Cambodia election: Polls open in vote with no credible opposition

Cambodia's semipermanent person is astir definite to widen his party's regularisation astatine an predetermination connected Sunday wherever determination nary superior challengers.

Voters turning up to the polls successful Phnom Penh told the BBC they expected the Cambodian People's Party to expanse each 125 seats successful parliament again.

Hun Sen, who has been successful powerfulness for 38 years, faces nary existent situation aft the lone credible absorption enactment was disqualified successful May.

Critics person called the ballot a sham.

"It's a rigged predetermination due to the fact that determination are nary existent beardown absorption parties," 1 voter, an assistance idiosyncratic successful Phnom Penh, told the BBC earlier this week.

Western nations, including the US, person besides expressed concerns astir the integrity of the vote.

Opposition lawmakers this twelvemonth person reported convulsive attacks, with Human Rights Watch reporting the authorities stepped up intimidation and arbitrary arrests of governmental absorption successful the run-up to the poll.

In May, the authorities barred the country's main absorption party, the Candlelight Party, connected a technicality. The National Election Commission said the enactment was missing paperwork, which it had not needed for the section elections past year.

Candlelight had won 22% of the ballot past twelvemonth - and analysts accidental Hun Sen saw them arsenic a imaginable menace to his rule.

Hun Sen has go progressively authoritarian successful his rule, governmental analysts say.

It is the 2nd predetermination successful a enactment wherever Hun Sen has targeted antiauthoritarian institutions and crippled the absorption earlier voting day, analysts say.

Seventeen different parties are participating successful this year's election, but astir each are excessively small, caller oregon are aligned with the ruling enactment to beryllium considered credible challengers.

The ballot comes astatine an uncertain clip for Cambodia's system - with locals reporting struggles with rising substance prices, stagnant wages and increasing debts.

While Hun Sen is campaigning for re-election, helium has flagged that this whitethorn beryllium his past term. In 2021, helium said would manus implicit power to his eldest lad who presently commands the Royal Cambodian Army.

Han Manet is simply a first-time campaigner for a parliament spot this predetermination and led the last time of enactment rallies successful Phnom Penh connected Friday.

However it's unclear if of erstwhile his begetter volition relinquish control.

Hun Sen's enactment has won each six of the nationalist elections held each 5 years since the 1990s, erstwhile the UN helped the Southeast Asian federation of 16 cardinal radical go a functioning ideology station decades of civilian warfare and the murderous Khmer Rouge regime.

Over 4 decades, helium has consolidated powerfulness done power of the military, constabulary and moneyed interests. Observers accidental helium has dispatched opponents done co-opting, jailing oregon exiling them.