PHNOM PENH, March 13 (Xinhua) -- Cambodian Prime Minister Samdech Techo Hun Sen on Tuesday renewed his call for the people to vote for the ruling Cambodian People's Party (CPP) in the upcoming national election, saying that supporting the CPP was to defend peace, stability and development.
"The election will be held on July 29, 2018, and I hope that the people will continue to cast their ballots for the Cambodian People's Party," he said in a speech during the inauguration ceremony of a 4-km stretch of National Road No.1 in east of Phnom Penh.
The 65-year-old prime minister said that only the CPP could maintain the country's hard-won peace, and that "there is no peace, there is no development."
Hun Sen, who has been in power since 1985 and brought full peace to the war-torn country in 1998, reiterated that he would stay in power for at least another 10 years.
The CPP is expected to win a sweeping victory in the upcoming election since the main opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) was dissolved by the Supreme Court on Nov. 16 last year and its 118 senior members had been banned from politics for five years.
The dissolution of the CNRP came after its leader Kem Sokha was arrested on Sept. 3 last year and charged with treason for conspiring with a foreign power in an attempt to overthrow the government.
