Voters queue up at a polling station in Phnom Penh on July 27. Polls opened in Cambodia on July 27 for legislative elections widely expected to extend Prime Minister Hun Sen's 23-year grip on power. 
A Buddhist monk casts vote at a poll station in Phnom Penh on July 27. Polls opened in Cambodia on July 27 for legislative elections widely expected to extend Prime Minister Hun Sen's 23-year grip on power.PHNOM PENH (AFP)
Cambodians looked set to extend Prime Minister Hun Sen's 23-year rule in elections Sunday, after a campaign overshadowed by a tense military standoff in a border dispute with Thailand.
The border feud breathed life into an otherwise sleepy campaign, with scores of voters lining up at dawn to wait for polling stations to open at 7:00 am (0001) GMT.
Many in the capital Phnom Penh said the territorial dispute centred on the ancient Preah Vihear temple was the most important issue in the election.
"I will vote for the people who can solve the Preah Vihear temple as soon as they take office," said 56-year-old businessman Lam Chanvanda, as he stood in a lone line waiting to cast his ballot.
"Before I was never interested in the border, but now it is in my heart," he added.
Thousands of soldiers from both sides are facing off near the 11th-century Khmer temple. Hun Sen has flatly accused Thailand of defying international law and threatening regional peace by sending troops into the disputed zone.
With foreign ministers set to meet Monday in hopes of resolving the deal, the confrontation captured the nation's attention during a campaign that saw no serious rival emerge to threaten Hun Sen's Cambodian People's Party (CPP).
Always confident, Hun Sen kissed his ballot as he cast it at a school in a posh southern suburb of Phnom Penh.
The CPP currently has 73 seats, and party officials say they expect to cinch at least eight more on their way to a single-party government.
More than 15,000 polling stations will stay open for eight hours of balloting, under the eyes of 17,000 domestic and international observers.
More than eight million people are registered to vote. Official results could take days to be announced, but the parties are expected to release their own tallies Sunday evening.
US-based Human Rights Watch has complained that the ruling party's near monopoly on broadcast media has undermined the opposition's efforts to woo voters, especially in rural parts of the country.
One radio station was shut down late Saturday after it broadcast a reading from a book by opposition leader Sam Rainsy, violating rules against campaigning on the day before the vote, government spokesman Khieu Kanharith said.
About 20 police and soldiers surrounded the office of FM 93.5, forcing them to stop transmitting. The station's licence was revoked, the spokesman added.
Hun Sen has a reputation for trampling on human rights to secure power, but a booming economy has bolstered his standing in a country struggling to lift itself from the ranks of the world's poorest nations.
Once a Khmer Rouge guerrilla fighter, Hun Sen abandoned the movement to stake his political future with the CPP, which was installed as the ruling party after Vietnamese troops toppled the Khmer Rouge in 1979 and created a client state to stop border incursions.
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