THE United States has announced punitive measures against Cambodia following elections in the south-east Asian country that Washington alleges were “neither free nor fair.”

Claiming a landslide victory in Sunday’s voting, the Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) of Prime Minister Hun Sen said today that it had won 120 of the 125 available seats, according to preliminary results.

The opposition Candlelight Party was barred on a technicality from contesting Sunday’s election by the National Election Committee.

Hun Sen, who has been in power for 38 years, has said that he plans to hand the prime minister’s job to his eldest son, 45-year-old Hun Manet, who heads the army and won his first parliamentary seat on Sunday.

On Sunday night, the US State Department said it had “taken steps” to impose visa restrictions “on individuals who undermined democracy and implemented a pause of foreign assistance programmes” after determining that the elections were “neither free nor fair.

“Cambodian authorities engaged in a pattern of threats and harassment against the political opposition, media and civil society that undermined the spirit of the country’s constitution and Cambodia’s international obligations,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller alleged.