Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, a former communist who has ruled for two decades, expanded his majority in yesterday’s election, winning 73 percent of parliamentary seats according to unofficial results.

Hun Sen’s Cambodian People’s Party won 90 of 123 seats, up from 73 in the previous election five years ago, said Khan Keo Mono, a spokesman for the National Election Committee.
Opposition leader Sam Rainsy’s party, named after himself, won 26 seats, two more than he won in 2003. Three parties split the remaining seven seats.

By Ek Madra

SIEM REAP, Cambodia (Reuters) - Thailand’s new foreign minister started talks with his Cambodian counterpart on Monday to defuse a row over a 900-year-old temple that has raised fears of a military clash between the southeast Asian neighbors.

Career diplomat Tej Bunnag, who was appointed at the weekend after the resignation of his predecessor over the Preah Vihear spat, declined to talk to reporters as he entered the meeting with Cambodia’s Hor Namhong in the tourist town of Siem Reap.

The Cambodian side was also keeping quiet before the talks, which are not expected to yield any major breakthrough in the dispute over 1.8 square miles of scrubland near the temple.

The ancient Hindu temple sits on a jungle-clad escarpment that forms the natural boundary between the two countries. The International Court of Justice awarded the ruins to Cambodia in a 1962 ruling that has rankled in Thailand ever since.

The Hague court did not rule on the disputed bits of land next to the temple.

With troops and artillery building up on both sides of the border, Cambodia has threatened to take the spat to the United Nations Security Council. Thailand wants all talks with its smaller neighbor to remain strictly two-way.

“Attempts to bring the bilateral issue to broader frameworks at this stage could complicate the situation and in turn, produce undesirable repercussions on the good relations and goodwill,” Tej said in a statement on Sunday.

The talks — the second attempt to resolve the dispute through dialogue — are expected to run until around 4.30 pm

(0930 GMT).

CONFLICTING MAPS

Negotiations a week ago between top military officials quickly descended into an argument over which of several maps drawn up in the last 100 years should be used to settle ownership of the temple and surrounding area.

General Chea Mon, a Cambodian commander at the temple, said both he and Thai officers had ordered a halt to the digging of trenches and bunkers for the duration of the talks, but made clear that any pull-back was out of the question.

“We are still in a military stand-off,” he told Reuters.

The dispute flared up when street protesters in Bangkok trying to oust the Thai government seized on its approval of Phnom Penh’s bid to list the ruins as a World Heritage site.

A general election campaign in Cambodia ensured the row quickly escalated, although Prime Minister Hun Sen’s landslide victory in Sunday’s poll gives him scope to tone down the rhetoric and move towards some understanding with Thailand.

However, there is still a risk of the row taking on a life of its own, with ordinary Cambodians organizing collections of cash, food and clothing in the capital to send to troops on the border.

In 2003, a Cambodian nationalist mob torched the Thai embassy and several Thai-owned businesses in Phnom Penh after erroneous reports of comments from a Thai soap opera star suggesting Cambodia’s famed Angkor Wat temples really belonged to Thailand.

(Writing by Ed Cropley; Editing by Alan Raybould)

PHNOM PENH (AFP) — Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen took nearly 60 percent of the vote in weekend polls, election officials said Monday, but the opposition rejected his win and demanded a new balloting.

The ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) won 59.6 percent of the vote in Sunday’s election, compared with nearly 21 percent for the nearest rival, the main opposition Sam Rainsy Party, electoral authorities said.

The National Election Committee said turnout was 74.5 percent, but it did not say how many parliamentary seats each party had won.

The CPP claimed it would scoop 90 of the 123 seats in parliament, with Sam Rainsy and three other small parties dividing the rest.

“This is a new victory for the CPP and for CPP’s policies for the past five years,” party spokesman Khieu Kanharith told AFP.

The four minority parties rejected the outcome, accusing the CPP of fiddling with the voter rolls to ensure their victory.

“We call on the international community not to recognise the results because there were a lot of irregularities,” longtime government critic Kem Sokha, leader of the upstart Human Rights Party, told reporters.

Kem Sokha said the four parties would consider forming a coalition party to challenge the CPP.

“We have decided to join forces to struggle with the Cambodian people to demand a re-run of the election in Cambodia,” said main opposition leader Sam Rainsy.

The royalist Funcinpec and Norodom Ranariddh Party also signed a statement accusing the government of rigging the rolls.

“The main illegal and fraudulent practises are related to the deletion of countless voters’ names and an artificial increase in the CPP votes,” the statement said.

Local observers have confirmed that some voters were turned away from polling stations after their names disappeared from the rolls, but they cast doubt on whether the problem was as widespread as the opposition claims.

Still, the Comfrel group of election observers said they could not pronounce the vote free and fair until the claims were investigated.

“It is too early to say this was a free and fair election. We need to have more information, especially on the voter’s lists which is a very big problem,” Comfrel official Thun Saray told reporters.

He also lamented the drop in voter turnout, which had reached 83 percent in the last general election in 2003.

Thun Saray blamed the fall on a lack of confidence in the political parties, problems with the voter rolls, and rising fuel costs that made transportation too costly for voters to return to their hometowns to cast ballots.

He also warned that if the CPP’s large victory is confirmed, the result could undermine Cambodia’s fledgling democracy.

“There will be no more checks and balances in the national assembly,” he said. “That is our big challenge.”

At 55, Hun Sen has ruled Cambodia for 23 years. He has vowed to remain in power until he is 90, relentlessly undercutting his political rivals and resorting to street violence to put down political challenges.

Hun Sen had been widely tipped to win due to a booming economy that has helped improve the quality of life in one of the world’s poorest nations, and due to nationalist sentiment sparked by a border feud with Thailand.

He was so confident of victory that his government on Monday launched a new round of border talks with Thailand, even before his re-election has been confirmed.