22-7-2023 (PHNOM PENH) Cambodia heads into Sunday’s election on a one-way street to victory for Prime Minister Hun Sen’s Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) which has held power for nearly four decades.
Voters will go to the polls on Sunday across Cambodia with 9.7 million of the kingdom’s 16 million people eligible to cast their ballots. Polling stations will remain open from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. with preliminary results expected Sunday evening.
While 17 political parties are running in the elections, none are seen as able to mount a serious challenge to the CPP which swept all 125 assembly seats in the last election in 2018. A similar landslide victory is predicted this time around.
The ruling CPP faced its toughest electoral test in the 2013 election when it secured less than half the votes, trailing the opposition Cambodian National Rescue Party (CNRP) which tapped into discontent with CPP rule, especially among youth and unions.
However, in the ensuing years, the CPP used its stranglehold over democratic institutions and the judiciary to cripple CNRP. This culminated in CNRP’s dissolution just nine months before the 2018 election for an alleged plot to overthrow the government. Its leader was arrested on treason charges.
Many opposition figures fled into exile while hundreds were convicted, mostly in absentia, in mass trials.
The Candlelight Party arose from CNRP’s ashes but its members have endured intimidation and harassment, according to human rights groups. The party was banned last week on a technicality and two of its members were arrested this week for urging voters to spoil their ballots.
While the CPP’s success in restoring stability and peace after the Khmer Rouge genocide as well as economic growth continues to win it votes, especially in rural areas where many have witnessed Cambodia’s rise to lower middle income status and improvements in infrastructure, health, and education, the election’s underlying purpose is securing a smooth power transition for Prime Minister Hun Sen’s eldest son, Hun Manet.
The 45-year-old Hun Manet, a graduate of West Point and with a doctorate from Britain’s Bristol University, is contesting his first election and needs to win a seat in parliament to be eligible as prime minister. While expected to succeed his father during this 5-year term, observers will scrutinize whether Hun Manet’s foreign education experience shapes a different leadership approach that improves Cambodia’s frosty relations with the West.
