CPP Offered Gifts for Vote: Kampot Villagers
Two Kampot voters explain how they were given gifts by the ruling party ahead of Sunday's polls. (31 July 2008)
On a quiet evening this week following Sunday's election, agroup of old men sat on a bamboo bed in a wooden house in Kampong provincesipping tea and talking politics. Shortly before the election, 65-year-old Tean Son said, hewas given a sarong by ruling party officials in exchange for a promise to votefor them in Sunday's polls. "I felt fearful, so I had to accept theirdonation," Tea Son said. "If we had not accepted that donation, we wouldbe afraid they could mistreat us and think that we did not love theirparty." He would not say who he actually voted for. Tea Son and others like him in Kampot represent evidence ofjust one of the irregularities the opposition have claimed hurt them in thepolls Sunday. The CPP claims to have won five of six seats in Kampot province, followedby the opposition Sam Rainsy Party. Sam Rainsy Party and Norodom Ranariddh Party officials bothwon cases against CPP vote-buying with Kampot's election committee. Kol Srey Aun, who, like Tea Son, lives in Samlanh commune,Angkorchey district, said that less than three weeks from Election Day,officials from the CPP commune office approached her with 15,000 riel, whichshe accepted. "They told me to vote for their party and told me to behonest with their party," she said. The 20-year-old said she took the money to help her supporther 88-year-old grandmother, who raised her after her mother's death and herfather's absence. She declined to say who she voted for. Kol Srey Aun used the money to buy MSG and salt,supplementing the income she receives selling fruit at a nearby school and themoney that comes from her husband, a military official in Phnom Penh whose salary is not enough tosupport the family. Samlanh Commune Chief Sou Sokha said it was true that aheadof the election, her office had offered a little money to some of the commune'spoorest residents, but not to buy votes "Before we were successful [in the election], we workedhard and visited people frequently," Sou Sokha said, adding that mostpeople in her commune told her that they were satisfied with CPP's efforts tobring peace and development the country. In Samlanh commune, meanwhile, the CPP received 1,925 votes,followed by the Sam Rainsy Party, which won 1,116 votes.