The biggest opposition party in Cambodia, the Candlelight Party, has been prevented from running in elections scheduled for July.
The party was barred from running in July earlier this week, allegedly because it did not have the correct paperwork.
The Candlelight Party was formed in 2018, acting as a successor to opposition parties which have been active since Cambodia became a democracy in the early 1990s.
It won 22% of the vote in local government elections held last year and was seen as the only credible opposition to Prime Minister Hun Sen and his Cambodian People’s Party (CPP). Hun Sen has lead since the country since the 1980s, before the transition to democracy, and has overseen an increasing crackdown on civil and other rights in the country in the past few years.
Senior figures in the Candlelight Party said they would appeal the decision by the electoral authorities and said that they had faced significant roadblocks in their attempts to register for the election.
The last Cambodian election was held in 2018 when the CPP won all 125 seats, after the Candlelight Party’s predecessor, the Cambodian National Rescue Party, had also been prevented from participating in that year’s election.