9th July, 2018
Cambodia’s Labour Ministry on Monday urged employers to pay their workers ahead of planned elections on July 29 in a move to increase voter turnout after the country’s banned main opposition party called on voters to boycott the elections.
In a statement released on Monday, the Labour Ministry urged employers to pay their workers’ monthly wages at least two days before the election, in order to allow them to return to their home provinces to vote.
The move was meant to ensure strong voter turnout, analyst Miguel Chanco told dpa.
“For the most part, voter apathy won’t be driven by concerns over the timing of pay it will be driven by the lack of any real choice at the ballot box,’’ said Chanco, a senior Asia economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics.
Leaders of the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) have called for an election boycott, arguing that the poll would be neither free nor fair since their party was outlawed by a court order in 2017 following the imprisonment of the party president on widely decried treason charges.
The ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) of long-time Prime Minister Hun Sen is expected to win.
Hun Sen has worked hard to court voters employed in the nation’s key garment manufacturing sector, meeting with more than half a million garment factory workers in the past year and providing gifts of about 5 dollars to each worker, according to news reports.
Chanco called the practice “blatant buying of votes.’’