The mixed results of the June 4 commune elections may have allowed both major parties to save face, but the opposition’s large gains show it has a serious chance of winning next year’s national election – and that could attract violent backlash from the government, long-time observers told a forum in Washington last week.
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Hosted by the Stimson Center – a nonpartisan research group focussed on security – authors Sebastian Strangio and Sophal Ear, and researcher Courtney Weatherby, told the Thursday evening forum that the unprecedented gains by the opposition put Cambodia in uncharted territory after the vote. Both Strangio and Ear, who authored Hun Sen’s Cambodia and Aid Dependence in Cambodia, respectively, told the forum that the results had provided the leaders of both parties with much of what they wanted ahead of the July 2018 national election.
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