Cambodia’s embattled opposition Candlelight Party has lost its appeal against the disqualification of upcoming national elections, effectively meaning the country’s leader, Prime Minister Hun Sen, will remain unchallenged at the polls in July.
Cambodia’s Constitutional Council, which heard the party’s appeal on Thursday, ruled that the National Election Committee’s (NEC) decision to bar the opposition from running in the July election was valid. The decision to exclude the party from the election was final, Reuters news agency reported.
The Candlelight Party, a scaled-down but still popular replacement for the main opposition party that was dissolved by the judiciary in 2017, was disqualified last week from the upcoming election over a registration technicality.
According to Reuters, the nine-member council said the electoral committee’s disqualification of the party was constitutional.
“On a legal basis, we analyzed the facts,” the council’s deputy secretary-general, Prom Vicheth Akara, told a news conference, Reuters reported.
“The decision of the NEC has complied with the constitution,” he said, adding that there were 18 other political parties that had successfully registered for the election.
It is official: The Constitutional Council of #Cambodia maintains the refusal of the National Electoral Committee to register the #CandlelightParty for the general elections of July 23. No further recourse is possible. There will be no CLP on the July ballot. pic.twitter.com/6KzNZeVJ3B
— Chhengpor Aun (@aunchhengpor) May 25, 2023
The NEC had reportedly disqualified the Candlelight party from registering for the election because it had submitted a photocopied document instead of an original copy.
“I think democracy in Cambodia … is dead,” Candlelight Party chief Teav Vannol said after the ruling.
“Democracy is dead in Cambodia. This is how I feel,” he told Al Jazeera.
Candlelight party leaders will meet to decide their next steps, he said, adding that protests could be considered.
The exclusion from the July election of Hun Sen’s only credible challenger to power for almost 40 years echoes events in 2017 when Candlelight’s previous incarnation, the hugely popular Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP), it was banned before the last national elections. in 2018.
Hun Sen, a former military commander of the communist rebel Khmer Rouge movement, has effectively held power in Cambodia since 1985 and unleashed waves of repression against political rivals. He says his Cambodian People’s Party will dominate Cambodian politics for up to 100 years and is currently grooming his son to take over when he retires.
Many members and supporters of Cambodian opposition parties have fled into exile abroad, many have been sentenced in absentia – some in person – in mass trials where they have been accused of treason and colluding with foreigners to overthrow Hun Sen .
Kem Sokha, co-founder of the banned CNRP, was found guilty in March of treason and sentenced to 27 years in prison in a highly politicized court case. He is currently serving his sentence under house arrest in the capital, Phnom Penh.
Former opposition leader Mu Sochua, who has lived in exile for several years, said after Thursday’s decision to exclude the candlelight party from the election “it is time to express our concern and hope to reform the [Hun Sen] the regime is over”.
Mu Sochua called on foreign governments not to recognize Hun Sen’s government unless credible elections are held, especially signatory nations to the Paris Accords that ended major hostilities in Cambodia’s bloody 1991 civil war.
“There are no free and fair elections, therefore there is no recognition of the next government,” he said.
Millions of people were denied the right to choose freely.
This material is distributed by Sochua Mu on behalf of the Cambodia National Rescue Party. Additional information is available from the Department of Justice in Washington, DC.
— MuSochua (@sochua_mu) May 25, 2023
Lee Morgenbesser, a professor at Australia’s Griffith University, said Hun Sen’s party needed to eliminate the Candlelight Party as an electoral threat before it had a chance to gain widespread support.
The opposition party was only “allowed to participate as long as they did not become a threat or were not popular enough, or popular enough,” he said.
Thursday’s decision consolidates authoritarianism in Cambodia, he added.
“It is a one-party state with very few political rights and civil liberties, no independent media. At this stage, it is closer to the North Koreas of the world than to democracy,” he said.
“That’s as far as the spectrum goes.”
Reporting by Fiona Kelliher in Phnom Penh.
