Cambodian strongman Hun Sen claims landslide in election U.S. calls 'neither free nor fair'

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia, July 24 (UPI) -- Prime Minister Hun Sen and his Cambodian People's Party swept to a lopsided victory on Sunday in an election the U.S. State Department slammed as "neither free nor fair."

The Cambodian government engaged in "a pattern of threats and harassment against the political opposition, media and civil society that undermined the spirit of the country's constitution and Cambodia's international obligations," State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said in a press statement.

"These actions denied the Cambodian people a voice and a choice in determining the future of their country," he said.

Washington is pausing unspecified foreign aid programs and will impose visa restrictions on "individuals who undermined democracy," Miller added.

The ruling Cambodian People's Party won 120 out of 125 seats in Sunday's election, according to a preliminary count reported in local media, with the remaining five seats claimed by the royalist Funcinpec party.

The result extends Hun Sen's 38-year reign as prime minister for another five-year term, although he has announced plans to transfer power to his 45-year-old son, Hun Manet.

The CPP was opposed by 17 minor political parties but eliminated its only legitimate threat from the ballot when the Candlelight Party was banned in May on a technicality over paperwork.

In the years leading up to Sunday's election, the government has tightened its grip on power by shuttering independent media outlets, harassing and arresting political opponents and expelling rights watchdogs from the country.

"Authorities in Cambodia have spent the past five years picking apart what's left of the rights to freedom of expression, peaceful assembly and association," Amnesty International interim deputy regional director for research Montse Ferrer said Friday.

At the same time, the Hun Sen regime has pressed to keep voter turnout high as an "important indicator of political legitimacy," Human Rights Watch said last week.

Cambodia passed amendments to its electoral laws in June that criminalize spoiling a ballot or advocating for an election boycott. Anyone who boycotted the election would also be barred from running as a candidate in the future.

Voter turnout in the one-sided contest reached nearly 85%, according to the National Election Committee, which Hun Sen touted as a powerful mandate for his Cambodian People's Party in an audio address on Sunday evening.

"The figure indicates that our citizens have actively participated in Cambodia's democratic process," he said, according to state-linked Phnom Penh Post. "They are keen to preserve the peace and contentment we are experiencing and want to distance themselves from radical groups."

Hun Sen's appointed successor, his West Point-educated son Hun Manet, won his own bid for a seat in parliament Sunday. Last week, the 70-year-old prime minister told a Chinese media outlet that the power exchange could take place as soon as next month.

On Monday, a group of former and current Southeast Asian lawmakers condemned the election as a "pantomime" used by Hun Sen to prop up his regime.

"These types of so-called 'elections' have increasingly become the tools of authoritarian leaders to consolidate their power, undermining elections as one of the core pillars of democracy," ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights board member Eva Kusuma Sundari said in a statement.

"The international community must not fall into the trap of legitimizing this pantomime," she said.