US announces punitive measures over concerns elections were ‘neither free nor fair’

Cambodia’s longtime ruling party yesterday lauded its landslide victory in weekend elections as a clear mandate for the next five years, but the United States said its stifling of the opposition meant the vote could not be considered free or fair and that Washington was taking punitive measures.

Autocratic leader Hun Sen’s Cambodian People’s Party won 120 of 125 available seats in Sunday’s elections, according to preliminary results.

The 70-year-old, who has been in power for 38 years, has said he plans to hand the prime minister’s job off to his oldest son, 45-year-old Hun Manet, who is Cambodia›s army chief and won his first parliamentary seat Sunday.

It is part of what is expected to be a broad generational change in top positions for the CPP. And while it is not yet clear exactly when Hun Manet might take over, Hun Sen has suggested it could be as early as within the next month.

On his Facebook page Monday, Hun Manet said the election result showed that the “Cambodian people have clearly expressed their wills through votes,” adding that he thanked Cambodians for their “love and confidence in the CPP” and pledged that the party would “continue to serve Cambodia and Cambodian people better and better.”

Following a challenge from the opposition Cambodian National Rescue Party in 2013 that the CPP barely overcame at the polls, Hun Sen responded by going after leaders of the opposition, and eventually the country’s sympathetic courts dissolved the party.

Ahead of Sunday’s election, the unofficial successor to the CNRP, known as the Candlelight Party, was barred on a technicality from running in the election by the National Election Committee. MDT/AP