Building momentum: CNRP supporters gathering during the Commune Election Campaign in Phnom Penh. — AFP
PHNOM PENH: Tuk-tuks blaring pop music and flag-waving supporters of Cambodia’s embattled opposition led a rally for upcoming local elections, a bellwether for efforts to end the three-decade rule of strongman Hun Sen in next year’s national polls.
The June 4 vote in more than 1,600 communes – administrative clusters of villages – will take Cambodia’s political temperature ahead of a general election in 2018 that is expected to go to the wire.