20 political parties register for July 29 poll

PHNOM PENH: Twenty political parties have registered to participate in Cambodia’s July 29 general election, an official said on Monday, but the country’s only viable opposition party, dissolved by a court order late last year, is not among them.

Dim Sovannarom, spokesman of National Election Committee, told Kyodo News that four of the 20 parties who submitted required documents during the 15-day registration period have so far been officially recognised, while the others are still being reviewed.

He also said 8.3 million of the country’s 15 million people have registered to vote, which will be the first poll since 2013.

The exclusion of the Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP), which was the only opposition party represented in parliament, ensures an easy victory for the Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) of Prime Minister Hun Sen, who has been in power for over three decades. The CNRP has called for voters to boycott the “fake” election to deny it legitimacy and to send out a message of support for the opposition party, whose leaders have been banned from politics.

It says the polls can in no way be free and fair if the “only credible challenger” to the CPP is barred, even though a score of newly formed political parties — none of which have any elected representatives in the National Assembly — might participate in them.

The CNRP’s longtime co-leader Sam Rainsy, speaking to a big crowd of Cambodians living in the United States on Sunday night, likened such parties to “fireflies because of their ephemeral character”.

He said their “only role is to help Hun Sen in its desperate effort to legitimise a fake election”.

During a visit to Tokyo last month, Sam Rainsy accused Hun Sen of putting forward smaller parties under his control in an attempt to portray Cambodia as having a multiparty system.

“But nobody will be fooled,” he said. “A real election requires the participation of the CNRP.”

Sam Rainsy predicted Sunday that if the election were held fairly, the CNRP would get 50% of votes against 30% for the CPP.

Eight political parties took part in the 2013 general election but only two of them — the CPP and the CNRP — won seats in the 123-seat National Assembly.

In that poll, the results of which were disputed by the CNRP, the opposition party ended up with 55 seats, compared with 68 for the CPP.

After the Supreme Court ordered the CNRP’S dissolution last November for allegedly attempting to topple the government, all 55 of those assembly seats were taken away and redistributed to smaller parties that had not won any before, while 118 senior CNRP members were banned from politics for five years.