PHNOM PENH – Mr Hun Manet, the Cambodian ruling party’s prime minister-in-waiting, launched hundreds of cars, tuk-tuks and motorcycles on Friday in a final political rally ahead of Cambodia’s general election on Sunday.
“History has shown that only the Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) has the ability to bring safety and peace to Cambodia,” he said in Phnom Penh’s Diamond Island district, where the party’s supporters had massed.
His father, Prime Minister Hun Sen, 70, was not present.
Mr Hun Manet also accused “extremist groups” of trying to ruin the upcoming election, but said that Cambodian people have seen through the “dirty tricks”.
While the 45-year-old four-star general has been designated as the CPP’s future prime ministerial candidate, the party has not made clear when the political transition would occur.
The Cambodian authorities have been criticised for suppressing political opposition and dissent in the lead-up to Sunday’s poll.
Although 18 parties are taking part in this election, the strongest opposition party, the Candlelight Party, was disqualified over paperwork that the National Election Committee (NEC) said did not meet the criteria.
As a result, the CPP is expected to dominate this poll, just like it did in the previous general election in 2018, when it swept all 125 seats in the National Assembly.
A year before that election, the CPP’s strongest challenger, the Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP), had been dissolved over allegations that it was planning to topple the government.
Former CNRP leader Kem Sokha was convicted of treason in March and sentenced to 27 years of house arrest.
Following calls by some political activists to boycott this election or spoil votes in protest, the CPP-controlled National Assembly amended the election law to bar those who have not voted from taking part in future elections.
In addition, anyone who discourages others from voting can be fined five million riels (S$1,600) to 20 million riels.
The NEC said on July 11 that it could take legal action against those who encourage people to spoil their ballots.
Mr Hun Sen, who has been prime minister for some four decades, has also called Sunday’s election a “competition between the 18 participating political parties with the extremists who want to ruin the election”.
The Prime Minister accused the “extremists” of “campaigning to block people from voting and destroying the ballot”.
Human Rights Watch, a non-governmental organisation, has urged the Cambodian authorities to stop harassing and prosecuting members and activists from the Candlelight Party, some of whom have asked voters to spoil their ballot.
Mr Phil Robertson, the deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch, said: “The Cambodian government has taken away the right of many Cambodians to vote for the party of their choice, and they have a right to express their opinions about that.”
The Asian Network for Free Elections, a Bangkok-based non-governmental organisation, said the coming Cambodian election “will continue to fall short of being free and fair”.
The network also called the Candlelight Party’s exclusion “a stark example of the highly restricted political space and the severe limitations imposed on opposition parties”.
CPP spokesman Sok Eysan, however, told The Straits Times that the election agency had proceeded according to the rules.
He added that the party was hoping to achieve a voter turnout higher than the 80 per cent reached in the 2022 commune elections.
