Australian Senate Pushes for Fair Elections in Cambodia

The Australian Senate yesterday urged the Cambodian government to run free and fair national elections next year without the “harassment or intimidation” of opposition leader Sam Rainsy, who remains in self-imposed exile avoiding an 11-year jail sentence. The appeal comes only days after the European Parliament passed its own resolution condemning what it called Mr. Rainsy’s “politically motivated” sentence and urging the government to fix “major flaws” in how it runs the country’s elections. Both Australia and the European Union (E.U.) are major aid donors to Cambodia. … On Friday, the European Parliament in Brussels passed a resolution of its own noting that E.U. observers found Cambodia’s last national elections in 2008 to have fallen short of international standards. …

http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/australian-senate-pushes-for-fair-elections-in-cambodia-4930/