Thousands of poll agents to guarantee fair election in Cambodia

PHNOM PENH, May 22 (Xinhua) -- Two hundred and forty trainers from Cambodia's four major political parties are preparing to train tens of thousands of poll agents who will watch the National Assembly Election Day process to ensure that votes are counted fairly and that their opponents play by the rules, a press release said Thursday.

Members of the Cambodian People's Party (CPP), the Funcinpec Party, the Norodom Ranariddh Party (NRP) and the Sam Rainsy Party (SRP) will attend a party poll agent training conducted by the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs (NDI) in Phnom Penh from May 26 to 31, an NDI press release said.

The party trainers will in turn train tens of thousands of their own party's polling agents, it added.

NDI's training will equip the political party trainers with the knowledge and skills to conduct systematic observation of the polls and report based on a standard polling agent manual and observation checklist based on the National Assembly election laws, regulations, procedures and code of conduct, the release said.

The NDI will invite all political parties that have officially registered for the National Assembly election to receive the party poll agent training, it said, adding that other political parties will be trained in a second batch.

The NDI provided a similar training prior to last year's Commune Council elections, in which more than 100,000 party poll agents watched the polling process.