CNRP Slams Thumbprint Inquiry

Opposition leaders ripped into the government for their announcement on Friday that a petition sent to the king earlier this year was riddled with irregularities, telling reporters the act was intended to “raise the political heat to another level.” In May, after the arrest of four Adhoc officials and a National Election Committee member as well as the attempted arrest of acting opposition leader Kem Sokha, Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) officials gathered thumbprints and signatures hoping to get some form of assistance from King Norodom Sihamoni through a petition.
 

But the Interior Ministry began a two-month inquiry into the petition after an unverified video was released purporting to show CNRP officials telling people to sign the petition multiple times in different handwriting. On Friday, Interior Ministry spokesman Khieu Sopheak laid out the discrepancies found in the petition, telling the media that the commission, headed by Interior Minister Sar Kheng and made up of police captains and provincial governors aligned to the ruling party, found 80,502 irregularities, including 738 thumbprints used more than once, 43 of which had been used more than 100 times. 
 

“Some petitions from 26,953 people had names and thumbprints but no addresses. There were 188 without names and thumbprints,” he said. The ministry said they had only been through about 2,600 of the petition’s 10,036 pages.

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