After Cambodia’s election: Stand-off
NEARLY three weeks after Cambodia’s general election, which both the ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) and the opposition claim to have won, life in Phnom Penh remains tense. Tanks have been deployed, although only on the outskirts, and queues have formed at banks and supermarkets as rumours of hoarding become self-fulfilling. Meanwhile, the National Election Committee remains coy about releasing the final results of the poll. It claims that holding off will reduce the risk of violence from protests called by the opposition. Still, the election committee has at least now released details of the popular vote, if not the final seat-count. It says that some 3.2m Cambodians voted for the CPP and its strongman prime minister, Hun Sen, and that 2.9m voted for the opposition Cambodian National Rescue Party (CNRP), led by Sam Rainsy, recently returned from exile. The CPP also carried most of the provinces. If accurate, these figures seem to back the preliminary count, which handed the CPP 68 seats in the 123-seat National Assembly, against 55 for the CNRP. This is a solid margin, helped by blatant gerrymandering of districts. But it is a sharply reduced majority for Mr Hun Sen. Compared with last time round, in 2008, the CPP lost hundreds of thousands of votes and over a quarter of its seats. The CNRP alleges that the real setback was far worse, and that the election was grossly rigged in favour of the governing party. Mr Sam Rainsy hotly contests the result. …
