During a talk with Koh Kong Provincial Election Secretariat (KKPES) at PES office building, located in Prek Svay village, Sangkat Steung Veng, Khemarak Phoumin municipality, Mr. Seng Neng, Chief of KKPES reported to the delegation led by H.E. Mr. Sik Bun Hok, NEC Chairman, “The total population of Koh Kong is 141,302. 89,929 of whom reach 18 and above and 66,233 of whom are registered in the voter lists in 2019; moreover, KKPES is planning to register 2,901 new voters for 2020.
Regarding the report for the voter registration update 2020, His Excellency Chairman advised strengthening the overall work that the removal of the names from the voter lists cannot be done unless there are required documents and except the following cases:
- a person requests to register at a new place (if a person has temporarily relocated his/her residence or with the purpose of finding a job; otherwise, we can’t remove his/her name from the voter list);
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a person has permanently relocated his/her residence in another capital/province (the concerned person shall request for an approval from the capital/provincial authority to relocate in another capital/province; and
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a person is deceased (PES officials shall diligently check the attestation or death certificate to be recorded in Form 1025. In the event of forwarding the Form 1025 to the NEC without the attestation confirming he/she is deceased, NEC can’t remove his/her name from the voter list).
It is worth informing that there are 183 permanent and mobile registration stations in Koh Kong, 12 of mobile registration stations are facing a geographical challenge, which requires to hire means of transport such as boats to transport the voter registration teams, computers and other materials to the voter registration stations back and forth upon the completion of the task.
Meanwhile, KKPES has worked in good collaboration with the authorities at all stages, ranging from the records (estimated number of population and polling stations), voter registration, voting, training, electoral campaign, security and dissemination.
At the same time, Chief of KKPES also had asked the province (the authority) for land and the province provided a 30m x 30m-square meter land as PES’s property, located in Sangkat Steung Veng, Khemarak Phoumin municipality. After receiving the order for processing the occupation of the said land, NEC constructed an administrative building on 25 June 2015.
Chief of KKPES is also committed to a better leadership to ensure sustainability pursuant to laws, science, ethics, virtue and acceptability. On the other hand, he would continue to strengthen the good collaboration with the authorities at all levels, political parties and civil society organizations involved in the election; moreover, the elections in Koh Kong have been successfully conducted with independence, neutrality, fairness and transparency while the results have been accepted by all stakeholders.
His Excellency Chairman insisted on reminding the election officials of KKPES to uphold “the principle of impartiality” firmly while his presence is not to induce the bias nor consider those who are not on one’s side or support him or her as an enemy. Furthermore, His Excellency Chairman presented the Code of Conducts for the Election officials by reading point 6.7 of the Code of Conducts aloud as the followings:
- Shall not be biased and express any kind of attitude, behavior or speech or statement that indicates bias or preference or dissatisfaction against any political party, candidate and political party’s agents during his/her duty;
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Shall not commit anything that may affect voters, leading up to voting in support of or against any candidate or political party; and
- Shall not discriminate in all forms in relation to election and other political activities such as discrimination against race, gender, minority group, title, or religion.
“I follow the points above and those who dare to have bias shall be accountable in my own presence. I do not need that,” said His Excellency Chairman.
After completing the talk with KKPES, His Excellency NEC Chairman will continue his trip to meet Preah Sihanouk Provincial Election Secretariat on 5th September 2020.
