PHNOM PENH: Cambodia’s longtime ruler warned opposition parties on Friday not to challenge the result of Sunday’s local elections or they could be dissolved.
Prime Minister Hun Sen made a rare appearance on the last day of rallies before the vote to drum up support for his ruling Cambodian People’s Party.
He has repeatedly warned of civil war if his party loses. It has been accused of using violence or the threat of violence against opponents, but in recent years has stalked its foes mostly in courts.
The polls could have a major impact on Cambodia’s political landscape ahead of 2018 national elections.
Hun Sen’s iron grip on power was shaken four years ago when the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party won 55 of the 123 national assembly seats in the last general election.
The opposition claimed it had actually won but was cheated out of its victory and says it is confident it will sweep Sunday’s polls for seats in 1,646 communes — or clusters of villages — throughout the country.
The prime minister, appearing at a rally apparently for the first time in around 20 years, appealed to all political parties to accept the outcome rather than make accusations of irregularities, saying courts can dissolve any party if it challenges the result of the vote.
This week, Amnesty International accused Cambodia’s government of using its grip on the judiciary system to intimidate political activists.
It said in a report that since the 2013 general election, Hun Sen’s government has used the courts as a tool to imprison at least 27 prominent opposition officials, human rights defenders and land activists.
Riding at the head of a motorcade procession of tens of thousands of his supporters, Hun Sen waved to crowds and addressed them through loudspeakers as the convoy made rounds in Phnom Penh.
Several hours later, opposition leader Kem Sokha addressed tens of thousands of supporters in the streets of Phnom Pehn, promising to reduce corruption and the use of illegal drugs in the country if his Cambodia National Rescue Party wins.
Hun Sen and some of his top ministers have frequently used strong rhetoric leading up to the vote, warning of dire consequences should the opposition win, in what has been seen as an attempt to intimidate voters into supporting him.
Also early this month, the State Department said the US was urging Cambodia’s government to “guarantee a political space free from threats or intimidation” and respect freedom of expression for all its citizens.
In the last communal elections in 2012, Hun Sen’s party received 60 percent of the vote compared to the Cambodia National Rescue Party’s 30.6 percent.
The ruling party could also take some credit for bringing modest economic growth and stability in a country devastated by the communist Khmer Rouge’s regime in the 1970s. Hun Sen left the movement that was responsible for the deaths of some 1.7 million people from starvation, disease and executions before it was toppled in 1979.
Cambodia’s PM warns opposition not to challenge vote
Cambodia’s PM warns opposition not to challenge vote
Rubio says technical talks with Denmark, Greenland officials over Arctic security have begun
- US Secretary of State on Wednesday appeared eager to downplay Trump’s rift with Europe over Greenland
WASHINGTON: Technical talks between the US, Denmark and Greenland over hatching an Arctic security deal are now underway, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Wednesday.
The foreign ministers of Denmark and Greenland agreed to create a working group aimed at addressing differences with the US during a Washington meeting earlier this month with Vice President JD Vance and Rubio.
The group was created after President Donald Trump’s repeated calls for the US to take over Greenland, a Danish territory, in the name of countering threats from Russia and China — calls that Greenland, Denmark and European allies forcefully rejected.
“It begins today and it will be a regular process,” Rubio said of the working group, as he testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. “We’re going to try to do it in a way that isn’t like a media circus every time these conversations happen, because we think that creates more flexibility on both sides to arrive at a positive outcome.”
The Danish Foreign Ministry said Wednesday’s talks focused on “how we can address US concerns about security in the Arctic while respecting the red lines of the Kingdom.” Red lines refers to the sovereignty of Greenland.
Trump’s renewed threats in recent weeks to annex Greenland, which is a semiautonomous territory of a NATO ally, has roiled US-European relations.
Trump this month announced he would slap new tariffs on Denmark and seven other European countries that opposed his takeover calls, only to abruptly drop his threats after a “framework” for a deal over access to the mineral-rich island was reached, with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte’s help. Few details of the agreement have emerged.
After stiff pushback from European allies to his Greenland rhetoric, Trump also announced at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, last week that he would take off the table the possibility of using American military force to acquire Greenland.
The president backed off his tariff threats and softened his language after Wall Street suffered its biggest losses in months over concerns that Trump’s Greenland ambitions could spur a trade war and fundamentally rupture NATO, a 32-member transatlantic military alliance that’s been a linchpin of post-World War II security.
Rubio on Wednesday appeared eager to downplay Trump’s rift with Europe over Greenland.
“We’ve got a little bit of work to do, but I think we’re going to wind up in a good place, and I think you’ll hear the same from our colleagues in Europe very shortly,” Rubio said.
Rubio during Wednesday’s hearing also had a pointed exchange with Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Virginia, about Trump repeatedly referring to Greenland as Iceland while at Davos.
“Yeah, he meant to say Greenland, but I think we’re all familiar with presidents that have verbal stumbles,” Rubio said in responding to Kaine’s questions about Trump’s flub — taking a veiled dig at former President Joe Biden. “We’ve had presidents like that before. Some made a lot more than this one.”
