‘Alai alai’ says the Prime Minister’s side
This Sunday, the PPC could win all the seats in the parliament during the assembly elections after the main opposition movement was excluded.
A woman casts her vote at a polling station in Phnom Penh on July 23, during legislative elections.
Tang Chin Sodhi/AFP
In Cambodia, Prime Minister Hun Sen’s party claimed a “sweeping” victory after suspense-free legislative elections, after which Hun Sen, who ruled the country with an iron fist for 38 years, must hand over to his eldest son.
“We are winning with a wave,” Cambodian People’s Party (PPC) spokesman Sok Eysan told AFP hours after business closed and the first official results were pending.
According to the non-final figures released by the Election Commission, the total electorate cast their votes with at least 84% voter turnout.
The CPP could win all 125 seats in parliament, as it did in 2018, with no credible opposition after the main opposition anti-Hun Sen movement was excluded.
At 70, Hun Sen, one of the world’s longest-serving leaders, is planning his succession in the coming weeks, hoping to hand over control to his eldest son Hun Manet, 45, a four-star general trained in the United States and Britain.
Lack of transparency, fairness and inclusiveness
The referendum drew criticism from a coalition of 17 international NGOs, including the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) and the Asian Network for Free Elections (Anfrel).
More than 9.7 million voters were invited to vote in these seventh national elections since the Paris Peace Accords of 1991 that marked the end of the Khmer Rouge era.
“We (…) have exercised our duty and right as voting citizens to choose the party we want to lead the country,” Han Manet told reporters after casting his vote in the morning at an election office in Phnom Penh.
Hun Sen, meanwhile, slipped his ballot into the ballot box in the first minutes of voting at an office on the outskirts of the capital.
The opposition frowned
His critics accuse him of withdrawing basic liberties and using the judicial system to hide the faces of his opponents, who have been jailed by the dozens.
“It’s a stab in the back for the Cambodian people,” said Bill Robertson of the NGO Human Rights Watch, who pushed his son.
His escapades “make Cambodia look more like North Korea than a true democracy,” he says.
Before the assembly elections, the policy of repression was made more difficult against opponents, their freedom or exile.
In the last national referendum in 2018, the BBC won all seats after a court dissolved the main opposition party.
The latter say the Candle Party, the Prime Minister’s only credible contender this time, was kicked out of the race for failing to properly register with the Election Commission.
Impress his son
“Today is a day of victory for us,” Han Manet launched Friday during the last rally of the campaign. Han Manet had recently taken over the activities directly assumed by his father. A member of the powerful Standing Committee, he was a candidate on the CPP’s Phnom Penh list for the first time, a necessary first step to becoming prime minister.
Asked by AFP on his way out of the polls what he would do once he was in power, Han Manet replied “nothing to announce about that”. “He was born with a silver spoon in his mouth,” political scientist O Wirak analyzes for AFP. Replacing his father will be a huge challenge.
“I vote without enthusiasm, no more opposition parties,” Om Sogam, 51, told AFP at a dusty polling station in Phnom Penh under heavy police presence. Other voters said they were voting for stability in a kingdom still deeply scarred by years of war and genocide. “I want to vote for a person who can help the country develop. I want to live in peace and harmony,” Chea Phearak, 36, told AFP.
As the election approached, freedom of expression, the closure of one of the last independent media outlets, a harsh condemnation of the main opponent for treason, and a change in electoral law to effectively exclude opponents from future elections in exile.
AFP
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