PR-inside.com
2008-08-01
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) - Cambodian elections were the freest ever held in the Southeast Asian country, the United States said Friday, though it concluded media coverage of the campaign was biased toward the ruling party.
The upbeat assessment of Sunday's election in which Prime Minister Hun Sen's ruling party won a landslide victory comes as the opposition is refusing to recognize the results. It claims there was widespread irregularities.
2008-08-01
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) - Cambodian elections were the freest ever held in the Southeast Asian country, the United States said Friday, though it concluded media coverage of the campaign was biased toward the ruling party.
The upbeat assessment of Sunday's election in which Prime Minister Hun Sen's ruling party won a landslide victory comes as the opposition is refusing to recognize the results. It claims there was widespread irregularities.
«Cambodia's National Assembly election was freer than any election previously held in the country and the vast majority of Cambodia's registered voters were able to express their will in a more open atmosphere than before,» the U.S. Embassy said in a statement.
Voting irregularities «were relatively low in number and they do not appear to have affected the outcome or to have distorted the will of the Cambodian people,» the statement said.
Hun Sen's Cambodian People's Party won 90 seats in the 123-seat National Assembly, or lower house of parliament. The opposition Sam Rainsy Party won 26 seats, according to unofficial results.
The opposition party has rejected the results, accusing the National Election Committee of acting as a tool to help Hun Sen win.
It cited the committees alleged removal of tens of thousands of legitimate voters from electoral lists to prevent them from casting ballots for parties other than the ruling one. The election committee has dismissed the allegations.
Sunday's voting was the fourth parliamentary election since the United Nations brokered a peace deal for the country in 1991, a process meant to end decades of civil unrest that included the 1975-79 genocidal reign of the Khmer Rouge.
Some 8.1 million Cambodians were registered voters, but the electoral body has not yet declared how many of them were able to cast their ballots.
While praising the ability of Cambodians to vote, the embassy concluded the atmosphere leading up to the vote was biased toward the ruling party.
Although the opposition had better access to state-run television during the campaigning than in the past, the CPP still dominated the airwaves of private stations that traditionally support it, the embassy said.
This «reflects a virtual monopoly by the CPP on the media and imbalanced the desired level playing field for contesting the elections,» it said.
On Tuesday, Martin Callanan, the head of an EU election monitoring team, gave a similar assessment of biases for the ruling party during the campaign.
But he said alleged vote irregularities would have to be on a very large scale to invalidate the outcome since Hun Sen's party won with «a very large majority.
Voting irregularities «were relatively low in number and they do not appear to have affected the outcome or to have distorted the will of the Cambodian people,» the statement said.
Hun Sen's Cambodian People's Party won 90 seats in the 123-seat National Assembly, or lower house of parliament. The opposition Sam Rainsy Party won 26 seats, according to unofficial results.
The opposition party has rejected the results, accusing the National Election Committee of acting as a tool to help Hun Sen win.
It cited the committees alleged removal of tens of thousands of legitimate voters from electoral lists to prevent them from casting ballots for parties other than the ruling one. The election committee has dismissed the allegations.
Sunday's voting was the fourth parliamentary election since the United Nations brokered a peace deal for the country in 1991, a process meant to end decades of civil unrest that included the 1975-79 genocidal reign of the Khmer Rouge.
Some 8.1 million Cambodians were registered voters, but the electoral body has not yet declared how many of them were able to cast their ballots.
While praising the ability of Cambodians to vote, the embassy concluded the atmosphere leading up to the vote was biased toward the ruling party.
Although the opposition had better access to state-run television during the campaigning than in the past, the CPP still dominated the airwaves of private stations that traditionally support it, the embassy said.
This «reflects a virtual monopoly by the CPP on the media and imbalanced the desired level playing field for contesting the elections,» it said.
On Tuesday, Martin Callanan, the head of an EU election monitoring team, gave a similar assessment of biases for the ruling party during the campaign.
But he said alleged vote irregularities would have to be on a very large scale to invalidate the outcome since Hun Sen's party won with «a very large majority.
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