Valeria Mongelli/Bloomberg/Getty Images
Hun Sen, Cambodia’s Prime Minister, at the EU-ASEAN memorial summit in Brussels, Belgium, Wednesday, December 14, 2022. The European Union will propose a 10 billion (US$10.6 billion) investment package to countries in Southeast Asia as the European bloc seeks to strengthen ties with the region to diversify supply chains and win support against Russia. Photographer: Valeria Mongelli/Bloomberg via Getty Images
CNN –
Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen’s party on Sunday announced a landslide victory in a general election, a vote widely dismissed by critics as a hoax aimed at consolidating the party’s rule ahead of the expected transfer of power to his eldest son.
The competition was effectively a one-horse race in which Hun Sen’s Cambodian People’s Party (CPP), a political behemoth with vast war chests, had no viable opponent after years of ruthlessly suppressing its rivals.
According to the Electoral Committee, the election ended with an 84% turnout, with 8.1 million people taking part in a much-criticised contest between the CPP and 17 mostly unknown parties, none of which won seats in the last election in 2018.
The only opponent with real clout was eliminated from the race.
“We won by a landslide victory… but we can’t calculate the number of seats yet,” said CPP spokesman Sok Eysan.
Self-proclaimed strongman Hun Sen, who has ruled Cambodia for 38 years, had brushed aside any Western concerns about the credibility of the election and was determined to avoid any obstacle in his carefully orchestrated transition to his anointed successor and eldest son, Hun Manet.
No timeframe for the inauguration was given as of Thursday, when Hun Sen signaled his son “could become prime minister next month” depending “on whether or not Hun Manet will be able to do so.” He had to win a seat in the National Assembly to become Prime Minister, which was likely.
Hun Sen said the turnout – the second-highest in three decades – proved calls by his mostly expatriate rivals to use protest voting to undermine the election had failed.