Crisis looms as Cambodia poll result rejected

The rejection by the Sam Rainsy Party and royalist FUNCINPEC increases the risk of fresh political turmoil in the Southeast Asian nation because it would leave Prime Minister Hun Sen without key supporters to form a viable coalition government.

"We don't recognise the result of the election as proclaimed by the ruling CPP (Cambodian People's Party) through the state-controlled or CPP-controlled media in the past days," opposition leader Sam Rainsy told a joint news conference with FUNCINPEC yesterday.

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Both parties called the vote unfair and referred to allegations of vote-buying on the eve of Sunday's poll and intimidation of voters in rural areas by CPP officials.

"FUNCINPEC cannot accept these kinds of irregularities so will not for any case accept the result," said party secretary-general Prince Norodom Sereyvuth.

The royalist party, which was the junior partner in a Hun Sen-led coalition before polling day, said that relationship was now at an end.

Both parties said Hun Sen's CPP, by announcing its victory prematurely, had undermined the authority of the National Election Committee and exposed flaws in the electoral process.