Elections

Three National Election Committee (NEC) members, all Cambodia National Rescue Party nominees, have quit the electoral body, intensifying the fallout from the Supreme Court’s dissolution of the opposition party on Thursday. ...

The United States announced on Friday it was ending funding for the election, and promised more “concrete steps”, after the Supreme Court dissolved the Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) at the request of the government, on the grounds it was plotting to seize power. ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen yesterday brushed aside any potential concern over the US cutting funding to the country over the recent dissolution of the opposition CNRP prior to next year’s general election. ...

The Supreme Court on Thursday ruled to dissolve the Cambodia National Rescue Party, removing the only existing electoral threat to Prime Minister Hun Sen’s grip on power in the Kingdom and undoing in one stroke the opposition’s gains over the last five years. ...

The Supreme Court this evening ruled to dissolve the Cambodia National Rescue Party, ending the only existing electoral threat to Prime Minister Hun Sen’s grip on power in the Kingdom. ...

Checkpoints went up on national roads, barricades were dumped in front of the Supreme Court and police paid unannounced visits to civil society organisations and opposition officials as darkness fell yesterday ahead of today’s Supreme Court hearing on the dissolution of the opposition CNRP. ...

In 2012, a little over a month after the Human Rights Party and Sam Rainsy Party won a combined 40 commune chief positions in local elections, the two groups met in Manila, finally agreeing on what had been bandied about for years: a united opposition ...

Russia will send observers to the Kingdom for the upcoming national elections and has pledged to sit down to discuss Cambodia’s outstanding debt, a move that analysts yesterday saw as a sign of solidarity between two governments increasingly out of favour with the West. ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen on Friday said he didn’t care whether the international community endorsed next year’s elections – the legitimacy of which critics have questioned amidst a crackdown on the opposition – raising concerns the Kingdom could find itself isolated if world powers decline ...

The National Election Committee yesterday closed the voter registration list at 5.30 pm, with more than 32 percent of an estimated 1.6 million newly eligible voters having signed up successfully. NEC spokesman Hang Puthea said final registration figures will be released today. ...

Registration for next year’s national elections closed yesterday with a rush of last-minute sign-ups, though two of every three remaining eligible voters still remain unregistered in an atmosphere that observers say raises questions about the legitimacy of next year’s planned national election. ...

The Minister of Planning yesterday announced the third national census set for next year will be delayed until 2019 because the government must focus on the July general election. ...

A European delegation on a two-day visit to the Kingdom yesterday expressed concerns about recent political developments in Cambodia, saying that the deteriorating political and human rights situation could have consequences for development assistance and trade. ...

Cambodia has asked the European Union to send observers to monitor next year’s general election. Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesman Chum Sounry announced the move to the media yesterday after a meeting between Foreign Affairs Minister Prak Sokhonn and Werner Langen, head of a delegation from ...

Japan has pledged to continue providing aid to Cambodia, including support to prepare for the general election next year. Foreign Affairs Minister Prak Sokhonn yesterday met with Iwao Horii, the Japanese vice-minister of foreign affairs. ...

King Norodom Sihamoni signed off on four sets of controversial amendments to Cambodia’s electoral laws yesterday, officially approving provisions that will allow the opposition CNRP’s seats to be redistributed in the event of its dissolution. ...

The Constitutional Council yesterday approved four sets of controversial amendments to Cambodia’s election laws, greenlighting changes that will pave the way for the main opposition party’s parliamentary seats to be redistributed in the event of its dissolution. ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen has promised CNRP commune officials they can keep their positions once their party is dissolved, so long as they disavow their former party and join the ruling CPP. ...

A Swedish diplomat yesterday warned that the potential dissolution of the Cambodia National Rescue Party could lead the Scandinavian country to rethink its relationship with the Kingdom, though she didn’t detail which actions were on the table. ...

The Senate has approved four amendments to the election laws related to the redistribution of the seats of the CNRP and local councilors if the main opposition party is dissolved. ...

With the fate of the CNRP still in the Supreme Court’s hands, the National Assembly yesterday paved the way for all of the main opposition party’s seats to be handed over to a smattering of smaller parties and, at the local level, to the ruling ...

The seemingly impending demise of Cambodia’s main opposition, and the snap draft laws put in motion to replace them in parliament, threatens to throw a handful of obscure parties into the political arena at the highest level. ...

“They talk about the multi-party problem, but I want to confirm that when the one party is dissolved, there will be five parties that will replace it. That means that it will go from two parties to six parties in the National Assembly,” Hun Sen ...

The Cambodian People’s Party is rewriting the nation’s political laws yet again, this time to allow the Cambodia National Rescue Party’s 55 parliamentary seats to be dished out to minor parties – with royalist Funcinpec the main beneficiary in the sweep – in the event ...