Election monitoring groups close to Hun Sen

PHNOM PENH: Three of the groups approved to monitor Cambodia’s election have close ties to Prime Minister Hun Sen, one headed by his son and the other two led by a man who was appointed by the South-East Asian country’s strongman ruler as a “goodwill ambassador”.

Cambodia heads to the polls on July 29 for an election criticised by the United Nations and Western countries as fundamentally flawed after the dissolution of the main opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) and imprisonment of its leader Kem Sokha last year.