by Nanette Braun, UNV Information Officer

01 September 1998

Bonn, Germany: When elections take place in Cambodia, United Nations Volunteers are not far. In 1993, after a civil war that had ravaged the country for more than two decades, almost 500 UNVs were part of the electoral component of UNTAC, the UN Transitional Authority in Cambodia, to prepare for elections. On 26 July 1998, after a regular five-year interval, Cambodians were again called upon to cast their votes. Also this year, UN Volunteers were on board. Yet in another respect, it was a first-time UNV involvement: the 15 international UNV Long Term Observers and 15 national UNV Interpreters serving during the 1998 elections marked the first cooperation between the UNV programme and the European Commission which rendered most of the international support to this year's balloting. Never before had UN Volunteers worked with the EC.

"This time, the supervision and organisation of the electoral process were in the hand of the Cambodian authorities, with considerable material support by the international community, namely the European Commission. In 1993, the overall responsibility for the balloting was with the UN mission, UNTAC", explains Dr. Peter Hazdra, UNV Long Term Observer from Austria. "Our task leading up to this year's elections was to monitor the process, not to supervise it." For more than three months, Peter Hazdra was assigned to Siem Reap, the Cambodian province which is home to the stupendous temples of Angkor, the former Khmer capital. It is also an area that during the electoral preparations in 1993 was subject to Khmer Rouge attacks, by now fortunately a threat of the past.

Peter Hazdra is no newcomer to Cambodia. In 1993, he served as a Military Observer with UNTAC's electoral component in Sisophon - an experience that was to influence his academic career: having studied law and political sciences, he wrote his PhD thesis on the UN Operation in Cambodia before he ventured again into the practical work of international missions as a Military Observer with the UN in Rwanda. Changing to the civilian side, he then served as a Senior Human Rights Officer with the OSCE in Mostar, Bosnia, and as a Long Term Observer with the 1997 elections in Croatia. Before taking up his first assignment as a UNV in Cambodia, he was a Security Officer with the Human Rights Mission in Rwanda.

In Cambodia, the months preceding 26 July had been marked by political conflict. "On election day, I was in constant touch with the police and the Communal Election Commission in case any violence might occur. But nothing happened. Neither did I have to deal with problems during the registration process and the campaigning." Although tensions prevailed after the votes had been counted, everything was quiet during the actual balloting in Siem Reap. So luckily, it was only the little crises every election day holds that Peter and his colleagues had to deal with. "I was on the phone non-stop. People would call because a lock was missing on the balloting box or because there was confusion about who was authorised to attend the polling stations." A long day did not come to an end before the reports coming in from all over the province had been summarised by Peter and forwarded to Phnom Penh, only to be followed by an equally long day of counting the ballots on 27 July:

"In Siem Reap this went very well", says Peter. "Every ballot counted was shown openly. The process was transparent."