Young people emerge as most important voters in coming elections

PHNOM PENH, December 21, 2011 (Cambodia Herald) –  With more than nine million people registered to vote in commune and national elections in coming years, young voters have emerged as the most important group for which political parties have to compete.

"Young people aged between 18 and 35 years represent 54 percent of the total registered voters," Tep Nitha, secretary general of the National Election Committee (NEC), told the Cambodia Herald.

"Youth is playing a very important role in political decision making; they are the future of Cambodia," he said.

voters’ voices heard

The campaign website offers voters a platform to
become engaged.
Photo:Oxfam Novib

The Committee for Free and Fair Elections in Cambodia (COMFREL) recently launched an innovative campaign to make citizens’ voices heard and increase participation in public decision-making. The Cambodian Voter Voice campaign is the result of an almost two-year process supported by Oxfam Novib and its alliance partner Butterfly Works.

COMFREL launched its Cambodian Voter Voice campaign at the end of October, timely ahead of the upcoming communal and legislative elections, respectively in June 2012 and July 2013. The campaign integrates online and mobile phone technologies in the programmes of COMFREL to make citizens’ voices heard and increase participation in public decision-making.

Cambodian context

The work of organizations like COMFREL is much needed in the Cambodian context. The Southeast Asian country of 15 million people began on the road to democracy in the 1990s, after years of conflict and massive human rights violations. However, a strong ruling party is tightening its grip on government institutions, limiting transparency and space for dissenting voices.

two-way communication

COMFREL already has a website, but it primarily serves as a one-way information tool. ‘We want interaction with the website users’, says Panha Koul, executive director. The campaign website offers voters a platform for becoming engaged.  For example, citizens can report incidents or irregularities related to the elections which, after verification by a COMFREL staff member, will be posted on an online map.

reaching youths

Around 1.2 million youths are eligible to vote for the first time, but few register to vote, let alone stand for election. To reach out to youths COMFREL created a Facebook site, a Twitter account and a blog which allow for interactive discussion targeted at a young audience. In collaboration with youth associations, COMFREL will also send information and reminders via text messages to new voters.

connecting offline and online communities

While slightly more than half the population owns a mobile telephone, only 2.2 percent uses the internet. Hence, information transmitted via mobile phones has potential for impact, but linking offline and online activities remains crucial. With the help of a new technology, FreedomFone, COMFREL offers on-demand information on the elections via a telephone hotline. People can listen to pre-recorded information or record questions on a voicemail, which will be followed-up by COMFREL staff. Traditional ways of communicating, such as daily radio shows, television spots, leaflets and workshops will continue, but the information will also be accessible online.

engaging beyond elections

‘Voters’ voices should be heard, not only during elections, but also thereafter’, Panha stresses. Linking remote communities to performance monitoring of elected representatives can be facilitated by mobile phones. In one hundred communes, COMFREL will train three volunteers each to report via text on voter score cards, which allow for follow-up of priority needs identified prior to the elections. The volunteers will report information from the community and spread information to the community they received via text messages.

COMFREL continues exploring the opportunities offered by new technologies: ‘An Indian company now produces tablet PCs for 35 US dollar. Why not use these touch screens for civic education, and monitoring in remote areas?’ Panha wonders. Certainly, there still is room for innovation.

Bron	Oxfam Novib, December 16, 2011
Auteur	Miriam Rau and Judith Veenkamp, officers Knowledge & Programme Management at Oxfam Novib

Ouattara coalition leads in Ivorian poll count

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/12/12/us-ivorycoast-election-idUSTRE7BB28M20111212

By Loucoumane Coulibaly and Ange Aboa

ABIDJAN | Mon Dec 12, 2011 6:29pm EST

(Reuters) - Ivory Coast President Alassane Ouattara's ruling coalition led in partial results from Sunday's legislative election, according to a small sample of preliminary results released on Monday.

Ouattara's ruling coalition appears set for a landslide win based on voting patterns during the first round of last year's presidential polls.

A sweeping win in the West African state's first parliamentary poll in a decade would strengthen Ouattara's hand governing a country fresh from a power-struggle that killed more than 3,000 people.

Ouattara's ruling RDR and allied PDCI parties won 13 of the 17 seats announced by late Monday, according to the election commission, with independent candidates winning the other four. The National Assembly has 255 seats.

The poll passed peacefully, but the main opposition party called for a boycott. Turnout figures were not available, but appeared low, observers said.

"We think that tomorrow we'll have a lot more results. And if we haven't finished by then it is certain that by Wednesday latest all of the results will be known along with turnout," an election commission official said, asking not to be named.

Ouattara won a November 2010 presidential election but was only able to take power in April, after fighters supporting him invaded the economic capital Abidjan and arrested former leader Laurent Gbagbo who had refused to step down.

Gbagbo was spirited to The Hague last month to face war crimes charges for his role in the fighting.

Gbagbo's spokesman Justin Kone Katinan, in exile in Ghana, said evident low turnout in the December 11 legislative poll showed Ouattara did not have support of the Ivorian people and warned of possible fresh unrest if Gbagbo is not given a voice.

"When people feel unable to express themselves at the polls, they tend to go into the streets," Katinan told Reuters by telephone. "We don't want war to return to Ivory Coast. We have to acknowledge the warning that the people have given."

The U.S. embassy in Ivory Coast said in a statement on Monday that the election marks the end of the post-election crisis in world's top cocoa producing nation.

"We call on all political parties, even members of those parties who chose not to participate in these elections, to respect and support the new National Assembly," it said.

Despite some incidents, election officials and observers said voting proceeded normally.

More than 5 million people were eligible to vote for parliament in an election seen as a crucial step toward recovery after a decade of conflict and political turmoil.

Ouattara had urged Ivorians to vote, saying parliament had an essential role in rebuilding the country.

"Ivory Coast is at work and we need to build the institutions that will now be strong and independent institutions. I am applying myself to this task and that's why the December 11 vote is an essential vote for all Ivorians," Ouattara said after casting his ballot in Abidjan.

The poll could boost investor confidence in Ivory Coast, which wants to expand its gold mining, oil, cotton and services sectors to regain its place as the region's economic powerhouse.

Pockets of lingering tension and violence, particularly in the west, had raised fears of trouble during the polls, which were policed by local and about 7,000 United Nations security personnel.

(Writing by Bate Felix; Additional reporting by Richard Valdmanis in Dakar; Editing by Louise Ireland and Mike Roddy)

Russian Vote Criticized

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. (Reuters)

http://4.hidemyass.com/ip-1/encoded/Oi8va2ktbWVkaWEuYmxvZ3Nwb3QuY29tLzIwMTEvMTIvcnVzc2lhbi12b 3RlLWNyaXRpY2l6ZWQuaHRtbA%3D%3D

DECEMBER 5, 2011
By ALAN CULLISON
The Wall Street Journal

MOSCOW—Western election monitors said Monday that a Russian parliamentary vote this weekend was neither free nor fair, and tipped lopsidedly in favor of the pro-Kremlin party that nevertheless was dealt a humiliating setback.

Monitors from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe denounced the voting irregularities in unusually harsh terms, saying that although election day was itself peaceful, it was marred by apparent manipulations and "serious indications of ballot box stuffing."

"To me, this election was like a game in which only some players are allowed to compete," said mission head Heidi Tagliavini at a news conference. "And the game was tilted in favor of one of the players."

Kremlin leaders were claiming a victory one day after the vote, although the pro-Kremlin party, United Russia, will lose a large number of seats in parliament, and is barely clinging to a majority.

The official tally showed United Russia was leading with 49.5% of the vote, with about 96% of precincts counted, according to Central Election Commission chief Vladimir Churov. He said United Russia it will get 238 of the Duma's 450 seats, a sharp drop compared to the previous vote that granted it a two-thirds majority in the State Duma, allowing it to change the constitution.

The results mark the largest electoral upset for Mr. Putin since his rise to power more than a decade ago, and highlight the fragility of the system of government that he has built since then under the name of "sovereign democracy." While the results don't threaten Mr. Putin's immediate grip on power, they could fuel rising tensions with the West. In the run-up to the vote, Mr. Putin had ramped up anti-Western rhetoric, accusing foreign-funded groups of attempting to destabilize the government.

Western criticism of the vote is likely to raise the Kremlin's apprehensions, because Mr. Putin plans to return to the presidency after another poll in March. "Any doubts about the legitimacy of these elections cast a shadow on the upcoming presidential elections," said Nikolai Zlobin, director of Russian and Asian programs at the World Security Institute in Washington, D.C. "Its very important to make sure that the population sees these results as legitimate."

In Moscow, security remained tight one day after the vote, with heavy police trucks parked along a main thoroughfare. Thousands of pro-Kremlin youth were bussed into the city center for a rally that leaders said was meant to neutralize antigovernment demonstrations. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev told supporters Monday that the pro-Kremlin party's poor showing was evidence that the elections were fair. "United Russia received exactly what it has, not more and not less, and in that sense these were honest, fair and democratic elections," he said, according to the Interfax news agency. France on Monday urged Moscow to investigate the election violations cited by the OSCE, saying "all light must be shed on allegations in the report." Romain Nadal, deputy spokesman for the French foreign ministry said "we hope that lessons will be learned for the next elections organized in Russia."

Russian voters seem increasingly impatient with the Kremlin's stifling dominance of politics amid slowing economic growth and deepening inequality, analysts said. Lately the public discontent has spread to Mr. Putin, who has for the past two weeks avoided unscripted appearances after he was booed by the audience of a martial-arts competition in Moscow.

Opposition leader Boris Nemtsov said the vote spelled the beginning of the end of Mr. Putin's star-like popularity with Russians, and that his government will soon collapse. "He needs to hold an honest presidential election and allow opposition candidates to register for the race, if he doesn't want to be booed from Kamchatka to Kaliningrad,'' Mr. Nemtsov said on Ekho Moskvy radio.

While Kremlin leaders sounded reassurances that United Russia remained in a leadership position, loss in parliament was clearly a worry to a Kremlin apparatus that has kept a tight hold on the media, but has been unable to control popular grumbling on the Internet.

In a sign of the Kremlin's concern, departing President Dmitry Medvedev, who led the United Russia party, said the results could force the pro-Kremlin bloc into coalition-building with opposition parties to pass legislation. Such a result would mark a reversal for United Russia, which has in recent years been able to pass any legislation the Kremlin wanted without compromising with the sidelined opposition.

Opposition parties, stunted over the years by the dominance of United Russia, were beneficiaries of Sunday's vote. The Communist Party won a bit more than 19% of early returns, followed by Just Russia, a left-wing party founded with Kremlin help with about 13%. The nationalist Liberal Democratic Party, whose erratic head, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, has historically garnered protest votes, won just under 12%.

Westward-leaning liberals remain locked out of popular politics, and the sole liberal party allowed to run in elections Sunday didn't reach the 7% barrier to enter parliament.

But while the Kremlin will have a harder time steering Russia's parliament, vast powers still reside in Russia's presidency, a post Mr. Putin will occupy for another six years if he prevails in March elections.

Although final results appear to give United Russia a majority in parliament, Kremlin leaders appeared to be positioning themselves for a setback.

Mr. Medvedev, interviewed on Russian state television at United Russia headquarters, called the results "democracy in action," causing smiles in the room. Mr. Medvedev said that with a "more complex configuration" in parliament it may be necessary to resort to "coalition, bloc relations."

Mr. Putin, looking stern, said the results "reflect the real situation in the country. For United Russia, it's the optimal result." But he maintained that United Russia still kept its "leadership position."

State TV, usually carefully scripted in its coverage of politics, offered a surprising diversity of opinions in live reports Sunday night as news of the poor showing rolled in. Some commentators in the studio described the results as "catastrophic" for the ruling party, while others said the unexpectedly strong results for opposition parties were a sign of much-needed diversity in Russian politics.

Opposition parties and independent observers reported widespread voting abuses, though government officials said the election went smoothly. Nearly all the vote-rigging reported Sunday favored the United Russia party. Exit polls indicated that United Russia would get 46% to 48%, but as results trickled in the official tally climbed toward 50%.

The election came after what Kremlin critics called unprecedented pressure on vote monitors who were amassing evidence of voting irregularities. Websites of independent vote monitors and news websites fell under simultaneous hacker attacks before the start of voting, and remained out of commission on Monday.

The websites, belonging to the Ekho Moskvy radio station, online news portal Slon.ru and Novaya Gazeta, had published numerous stories on vote -fraud allegations. The U.S.-financed vote-monitoring group Golos, which fell under hacker attacks before polls opened, had been singled out by state-run media as a tool of foreign governments.

At Golos, email accounts were swamped by thousands of spam messages, and telephones of employees were also rendered useless by a torrent of automatic calls. Phone calls to the monitoring group were also somehow diverted to an unknown number, where an operator told callers to phone elsewhere, said Golos director Liliya Shibanova.

The spam attack disabled a Golos project that has drawn special Kremlin ire in the past week—an interactive map displaying reported campaign violations across the country ahead of the vote. The map allowed voters to click on the map to learn about and report violations in their own regions. As of Saturday the map had contained more than 5,500 complaints.

Other Kremlin critics simply boycotted the election, or encouraged voters to deface their ballots because restrictions on opposition parties made any real choice impossible.

Opposition, NGOs say election airtime boost insufficient

 http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2011120253106/National-news/opposition-ngos-say-election-airtime-boost-insufficient.html
 

Kim Yuthana with additional reporting by Vincent MacIsaac

Friday, 02 December 2011

The National Election Committee yesterday pledged that both political parties contesting elections for the Senate on January 29 will receive television and radio airtime on state-run broadcasters.

The ruling Cambodian People’s Party and the opposition Sam Rainsy Party will each get 60 minutes for a roundtable discussion on their respective platforms and 60-minute slots for direct videos, the NEC said. Both parties will also receive free airtime on state-run radio stations, it said.

NEC official Su Kulah Tipor said that each party could produce four TV and four radio programs. “These will be broadcast during the campaign period from January 7 to January 27 twice a day,” he said.

SRP lawmaker Kuoy Bunroeun said that the increase in airtime for each party still remained inadequate to encourage the development of democratic elections. “The ruling party has enough power to control the broadcasting system during the entire [Senate] mandate [of five years], but other parties have a little bit of time to broadcast during the election campaign,” he said.

“In democratic countries, broadcasting systems belong to everyone,” he said.

NEC general secretary Tep Nytha said political parties fielding candidates for the third Senate election have more airtime to discuss their policies than before but must still follow electoral rules, process and ethics.

Koul Panha, executive director of election monitoring NGO Comfrel, said political parties still lacked sufficient airtime to explain their policies to voters. He said the lack of equity in the broadcast media made it uncertain whether elections would be truly free or just.

Ek Tha, spokesman for the Council of Ministers and deputy director of its press department, disagreed, saying the opposition had its own newspapers and plenty of access to radio through stations funded by the US State Department, such as Radio Free Asia.

He suggested that the SRP’s problem was not a lack of airtime, but that its tactics and policies had failed to resonant with voters. “Because the CPP has been doing a great job, we continue to get great support, and our voice represents the voice of the people,” he said. “The [Senate] election will be free and fair, and the result will be supported by the people, the CPP and the opposition parties.”