The People’s Party (PPC) of Cambodia said it has won elections in the country to renew the National Assembly, the lower house of parliament, which together with the other chamber, the Senate, has the power to appoint the prime minister. Officially there were 18 candidate parties in the elections, but it was immediately known that the PPC would win, led by the current Prime Minister Hun Sen, who has governed the country without interruption since 1998 and who has transformed the Cambodian government into an authoritarian regime. In addition to severely curtailing press freedom, he has persecuted and excluded opposition parties and used the courts and security forces to intimidate his political opponents. According to Cambodia’s Electoral Commission, voter turnout was 8.1 million people.
