10% of New Commune Chiefs Are Women

Only 1 in 10 commune chiefs elected across the country last month are women, as a ruling party spokesman said what mattered was effective gender-promoting policies and not the gender of candidates. Some 173 women were elected as chiefs of 1,652 communes in Cambodia, an NGO-led press conference on Thursday heard — an increase of 32 women, or two percentage points from 8% to 10%, from the previous 2017 commune election.

Overall, 2,562 of 11,622 elected councilors, or 22%, are women. CPP spokesman Chhim Phal Virun said the party considered gender issues to be important, and it knew how to manage the situation without civil society commentary.

“For me, the NGOs say the same thing like a broken record. The registration of women or men as candidates, or the number of women — it is the party’s internal affairs,” Phal Virun said. “It is not about the number of women candidates. The important thing is that whether [or not] those standing are men or women, how effective the policies for women and gender promotion are. This is an important thing.”

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