By Jonathan Head, Lulu Luo & Frances Mao

BBC News in Phnom Penh and Singapore

 

Voting is underway in Cambodia, where the country's long-term leader is virtually certain to extend his party's rule in an election where there are no serious challengers.

People turning up to the polls in Phnom Penh told the BBC they expected the Cambodian People's Party (CPP) to sweep all 125 seats in parliament again. Hun Sen, who has been in power for 38 years, faces no real challenge after the only credible opposition party was disqualified in May. Critics have called the vote a sham.

"The election this year is not free nor fair, because the choice of two million people was taken away," one voter in Phnom Penh told the BBC. Western nations, including the US, have also expressed concerns about the integrity of the vote. To ensure the highest possible turnout when people are being offered no real choice, the government has criminalised any attempt to boycott the election or spoil the ballot papers.

 

Opposition lawmakers this year have reported violent attacks, with Human Rights Watch reporting the government stepped up intimidation and arbitrary arrests of political opposition in the run-up to the poll. In May, the government barred the country's main opposition party, the Candlelight Party, on a technicality. The National Election Commission said the party was missing paperwork, which it had not needed for the local elections last year.

read more

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-66264726

 

same circus .......different clowns.