Cambodia’s opposition yesterday rejected the results of closely fought weekend elections and called for an investigation into “serious irregularities,” saying it was robbed of a victory over Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen.
Invigorated by the recent return from exile of its leader, Sam Rainsy, the newly united opposition made significant gains in Sunday’s polls, which independent monitors also criticized as flawed.
Hun Sen’s Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) announced late on Sunday it had taken an estimated 68 out of the 123 seats in the lower house, against an increased 55 for the Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP).
The 60-year-old prime minister — who has been in power for 28 years — is regularly accused of ignoring human rights and muzzling political freedoms.
The CPP had 90 seats in the previous parliament, so if confirmed the result would mark the loss of 22 seats, despite the exclusion of Rainsy, who was barred from running.
The CNRP called for an urgent UN-backed investigation into allegations ranging from the removal of 1.25 million names from the voter lists to the addition of more than one million “ghost names” and about 200,000 duplicated names.
“We don’t accept the election results ... There are too many irregularities with far reaching implications,” Rainsy told a news conference.
“We’re not seeking to bargain with the government. What we want is to render justice to the Cambodian people so their will is not distorted or reversed as before,” he said.
The CNRP said that overall the ruling party had won by only about 200,000 votes, so without the alleged irregularities the opposition would have finished first.
“If we investigate just a few cases of irregularities such as duplicated names, the CNRP will receive more votes than the CPP,” deputy opposition leader Kem Sokha said.
Dozens of supporters gathered at the opposition headquarters to protest.
Other concerns cited by rights groups included that the ink used to mark voters’ thumbs to ensure they did not vote more than once could be easily washed off.
“What you had is really an unprecedented level of machinations and malfeasance in the electoral process in Cambodia,” said Phil Robertson, deputy director for Asia at New York-based Human Rights Watch. “The National Election Committee [NEC] frankly should be ashamed of itself.”
The poll body denied there were any irregularities, while CPP spokesman Khieu Kanharith said the party would “follow the NEC’s decision.”
When asked about a possible power-sharing deal with the opposition, he said it was “too soon to comment.”
Even before polls opened, the opposition had said a Hun Sen win would be “worthless” without Rainsy’s participation.
The French-educated former banker returned to Cambodia on July 19 from self-imposed exile after receiving a surprise royal pardon for criminal convictions which he contends were politically motivated.
However, he was barred from running as a candidate since the authorities said it was too late to add his name to the electoral register.
Hun Sen — a former Khmer Rouge cadre who defected from the murderous regime — has vowed to rule until he is 74. He oversaw Cambodia’s transformation from a nation devastated by its “Killing Fields” genocidal era in the late 1970s to become one of Southeast Asia’s most vibrant economies.
Le Tuan Binh keeps his Moroccan soldier father’s tombstone at his village home north of Hanoi, a treasured reminder of a man whose community in Vietnam has been largely forgotten. Mzid Ben Ali, or “Mohammed” as Binh calls him, was one of tens of thousands of North Africans who served in the French army as it battled to maintain its colonial rule of Indochina. He fought for France against the Viet Minh independence movement in the 1950s, before leaving the military — as either a defector or a captive — and making a life for himself in Vietnam. “It’s very emotional for me,”
The Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) Central Committee is to gather in July for a key meeting known as a plenum, the third since the body of elite decisionmakers was elected in 2022, focusing on reforms amid “challenges” at home and complexities broad. Plenums are important events on China’s political calendar that require the attendance of all of the Central Committee, comprising 205 members and 171 alternate members with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at the helm. The Central Committee typically holds seven plenums between party congresses, which are held once every five years. The current central committee members were elected at the
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi reaffirmed his pledge to replace India’s religion-based marriage and inheritance laws with a uniform civil code if he returns to office for a third term, a move that some minority groups have opposed. In an interview with the Times of India listing his agenda, Modi said his government would push for making the code a reality. “It is clear that separate laws for communities are detrimental to the health of society,” he said in the interview published yesterday. “We cannot be a nation where one community is progressing with the support of the Constitution while the other
CODIFYING DISCRIMINATION: Transgender people would be sentenced to three years in prison, while same-sex relations could land a person in jail for more than a decade Iraq’s parliament on Saturday passed a bill criminalizing same-sex relations, which would receive a sentence of up to 15 years in prison, in a move rights groups condemned as an “attack on human rights.” Transgender people would be sentenced to three years’ jail under the amendments to a 1988 anti-prostitution law, which were adopted during a session attended by 170 of 329 lawmakers. A previous draft had proposed capital punishment for same-sex relations, in what campaigners had called a “dangerous” escalation. The new amendments enable courts to sentence people engaging in same-sex relations to 10 to 15 years in prison, according to the