Cambodians fear CPP may stage a coup if it loses in polls

Cambodians fear CPP may stage a coup if it loses in polls

By Armin Wertz

PHNOM PENH (DPA): The German embassy in Phnom Penh is reported
by Deutsche Welle, the German short-wave radio station, to have
warned that Hun Sen's Cambodian People's Party (CPP) may stage a
coup if it loses tomorrow's general election.

The embassy is said to have expressed this view in a
confidential message relayed to the German foreign office in
Bonn.

Staff of the Buddhist Aid Association were somewhat surprised
when their new chairman increased virtually overnight the number
of observers his group was to send to supervise tomorrow's
general election from 1,000 to 24,000.

Their surprise became alarm when, in the days that followed,
more and more soldiers turned up at the organization's head
office to collect their membership cards.

"I think most of these observers are from the army," said a
member of staff. "I fear they will create difficulties on
election day." When she made this comment she was still unaware
that her new boss was employed by one of the closest associates
of Cambodian strongman Hun Sen.

"We were not expecting such a fraud," said the head of the
National Electoral Commission (NEC), who is now keen to be rid of
these unwanted observers.

"Cambodia has the most liberal electoral law in Asia,"
enthuses Peter Schier of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation. And, he
adds, "the National Electoral Commission is doing amazingly good
work."

After initial problems during preparations for the election
and in the course of the election campaign everything has been
running astonishingly smoothly for the past two or three months,
Schier says.

The commission certainly has some very hard work to do. It is
not just that supplies of ink were snarled up for days in Phnom
Penh's red tape. Voting papers, ballot boxes and electoral
registers had to be shipped to remote areas under the most
difficult conditions.

The election organizers also faced constant attacks by
isolated Khmer Rouge guerrilla units. Two people have been killed
so far, and five more injured. The commission now faces an influx
of election observers.

Thirteen Cambodian organizations of various kinds have
registered 60,000 observers, most of whom are totally unqualified
and closely linked with the military. "We hope to be able to
clear out at least half of them," said an NEC spokeswoman. "We
will certainly be doing our best to do so."

Yet the commission was forced to admit on Wednesday that it
had already issued 43,000 identity cards for domestic election
observers and that their number could increase to 50,000 by
election day, Sunday.

They have also registered 648 international observers sent by
the United Nations (UN) and the European Union (EU), all superbly
equipped with air-conditioned jeeps and mobile phones.

According to agency reports the EU has contributed US$11
million toward the cost of holding the elections, which makes it
the largest foreign donor.

These observers will be joined by several hundred
representatives of diplomatic missions and scores of observers
sent by a variety of human rights groups and organizations from
Europe and the United States.

The NEC is only prepared to grant them visitor status. "They
will be issued with visitor identity cards that include neither
their names nor pictures," says the commission's chairman. "They
will be allowed to visit polling stations but not to compile
official reports."

His staff do seem to have done the best they can to ensure
free and fair elections. Yet the chairman is sure that: "There
will be a lot of complaints. We will be accused of having done
poor work. But that is part of the business. The winners will
celebrate and the losers will claim the elections were a fraud."