of local authorities sitting inside or outside polling stations or facilitating access to polling stations, including village chiefs, commune chiefs, district chiefs and other local authorities. In most of these cases, the human rights group reports that the authorities were seen recording the names or numbers of people who came to vote. In one case, a village chief and deputy village chief were seen sitting outside the entrance of a polling station, where they required voters to provide their names after placing their ballots.

There were also reports of local authorities visiting individual homes to question residents about who they voted for, as well as reports on the presence of armed soldiers near polling stations.

Regarding these cases, NEC Chairman Prach Chan said that he could not respond to such reports, but said that authorities noting down names of voters could not be considered a threat, as it is the consideration of the authorities on who to approach while people exercise their right to vote.

He said, "Maybe [local authorities] were worried about the weather, and went to visit people to see if they had gone to vote yet. [To see] who had already gone, and who had stayed. Maybe they went to remind them to go to the polls. And as far as I understand, because it was election day, the local authorities also considered this matter [and visited people].”

On the morning of Monday, 6 June, international observers held a press conference, announcing that the 5 June election was calm, transparent, free, and in accordance with international law.

Representative of the International Observers, Hubert Moise Hal Haddad, said that he has been involved in many election observation missions, and he found the Cambodian election to be of an equal standard to the French elections he has participated in before.