Cambodian opposition parties say seat formula illegal (FWD)

[DEMOREP1 at aol.com]

Guess why election laws must be specified in advance ???
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Cambodian opposition parties say seat formula illegal

.c Kyodo News Service    

PHNOM PENH, Aug. 6 (Kyodo) - Cambodia's two main opposition parties branded as
''illegal'' Thursday a modified proportional representation formula used to
allocate parliamentary seats after the July 26 election, threatening to
boycott parliament if the formula is used. 

''Last-minute attempts to change that formula are illegal,'' said a joint
statement issued by FUNCINPEC leader Prince Norodom Ranariddh and Sam Rainsy
Party (SRP) leader Sam Rainsy. 

''We will not take part in any session of the National Assembly that includes
members who owe their seats to an illegal formula at the expense of legally
elected members of the National Assembly,'' it said. 

The statement was made a day after preliminary results announced by the
National Election Committee (NEC) showed that under the new formula the ruling
Cambodian People's Party (CPP) will gain 64 parliamentary seats, FUNCINPEC 43
and the SRP 15. 

Under the original formula, the CPP would have got 59 seats, FUNCINPEC 44 and
the SRP 18, giving the opposition a slight majority. 

Preliminary results showed the CPP with 2,030,802 votes, 41.4% of 4,902,488
valid votes cast. 

FUNCINPEC got 1,554,374 votes, 31.7%, and the SRP 699,653, 14.3%, for a total
2,254,027 votes for the two opposition parties. 

Opposition parties, which have lodged hundreds of complaints with the NEC,
allege widespread fraud and irregularities in the counting of ballots and
argue the modified seat-allocation formula was decided by the NEC in secrecy
without parliamentary approval. 

Despite repeated requests, the NEC has yet to produce minutes of a May 28
meeting in which its members adopted the new formula. 

Opposition parties allege the NEC, an independent body in charge of
organizing, supervising and verifying the election, is biased toward top
leader Hun Sen's CPP as most of its members are affiliated with the former
communist party. 

The CPP's 64 seats still fall short of the two-thirds majority in the National
Assembly it would need to form a government on its own. 

Hun Sen has proposed a three-party coalition government of the CPP, FUNCINPEC
and the SRP, with himself as prime minister and the CPP in control of the
defense, interior, finance, justice and foreign affairs ministries. 

So far the two opposition parties have rejected the plan. 

AP-NY-08-06-98 0403EDT