(Phnom Penh) Cambodians voted on Sunday for legislative elections without suspense, after which Prime Minister Hun Sen, who has ruled the country with an iron fist for 38 years, should hand over to his eldest son.
Polls opened and will close at 3 p.m. (4 a.m. Eastern Time) and the first results are expected within hours.
In the absence of any credible opposition after the exclusion of the main anti-power movement, Hun Sen’s Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) should, as in 2018, win all 125 seats in Parliament.
The ballot was described as “deeply worrying” by a coalition of 17 international NGOs, in a press release released on Saturday.
“The upcoming electoral exercise indicates a notable lack of transparency, fairness and inclusiveness in the electoral process,” wrote rights organizations including FIDH and the Asian Network for Free Elections (Anfrel).
Hun Sen voted a few minutes after the opening of the ballot at 7 a.m. in a polling station in Ta Khmau, in the suburbs of Phnom Penh, according to AFP journalists present on the spot.
PHOTO TANG CHHIN SOTHY, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Hun Sen cast his ballot minutes after polls opened at a polling station in Ta Khmau.
More than 9.7 million voters are called to the polls for the 7e national elections since the Paris Peace Accords in 1991, which marked the end of the Khmer Rouge era.
At 70, Hun Sen, one of the longest-serving world leaders, is preparing his succession, wishing to cement control before handing over, in the coming weeks, to his eldest son, four-star general Hun Manet (45), trained in the United States and Great Britain.
PHOTO CINDY LIU, REUTERS
Hun Manet, Hun Sen’s eldest son, is expected to succeed his father in the coming weeks.
“We exercised our civil rights. Our duty and our right as citizens to vote to choose the party we like to lead the country,” he told reporters after voting early in the morning at a polling station in the capital, where he is running.
Opposition muzzled
But the leader warned voters that he would continue to dominate Cambodian politics even after his departure.
His critics accuse him of having rolled back fundamental freedoms and used the judicial system to muzzle his opponents, who have been thrown by the dozens in prison.
Imposing his son, “it’s a stab in the back of the Cambodian people” from Hun Sen, said Phil Robertson of Human Rights Watch, a human rights NGO.
His escapades “make Cambodia look like North Korea rather than a real democracy”, he notes.
Before the legislative elections, its policy of repression was further hardened against opponents, deprived of their freedom or in exile.
In the last national poll in 2018, the PPC won all the seats after a court dissolved the main opposition party.
This time it was the Candle Party, the prime minister’s only credible rival, that was kicked out of the race for failing to register properly with the electoral commission.
impose his son
“Today is a day of victory for us”, launched Hun Manet Friday, during the last rally of the campaign, of which he was the main figure, in the absence of his father.
Hun Manet has recently taken the lead, gradually assuming the functions assumed directly by his father.
Member of the powerful permanent committee, he is for the first time candidate on a list of the CPP in Phnom Penh, the first step necessary to become prime minister.
Asked by AFP at the exit of the polling station on what he would do once in power, Hun Manet replied that he “had nothing to say about it”.
“He was born with a silver spoon in his mouth,” political scientist Ou Virak analyzes for AFP. “Replacing his father will be a major challenge.”
“I vote without enthusiasm, there are no more opposition parties,” Oum Sokum, 51, told AFP at a dusty polling station in Phnom Penh, under heavy police presence.
As the elections approach, freedom of expression has been largely stifled with the closure of one of the last independent media outlets, the heavy conviction of the main opponent for treason and the modification of the electoral law to de facto exclude opponents in exile from future elections.