NEC White Paper- SUMMARY

WHITE PAPER

THE 2013 GENERAL ELECTION FOR THE 5TH MANDATE OF THE

NATIONAL ASSEMBLY OF THE KINGDOM OF CAMBODIA

NATIONAL ELECTION COMMITTEE

5 September 2013

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

On 28 July 2013, the general election for the 5th mandate of Cambodia’s National Assembly was held in 19,009 polling stations nationwide.

This is the eleventh national and sub-national election to be organized by the National Election Committee (NEC). For this 2013 Election, the NEC initially accredited 99,481 agents from political parties, including the Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) (19,009 agents and 19,013 reserve agents); the Cambodian National Rescue Party (CNRP) (18,012 agents and 17,514 reserve agents); and FUNCINPEC (14,839 agents and 10,044 reserve agents).

The NEC also accredited 9,931 observers from the Sam Rainsy Party (SRP) and 4,780 observers from the Human Rights Party (HRP), added to the 40,142 accredited national election observers from 35 associations and organizations, including the election monitoring NGO, COMFREL, which had observers present at each polling station.

The NEC also accredited 292 international election observers from 35 international organizations, embassies and countries. Among them were distinguished dignitaries such as the former five-term Speaker of the House of Representatives of the Philippines, a former Vice President of Indonesia, former Deputy Prime Ministers of Canada and the Republic of Korea, a Senator from Pakistan, Chairmen of the Election Commission of the Philippines, Thailand and Myanmar, election commissioners from Malaysia, Laos and Russia, and the Director of Community Affairs Development of the ASEAN Secretariat. None of the international observers reported having witnessed any serious misconduct of the election on voting day, and virtually all the teams issued statements expressing satisfaction with the free and fair conduct of Cambodia’s 2013 general election and its peaceful atmosphere during the press conference held at the Phnom Penh Hotel on 28 July 2013 and in written statements and reports.

Voting was held to elect 123 members of the National Assembly representing 24 capital/provinces in 19,009 voting stations staffed by 114,054 polling workers. The preliminary results provided by the NEC and broadcast through the national television channel, TVK, on the evening of the polling and counting day reported the totals cast in each commune. The provisional results announced by NEC on 12 August gave the national totals for each party, with the CPP having received 3,235,969 votes and the CNRP having received 2,946,176 votes.

The CPP announced its own calculations, by which the CPP had won 68 seats and the CNRP 55 seats – somewhat similar to an announcement made by COMFREL (CPP 67 and CNRP 56). By contrast, the CNRP announced that it had won 63 seats and the CPP 60 seats. If these claims had been based on the original forms provided by the chief of every polling station, which every one of CPP and CNRP’s agents as well as COMFREL observers had received from each polling station, the results should not have differed.

Despite the elaborate system of procedures, cross-checks, and consolidation, with opportunities for filing complaints and appeals at all levels (where evidence can be presented and examined), a number of charges of “irregularities” have been disseminated through the media, public speeches, letters to the NEC or by rumors, without evidence to be validated and to be weighed.