'This was more of a coronation than an election'

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From the BBC

By Jonathan Head

South East Asia correspondent, Phnom Penh

Undeterred by the pouring rain, a long convoy of motorbikes carrying cheering, flag-waving supporters of Cambodia's ruling party revved their engines in preparation for their triumphant final rally in downtown Phnom Penh.

People dutifully lined the road as far as you could see, party stickers on their cheeks, the sky-blue hats and shirts they had been given to wear getting steadily wetter.

Perched on the back of a truck, Hun Manet, the 45-year-old eldest son of Prime Minister Hun Sen, greeted the crowds proclaiming that only the Cambodian People's Party (CPP) was capable of leading the country.

Indeed, his father had made sure that the CPP was the only party which could possibly win the election.

Hun Sen, 70, has run Cambodia in his trademark pugnacious style for 38 years: first in a Vietnam-installed communist regime, then under a UN-installed multi-party system, and more recently as an increasingly intolerant autocrat.

The only party now capable of challenging his rule, the Candlelight Party, was banned from the election on a technicality in May. The remaining 17 parties allowed to contest it were too small or too little-known to pose a threat.

A few hours after the polls closed, the CPP claimed the expected landslide, with a turnout of more than 80%. There were quite high levels of spoiled ballot papers in some polling stations: that was probably the only safe way voters could show their support for the opposition.

With Hun Manet expected to succeed his father within weeks of the vote, in a long-prepared transfer of power, this felt more like a coronation than an election.

"I don't think we can even call it a sham election," says Mu Sochua, an exiled former minister and member of the CNRP, another opposition party banned by the Cambodian authorities in 2017.

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From Reuters

Nearly Half a Million Spoiled Ballots in Cambodia

PHNOM PENH (Reuters) - Cambodia's election commission said on Tuesday that nearly half a million ballots were spoiled in the national election last month, which critics have called a sham as all opposition parties were barred from contesting.

Having ruled for nearly 40 years, Prime Minister Hun Sen will hand over power to his son later this month after the ruling Cambodian People Party (CPP) scored an easy victory in the July 23 election.

The CPP won 80% of a total of 8.2 million votes cast, the National Election Committee (NEC) said on Tuesday, the first official announcement of the results.

About 440,000 ballots -- or every one in 18 -- were invalidated, the NEC said, adding the election had seen a high turnout of 85%.

According to NEC official Dim Sovannarom, the number of spoiled ballots was less than in the 2018 election, when state institutions had also disbanded an earlier incarnation of the pro-democracy opposition Candlelight party.