A second area of disappointment is that the new laws in effect disallow non-party affiliated local people from standing for the new councils. This should be re-examined for future changes in the law as experience in many countries shows that such people often make a great contribution, indeed some councils are led by independent candidates. Cambodia may evolve in the same way. Here in one very important respect the party system adopted could work well. Local councils should have far more women members.
Women make up the majority of the rural population.
That would be healthy for Cambodia. Finally, these elections will be unlike normal local elections. They will be of truly national importance. They will indicate to the world at large how Cambodia is establishing local government in order to decentralize its public administration for the first time in its history. We had national elections in 1993 and 1998.