Cambodian People’s Party president Hun Sen poses for selfies with garment workers in Phnom Penh on Wednesday. HUN SEN VIA FACEBOOK
IN an unprecedented situation in Cambodian politics, the official results of the July 29 national elections have declared that the Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) will take all 125 seats in the National Assembly on the back of it receiving 76 per cent of the votes.
The National Election Committee (NEC), which on Wednesday released the official figures that did not differ much from the preliminary numbers, also said no complaints were made during the 72-hour window after the earlier count was announced.
The ruling CPP received a total of 4,889,113 votes, or 76 per cent of the total, while the royalist Funcinpec party came second with 374,510.
Khem Veasna’s League for Democracy Party (LDP) was third with 309,364 votes.
Hun Sen took to Facebook after the results were released last night, saying: “[The results] reflect that people believe in the leadership of the CPP.”
He expressed his thanks to the 19 other parties that took part, while calling the elections free, fair and transparent.
The Khmer Will Party (KWP), led by Kong Monika and largely made up of members of the court-dissolved former Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP), got 212,869 votes.
Further down the order, the Khmer National United Party (KNUP) got 99,377 votes, while the Grassroots Democratic Party (GDP) received 70,567.
Voter turnout was reported as 83.02 per cent.
Kong Monika, the president of the KWP and son of a former senior adviser to the CNRP, told The Post that his party would not file any complaints regarding the NEC’s results.
“The election result was not completely believable. However, the KWP has no intention to file a complaint regarding the election results even though our party did not send agents to the polling stations,” he said.
Yang Saing Koma, the chairman of the GDP board of directors, declined to comment on the poll results. Nonetheless, he said his party would hold a meeting to review “the sections which need improving for the next elections”.
Cambodian Youth Party (CYP) president Pich Sros told The Post after the official results were announced: “I do not have any reaction because we observed that there are plenty of CPP supporters.”
However, former CNRP leader Sam Rainsy slammed the election results on his Facebook page on Wednesday.
He said: “The CPP effectively won all 125 parliamentary seats, a 100 per cent victory typical of communist or authoritarian countries.
“But if we exclude the two million fake ballots, support for the CPP only represents 29 per cent of the citizens with legal voting rights.
“The NEC was able to play all sorts of tricks because, after the forceful dissolution of the CNRP, the election body [the NEC] was placed under the absolute control of the CPP. There were no independent and credible observers and no CNRP representatives to monitor this election,” Rainsy said.
Political analyst Lao Mong Hay also expressed scepticism over the election results. He cited the dissolution of the CNRP as a major factor in the overwhelming nature of the CPP victory.
“I strongly doubt [the elections] have reflected the free will of the Cambodian people, considering the way the elections were organised, the absence of the opposition, the banning of its top officials from participating in politics, the surveillance of its commune councillors, the absence of an independent and free press in the country, and differing forms of pressure placed on the electorate to vote, including threats and intimidation,” he said.
Speaking to garment workers in Sen Sok district on Wednesday before the official results were released, Hun Sen threatened action against anyone who took money in exchange for offering positions in the new government.
