Monitor’s results suggest CPP took about 50% at commune elections

Election officials spill ballots to begin counting at a polling station earlier this month in Phnom Penh. Heng Chivoan

23 Jun, 2017 Ananth Baliga

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Transparency International (TI) Cambodia yesterday said that the ruling Cambodian People’s Party appeared to have won 49.4 percent of the nationwide popular vote on June 4 based on the stations it monitored, nearly six percentage points ahead of the CNRP’s 43.2 percent.

The anti-corruption group, which deployed election monitors for the recent commune elections, said the findings were based on data they collected from 411 of the Kingdom’s 22,148 polling stations, which were then statistically extrapolated for a nationwide count.

The CPP’s 49.4 percent vote share had a 1.5 percentage point margin of error, with the CNRP’s vote tally similarly having a 1.4 percentage point deviation, said TI head Preap Kol.

Transparency International director Preap Kol speaks to the press yesterday in Phnom Penh. Hong Menea

He said the results helped put in perspective the National Election Committee’s (NEC) data, and that the relative closeness of the two figures was encouraging.

“We hope that these results will help to increase the confidence of the public with the election process,” he said at a press conference.

The group also released its voter turnout figures, which at 90.2 percent, were a little higher than the NEC’s 89.5 percent.