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September 4th, 2013 
Peter Nolan
Updated
Cambodia’s opposition party has called on the nation’s king to resolve a dispute over elections in July which saw strongman prime minister Hun Sen retain power.
Preliminary official poll results handed victory to Hun Sen’s Cambodian People’s Party, which the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) has alleged was the result of massive vote-rigging.
Opposition leader Sam Rainsy has sent a letter to King Norodom Sihamoni urging him to step in and break the impasse.
“I request your majesty to intervene in order to find a resolution for the irregularities in the election with transparency and justice that the Cambodian people want,” Mr Rainsy said in the letter which emerged Wednesday.
Cambodia’s king is the official head of state but analysts say the office no longer exercises political power.
The CNRP, which has so far unsuccessfully demanded an independent probe into the election, has said thousands of its supporters will protest peacefully on Saturday in one of the largest opposition demonstrations for a decade.
Security forces and armoured vehicles have been deployed around the capital since the July 28 poll, in a move the opposition decried as intimidation.
The CNRP has said it plans to file a criminal lawsuit against election authorities over the vote, which the Cambodian People’s Party said it won with 68 lower house seats to the opposition’s 55.
The National Election Committee has said Hun Sen’s party won 3.2 million votes to the opposition’s 2.9 million, although it has yet to reveal the party’s share of parliamentary seats.
Hun Sen, 61, who has vowed to rule until he is 74, has said he will form a government despite the opposition’s allegations.
Final poll results are expected to be announced by September 8, after which there will be no further legal challenges available to the opposition.
AFP
Topics:
government-and-politics,
elections,
federal-elections,
community-and-society,
cambodia,
asia
First posted
Source Article from http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-09-04/an-cambodia-opposition-urges-nation27s-king-to-resolve-electio/4936288
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