News

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 ...

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 ...

As Cambodians go to the polls on Sunday to elect new local council representatives, in a contest dominated by men, two women are facing off for control of this Kampong Speu province commune. ... ...

The CNRP will cut all ministry budgets by 20 percent if it wins next year’s national election to free up funds to provide $500,000 annually to each commune, the party’s spokesman said on Monday, a proposal dismissed by the ruling party as empty election season ...

Opposition leader Kem Sokha said on Saturday his party would shutter the Rural Development Ministry and put the savings towards the goal of funding each of Cambodia’s more than 1,600 commune councils with half a million dollars a year if it wins power in 2018. ...

The CPP has filed a complaint to a commune election committee in Takeo province alleging that a group of CNRP supporters obstructed a ruling party parade of about 400 supporters on Saturday, officials said yesterday. ... ...

As the country enters its first campaign period since the CNRP nearly upset the ruling party in 2013, the opposition party believes momentum is on its side. The researchers found that in the three communes they visited, the ruling party was deeply intertwined with the ...

he CNRP on Tuesday asked the National Election Committee (NEC) to help reverse a City Hall ban on election marches along major Phnom Penh streets, a spokesman said. However, the NEC appeared to have drawn the opposite conclusion from their meeting. ... ...

The two main political parties contesting the upcoming commune elections revealed disparate campaign budget plans yesterday, with the opposition pledging to spend over $1 million and a spokesman for the ruling CPP saying his party will not be creating a central campaigning budget at all. ...

The opposition CNRP has cried foul over the delivery of election cards to voters, arguing that many government-aligned officials will be able to lobby for the CPP while handing out the cards. ...  ...

After claiming for weeks that a controversial party slogan was not actually official, the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party decided to remove the phrase from its official party platform yesterday in an attempt at “reconciliation”. ... ...

Opposition lawmakers yesterday left a meeting at the Interior Ministry exasperated, as officials from the latter continued to deem the presidency of their leader, Kem Sokha, and the vice presidency of three senior lawmakers, illegitimate, but offered no clear path to a resolution. ... ...

The National Election Committee (NEC) won’t stop CNRP candidates from running in June’s commune elections, even if the Interior Ministry invalidates the party’s recent change in leadership, a spokesman said on Monday amid speculation from analysts that the government was seeking to bar the opposition ...

Opposition leader Sam Rainsy said Friday that the CNRP would attempt to secure the release of detained CNRP official Meach Sovan­nara by promoting him to become a lawmaker so that he can enjoy parliamentary immunity. Mr. Sovannara, the head of the CNRP’s information department, was arrested ...

Hundreds of people gathered yesterday morning in front of Phnom Penh’s Prey Sar prison to demand the release of 17 incarcerated activists, monks and opposition members. The detainees include 10 land activists, three monks and four members of the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party. Fifteen of ...

CNRP spokesman Yim Sovann said Thursday that a group of businessmen close to the opposition has successfully registered a company with the Ministry of Commerce that will hold the television license promised to the party. Mr. Sovann said that the CNRP received notice in the past ...

Police arrested another opposition activist Thursday morning for his alleged involvement in the violent July 15 protest at Freedom Park that the courts have labeled an attempted insurrection, a party official and police said. Tep Narin, a CNRP activist in his 30s, was arrested at the ...

Opposition leader Sam Rainsy will meet with leaders of ruling party soon to seek release of a senior official. The arrest of Meach Sovannara is politically motivated and it needs to be politically intervened, said a party spokesman Yim Sovann. ... ...

Meach Sovannara, an official from the opposition CNRP, was arrested while driving down Monivong Boulevard in Phnom Penh on Tuesday morning, according to police and another CNRP official. Mr. Sovannara, who is also the director of the opposition Khmer Post Radio, was arrested in accordance with ...

Opposition CNRP lawmaker Pol Ham on Monday said he will visit the site of a proposed hydropower dam in Koh Kong province on Monday with colleagues from his parliamentary commission before they quiz government officials about the controversial project later this month. If built, the 108-megawatt ...

CPP National Assembly spokesman Chheang Vun said Saturday that there will be no investigation into why the parliament’s bureaucratic ranks are stacked with family members of one of its chief administrators, explaining that no law prohibits nepotism in the public sector. CNRP chief whip Son Chhay ...

A group of activist monks say they will force CPP lawmaker Chheang Vun to apologize for a heated discussion he had with a monk on Monday if he tries to enter one of their pagodas in the future. ... ...

The National Assembly yesterday appointed a ruling Cambodian People’s Party stalwart to fill the final seat of the judicial body that oversees the Kingdom’s judges and prosecutors and whose political independence is already a target of criticism. A majority of 66 parliamentarians voted Ith Rady, an ...

With the release of the government’s 2015 draft national budget Thursday, the opposition CNRP, whose 55 lawmakers joined the National Assembly in August, called Cambodia’s budget-drafting process “disgusting and unbelievable” on Friday. ... The draft 2015 budget calls for $400 million—or about 10.6 percent—more than 2014. ...