By Janice Roche
Joan Kraynanski, BA '01, anthropology, recently returned from Cambodia where she served as an election monitor for the third national elections since the constitutional monarchy was established there in the early '90s. She has been to Cambodia twice to conduct research on decentralization and, in particular, the engagement of women in this process. She is currently working on a master's degree in Southeast Asian Studies and is a full-time classified administrative assistant in the Office of the Center for International Studies.
Southeast Asia was not new to Kraynanski, as she worked for the Army Department of Civilian Personnel for a year in Saigon, during the Vietnam War, teaching clerical skills to civilian Vietnamese, mostly women.
When Kraynanski returned to college to complete her undergraduate degree, she became interested in Angkor Wat, the majestic work of ancient Khmers who ruled Cambodia during the 9th to 13th centuries. Angkor Wat is considered one of the true wonders of the world. Kraynanski wanted to know why the early Khmer civilization fell in the 13th to 14th centuries and what happened in the intervening years to bring about contemporary Cambodia.
Kraynanski visited Cambodia in the summer of 2002 to begin research for her thesis. She hoped to visit remote areas in Battambang province, located in the northwest region of Cambodia, but time and language kept her research focused on Phnom Penh, where many people speak English and translators are readily available.
Kraynanski monitored the effort by many Non-Government Organizations (NGOs) to encourage and support Cambodian women to participate in the 2002 Cambodian Commune elections. The central government is made up of regions, districts, communes and villages in descending order. Kraynanski was invited to observe a one-week workshop for women who were elected to the Phnom Penh Communes, called sangits, where she had opportunities to interview election participants.
When Kraynanski returned to Cambodia in the summer of 2003, she was able to record events, issues and subtle differences that transpired since her previous visit for several women who had been elected to the Phnom Penh "sangit" councils She joined other short-term international election observers who were sponsored by the Fund for Reconciliation and Development (FRD), of the US-Indochina Reconciliation Project headquartered in New York. The FRD provided a day of training and the Cambodian Ministry of the Interior provided a guide to the elections for Cambodian and international observers and the five member Cambodian teams that ran each of the polling stations.
The FRD election observers visited polling sites in pairs on election day. Kraynanski and Sharmani Fowler, an Australian, chose six rural sites to observe in the province of Takoe, just south of Phnom Penh. Takoe is the sight of several ancient temples and has an extensive canal system, constructed during the early civilization, that functions today to transport goods and produce from southern Vietnam to Cambodia. Kraynanski states that the observers were welcomed wherever they went in Takoe; Cambodian elections have been observed since 1993, and voters are accustomed to their presence.
The European Union and the International Republican Institute (IRI) were also observing in Takoe Province but not at the remote polling stations that Kraynanski visited. While the observers were not expected at individual polling sites, the election officers were open about the process, providing anything observers asked to see. Using the election guide, observers could follow how voters were instructed and the procedures used by five member polling teams.
Kraynanski and Fowler opened one of the polling stations, assuring that ballot boxes were empty, and that ballots were counted and stamped to identify that particular polling place. All procedures were done manually as the polling stations, located in schools, had neither electricity nor telephones. After visiting five other sites for spot observations, Kraynanski and Fowler returned to the polling station they had opened that day to observe its closing and to secure the ballot box. Observers from each of the three main political parties and an observer from the Committee for Free and Fair Elections (COMFREL) were present at all the polling sites they visited. The COMFREL observers were good sources of information on individual voting sites that Kraynanski was only able to observe briefly.
At the end of the day the ballot box was sealed -- along with all the materials used for the election -- placed in a heavy-duty plastic bag, secured with a numbered tag and mounted on a motorcycle to be driven to the central commune counting station. And it was a parade! The local police chief was in the lead followed by the polling station chief with the ballot box, the other election officer, observers, and military personnel, all on motorcycles in single file headed for the Wat on dirt track roads. Local people stopped working in the fields to wave them on. "It was late afternoon, the day was beautiful, hot and sunny with a clear blue sky and nice breeze," Kraynanski says. "We motored past the green rice paddies alive with dragonflies and the villages where people were emerging from their houses where they hide from the hot afternoon sun. As I caught a view of the Commune headquarters I noticed other motorcycle processions coming in our direction from a web of dirt pathways.We were all meeting to complete a task. To experience a finale is rare for me, it seems everything is ongoing. I appreciated the experience for many reasons."
Election personnel slept with the ballot boxes overnight in the Wat (Cambodian Temple) complex where the Commune headquarters were located to assure that boxes remained intact. The ballots were counted on the next day by election personnel and all the observers. Each sealed bag was opened, numbers checked by observers and each ballot held up for all to see the polling station stamp. Each vote was called out to record on a chalkboard and logged by an election poll officer. It took five to six hours to go through each ballot by hand. Kraynanski noted that this went very smoothly and she had no reservations about the accuracy of the process.
Approximately five million Cambodians (83 percent of the eligible voters) voted on July 27, 2003, each in their home province. The officials and observers were in agreement that all had been done according to the National Election Committee requirements.
Kraynanski received a Luce grant through South East Asian Studies to assist with this research. She continues taking graduate classes, works full-time, serves as the secretary to the University International Council and is an advisor to the Cambodian Student Association. She is the mother of Annie Rondy, a 2000 graduate of the College of Communication at Ohio University, and a recent graduate of Cleveland Marshall School of Law, and Rachel Rondy, currently a senior majoring in Economics and Communication Systems Management at Ohio University.
Janice Roche is administrative coordinator for the College of Arts and Sciences Dean's Office.
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