Government

Cambodia’s Ministry of Defence has demanded an apology from Thai media outlets for reports linking Defence Minister Tea Banh to a recent case of alleged cross-border arms smuggling by a Thai air force officer, one which has also ensnared an official from Cambodia’s Interior Ministry ...

The government lifted a 2011 ban on sending Cambodian maids to Malaysia in January, according to a directive Prime Minister Hun Sen signed late last year, contradicting months of government denials. ...

The ruling CPP is losing votes in remote provinces while making up ground on the opposition CNRP in Phnom Penh and surrounding areas, according to election data showing the two major parties cutting into each other’s leads in traditional strongholds. ...

Interior Ministry spokesman Khieu Sopheak’s pre-election warning that some NGOs and their leaders were being watched for illegally aiding the opposition was a threat designed to frighten them, General Sopheak said on Wednesday, as civil society groups warily condemned the statements. ...

The ruling CPP and opposition CNRP have filed a combined 39 official complaints over the running of Sunday’s commune elections while independent observers continue to criticize pre-election conditions that they say likely compromised the poll.Hang Puthea, spokesman for the National Election Committee (NEC), said the ...

Asian election monitor Anfrel yesterday commended authorities, citizens and political parties for Sunday’s smooth commune elections, but stopped short of calling the ballot “free and fair”, raising concerns over the heightened political rhetoric in the run-up to June 4. ...

The National Election Committee (NEC) continued on Tuesday to say slow internet and blurry photographs were to blame for delays in publishing election results for 344 remaining communes, with its spokesman offering no timeline for when the public could expect complete results. Some parties and ...

Although the official results will not be released until June 25, the closely watched vote for Cambodia’s commune council elections showed the opposition’s growing strength and suggest that the national elections in 2018 will be a race between two parties. ...

The Labour Ministry has announced the names of 77 private recruitment agencies approved to select, train and send Cambodian workers to Thailand, Malaysia and Japan. ...

Opposition spokesman Yim Sovann said yesterday that if any of the CNRP’s more than 400 new commune chiefs who won office on Sunday cannot follow through on the party’s campaign pledges, they will “give up” their positions.Sovann said the Cambodia National Rescue Party had made ...

Cambodia’s central bank is to conduct on-site audits of microfinance institutions to check if they are complying with the interest rate cap that came into force more than two months ago, industry insiders have said.   ...

With official tallies from Sunday’s commune elections slowed by internet hiccups, both major political parties provided similar results but different stories on Monday on which had won a vote that drew a record 7 million Cambodians to the polls—300,000 more than had been previously reported ...

Preliminary returns from Sunday’s commune elections appear to show a tighter popular vote than the breakdown of communes won would seem to suggest, with the CNRP raking in an estimated 45 percent of votes to the CPP’s 48 percent, according to a coalition of NGOs. ...

Apparent CPP Commune Chief-elect Chhay Thy yesterday pledged to tackle ongoing forestry crimes in Ratanakkiri’s Pate commune – a cause he strongly advocated for during his tenure as a human rights staffer at Adhoc. ...

A day removed from Sunday’s commune elections, independent observers remained mostly positive about polling day but, troubled more by the conditions leading up to the day itself, refrained from declaring the elections free and fair. ...

As commune election results continued to trickle in yesterday, it was abundantly clear that Cambodia’s political landscape is now dominated by just two main competitors. However, the Kingdom’s smaller parties, some with lofty ambitions, came away with a few successes. ...

The Cambodian People’s Party won 70 percent of the country’s 1,646 commune councils at yesterday’s elections, according to unofficial results published by a government-aligned media outlet – a marked drop from the 97 percent it won in 2012 but one far smaller than the opposition ...

The amount of money political parties spent on the campaign trail ahead of yesterday’s nationwide commune elections varied wildly, with observers and party members yesterday blaming the lack of a campaign finance law in Cambodia for what they characterised as the uneven playing field among ...

A lack of official results did not stop both major political parties from claiming victory in Cambodia’s highest-stakes and highest-turnout local elections to date on Sunday, with the CPP citing its dominance in winning commune chief seats and the CNRP boasting of huge opposition gains ...

Union leaders have admitted they were surprised at the high number of factory workers who returned to the provinces from Phnom Penh to cast their vote in the commune elections. ...

Australian national James Ricketson was arrested on Saturday, according to police officials, with local media claiming the independent journalist was detained for “stealing information”. ...

While yesterday’s commune elections went more smoothly than past iterations, they were not free from claims of irregularities, with opposition activists bearing the brunt of the legal punishments. ...

A remark by an opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) senior adviser that Minister of Interior Sar Kheng would remain deputy prime minister if the opposition party won the 2018 national elections drew a terse response from the Cambodian People’s Party (CPP), with the minister ...

Ta Siem, a remote commune in Siem Reap province, yesterday changed hands from the opposition to the ruling Cambodian People’s Party after several hundred soldiers were trucked there from another province to vote. ...