After having received recommendations from 10 institutions on the draft of regulation and procedure for Election of Members of the National Assembly in 6th Legislature 2018, the National Election Committee (NEC) organized a consultation meeting on those recommendations at Tonle Bassac 2 Restaurant under presidency of H.E. Mr. SIK BUNHOK, NEC Chairman on the morning of 23 of January 2018.
This opened consultation meeting has held for 01 day with participation from stakeholders including representatives of Constitutional Councils, General Secretariat of the Senate, the Ministry of Interior, the Ministry of Justice, representatives of 07 political parties, representatives of Embassy of People’s Republic of China, Embassy of Japan, Chiefs and Vice-chiefs of Provincial/Capital Election Commission (PEC) of 25 provinces and capitals, representatives of 12 national and international NGOs and 18 media agencies, a total of more than 200 participants.
H.E. Mr. SIK BUNHOK stated in the consultation meeting that NEC would welcome every comment and recommendation with enough grounds both legal and technical aspect to improve this draft to be comprehensive, effective and accountable; moreover, this draft has been prepared based on some of the main legal frameworks and principles as follows:
- The Constitution
- The Law on Organization and Functioning of NEC
- The Law on Election of Members of the National Assembly and Law on Amendment of the Law on Election of Members of the National Assembly
- NEC’s Internal Regulation
- Some experiences set out in the regulation and procedure for Election of Members of the National Assembly 2013 and the regulation and procedure for Election of Commune/Sangkat Councils 2017
- Some existing standard legal documents of NEC
In each chapter of this draft, NEC revised some contents in compliance with the new electoral law and to keep up to dated with the current context NEC has encountered during the previous implementation to make this draft better and easy to implement for all stakeholders.
Excellency also seized the opportunity to recall the history of NEC’s establishment, which is 20 years old by 30 January 2018. Initially, three experts from USA, Canada and Australia such as Mr. Theo Noel, Mr. Micheal Maley and Mr. Ron Gould, made the Draft Law on Election of Commune/Sangkat Councils and Draft Law on Election of Members of the National Assembly 1996.
Afterwards, the Draft Law on Election of Members of the National Assembly was promulgated on 26 December 1997 and NEC was established on 30 January 1998. He also added that NEC, which was established initially, encountered difficulties even though it received many supports from EU and UNDP.
The first difficulty was a legal aspect, the second difficulty was the preparation of regulation and procedure and production of document for elections and the third difficulty was the different viewpoint between NEC and EU. Although there were many challenges, NEC and its electoral officers at all levels still overcame the challenges by all means in order to succeed in organizing one election historically and this success was applauded by EU as “The Miracle on the Mekong River”. It was a proud achievement that Cambodia organized the election by itself and did not even have experiences in organizing the election at all.
The Election of Members of the National Assembly in 2nd Legislature 1998 is the important experience for NEC officers at all levels and stakeholders to improve subsequent elections. So far, NEC has experienced officers in organizing, managing and administering the elections at the national level and sub-national level and the most important point is that this knowledge is not taught at schools.
It is noted that the draft of regulation and procedure of the Election of Members of the National Assembly contains 10 chapters and 09 annexes. NEC will bring all recommendations to be discussed to find out what is progressive, transparent and fair for the nation and people.