Cambodia’s opposition rejects poll result
Print Edition
Cambodia’s opposition leader has rejected the results of a weekend election showing a win for the long-time ruling party, raising fears of post-poll instability and setting the stage for a new showdown with Prime Minister Hun Sen.
The challenge by opposition leader Sam Rainsy, who returned from exile last week to campaign for his Cambodia National Rescue Party, comes despite his party’s relative success in Sunday’s polling, in which the opposition made its biggest gains in years.
Provisional results from Sunday’s voting showed the opposition capturing 55 of the 123 seats in the National Assembly. Hun Sen’s Cambodian People’s Party won 68 seats, or a majority of 55 percent.
Rainsy, who had earlier vowed mass protests if the voters’ will was denied, yesterday called for an independent investigation into allegations that as many as a million people may have been deprived of their right to vote, among other irregularities.
He said the challenge was not a bargaining chip to get into government but instead a sign that his party was “interested in rendering justice to the Cambodian people to ensure that the will of the Cambodian people not be distorted or reversed.”
The rejection of the results raised the specter that Cambodia might return to a previous pattern of post-election instability that has several times led to political gridlock and turned violent.
If the opposition party boycotts the assembly, it may be impossible for Hun Sen to legally form a government.
Rainsy did not specifically threaten a boycott, but election experts pointed out that the constitution says a quorum of 120 assembly members is needed to open a parliamentary session, raising the possibility that an opposition boycott could leave the country without a fully functioning government.
Cambodia faced a similar situation most recently after its 2003 election, when Hun Sen’s party failed to win enough seats to legally form a government on its own. The deadlock was broken only after 11 months and violence in the streets. But Hun Sen faced a divided opposition then, while his opponents this time are united.
Other polls in recent decades have been followed by confrontations and violence.
After his party ran second in UN-sponsored elections of 1993 Ñ the culmination of a process to end decades of civil war after the Khmer Rouge’s murderous 1970s regime Ñ Hun Sen insisted on being named co-prime minister. He then ousted his partner in government four years later in a bloody coup.
Recent years’ elections have mostly had a peaceful aftermath because Hun Sen’s party, which controls most levers of power, won decisively over a divided opposition. But the strong showing of the more-united opposition this year may embolden Rainsy and his allies.
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