CPP won 1,591 commune chief positions while SRP won 28 in recent commune election of April 2007 in Cambodia

Tuesday April 24, 7:03 PM
Cambodia's CPP wins 98% of commune chief positions in election
(Kyodo) _ The ruling Cambodian People's Party of Prime Minister Hun
Sen has won 98 percent commune chief positions in the second local
elections in Cambodia's 1,621 communes, according to official results
released Tuesday by the National Election Committee.
The CPP won 1,591 of 1,621 commune chief positions up for grabs while
the opposition Sam Rainsy Party won 28 commune posts and the royalist
FUNCINPEC party won 2, according to the results.

Voter turnout was 68 percent, lower than any of the four other
national-level and communal polls held since 1993, which all had a
turnout of at least 80 percent.

The CPP has ruled the country since 1979, and it grabbed all commune
position chiefs until the first-ever communal election that was held
in 2002.

Even though the CPP won more votes -- some 3.1 million compared with
2.67 million in the 2002 election -- the SRP said it was happy to have
collected 1.3 million votes compared with only 730,000 in the last
election.

With the 5.2 million votes cast, the CPP won 60.81 percent of the
total vote and the SRP 25.18 percent, while the rest went to the
Norodom Ranariddh Party and the FUNCINPEC party.

The results indicate a "significant change" in Cambodia's political
geography, namely that it is now "only a two-party race: the CPP and
the SRP," said Sam Rainsy, leader of the SRP.

The second local elections were held peacefully despite some reports
of intimidation, threats and vote buying that had been raised prior to
voting day.

More than 7 million Cambodians had registered to vote in the elections
to choose new councils to administer the country's communes. As many
as 102,266 candidates, including 21,840 women, stood for election from
12 parties.

The councils to be chosen will have a five-year mandate and consist of
five to 11 councilors, depending on the demographic and geographic
situations of the individual communes.

In the first local election in 2002, the CPP won 1,597 of 1,621
commune chief positions up for grabs, while the SRP won 13, FUNCINPEC
got 10 and the Khmer Democratic Party got one.

About half of the $13 million budgeted for the latest election was
received from foreign donors.

.

Relevant Pages