The streets of Siem Reap are unusually quiet today. There are a lot of families who left town to go vote in their home village. Many shops are closed, some restaurants are obviously disrupted with less staff, and people continue to talk about the elections. The vast majority of people I talk to support the opposition party. They believe it might be possible to reduce the influence of the ruling party, but probably not push them into the minority. A few things I've noted:
- Several people have not made it home to vote because they had to work
- One person was denied access to voter registration because authorities said "come back tomorrow" a few times and then the deadline passed
- Finding out where to vote was difficult since you had to go online or have it pre-printed on your voter card
- There seems to be a strong anti-Vietnamese sentiment and concern that people who should not be voting are
One of our students took it upon himself to print out the online voter locations and post them at the church. They made no effort to campaign for one party or another, just encouragement for people to vote. I feel a strong sense of pride at this civic engagement and moral high ground. I hope the results end up reflecting the will of the people.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment