Phnom Penh: A senior official of the Candlelight Party, Son Chhay, announced that the party will accept the seats of the 5th Mandate Commune/Sangkat Council despite dissatisfaction with the results and said that the election was not free and fair.
Speaking at the party's press conference on the afternoon of 6 June 2022, Son Chhay said that the 5th Mandate Commune/Sangkat Council Election ended without freedom and justice, because there is no fair environment, citizens were not free in political participation and expressing their opinions, and the Candlelight Party has been under pressure from the preparation of the candidate list to the registration of observers.
The party representative added that the election had intimidated their party candidates before the election, mobilized troops before the election, intimidated voters on election day, and accused the National Election Commission of being too patronizing with the ruling party.
Regarding the mobilization and intimidation, Son Chhay could not confirm with EAC News at the press conference that he would provide evidence at a later date.
He said, "We declare that the election was not free and fair, which means we do not recognize the election, but we want to improve it to be fair [in the future] because this [election] does not reflect the will of the people. But if asked to take [the seats] or not, we take what belongs to us.”
However, Son Chhay announced the acceptance of the seats from the 5th Mandate Commune/Sangkat Council Election without any protests.
Following the completion of the Commune/Sangkat Council Election on Sunday 5 June, some parties issued statements assessing the election situation in Cambodia. They see Sunday's nationwide election as fair, just, and non-threatening.
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 the voters who came out in large numbers.
The President of the Cambodian Youth Party, 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 more democratic and more mature.
He said, "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. 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."
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. The number of people who went to vote was close to 7.3 million people which is about 80% of the 9.2 million registered voters.
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.
