NEC: CPP Wins 9,300 Councilors, Candlelight Comes Second With 2,100

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Vote counting at Chea Sim Boeng Keng Kang High School in Phnom Penh on June 5, 2022. (Tran Techseng/VOD)
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The ruling CPP will have the lion’s share of commune councilors, according to results announced by the NEC on Friday, though the election body said it will finalize the count on Sunday. 

The NEC discussed the results at a meeting Friday morning and released a statement showing the CPP winning 9,376 council seats, followed by Candlelight with 2,198 councilors and seven other parties lagging far behind. 

The council positions reflect the dominant performance by the CPP which is slated to win all but four commune chief positions in an election where it got more than 70 percent of votes on June 5. 

The NEC statement also said the final turnout was 80.3%, with 7.2 million valid ballots and 157,000 spoiled ballots. 

NEC spokesperson Sam Sorida said the NEC decided to announce the formal results ahead of Sunday but that final counts for votes and seats, with more detailed results, expected on Sunday.

PartyCouncilors
CPP9,376
Candlelight2,198
Funcinpec19
KNUP13
GDP6
Cambodia National Love Party5
Cambodian Youth Party3
Kampucheaniyum1
Beehive1
Results announced June 24

The election body has spent the last 20-odd days adjudicating complaints from political parties and has so far rejected most complaints of voter intimidation and voting day irregularities.

Hang Puthea, another NEC spokesperson, said all complaints had been resolved as of early this week and official letters with the decisions were being sent to plaintiffs.

Puthea added that most complaints were from the Candlelight Party, which complained largely about local officials’ presence at voting centers, whereas the CPP accused the opposition party of having candidates at polling stations.

Thach Setha, Candlelight’s vice president, said he was disappointed with how their complaints were judged and that the party was forcibly accepting the decisions and the election results.

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