Prime Minister Hun Sen and his ruling Cambodian People's Party (CPP) won Sunday's national elections but not with nearly as resounding a victory as many had predicted, preliminary results showed, dpa reported.
Initial results showed the CPP leading with 68 of parliament's 123 seats and the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) following closely behind with 55 seats.
In 2008, the CPP won the lion's share of the vote, with 90.
Information Minister Khieu Kanharith listed the preliminary figures in a Facebook post, and cabinet spokesman Phay Siphan confirmed them while stressing that they were not yet official results.
Tep Nytha, secretary general of the National Election Committee (NEC) told The Cambodia Daily that official results would be released Monday.
The CNRP neither conceded defeat nor challenged the result, saying it would wait for the official result.
Opposition leader Sam Rainsy - who was barred from running in the poll due to criminal convictions he contends were politically motivated - had told reporters he expected Hun Sen's party to win as they had stacked the odds in their favour.
"It's a foregone conclusion," Rainsy said.
"We take part in this election knowing it's not a real election, our decision to take part in this election is to be with the people - who want change." Aside from his exclusion from the polls, factors such as a largely government-controlled media, an election committee stacked with ruling party supporters, have been cited as favouring the CPP. Two independent audits earlier this year found that the voter list which could disenfranchise 1 million eligible voters.
While some observers predicted the opposition could make some gains. The return last week of Rainsy, who lived abroad for years to avoid prison, sparked groundswell of support for the CNRP.
The unprecedented support for the opposition was seen as the biggest setback the CPP have suffered since the first democratic elections in 1993.
Hun Sen, 60, has led the poverty-stricken South-East Asian nation for 28 years and has strong grassroots support in rural areas, where he is credited with bringing peace, stability and economic growth to a nation that saw 1.7 million people perish under the ultra-Marxist Khmer Rouge.
But his CNRP's platform of a higher minimum wage, a pension for the elderly, and an end to the current government's continual land grabs has gained some traction among Cambodians. Thousands have take to the streets to call for change. Voting was mostly peaceful, but there were isolated incidents of violence, including an incident at one polling station in the capital where a mob angry that they could not find their names on the voter list, overturned and set fire to two police vehicles.
Rainsy had warned of a "risk of violence" if people felt the election had been rigged, but appealed for calm.
The US embassy called on its citizens in the country to "limit their movements" as there was "the potential for civil unrest over the next few days."
Embassy spokesman Sean McIntosh, called the polls "an historic step in Cambodia's democratic development."
"We are aware of reported irregularities, and we have consistently called on the Royal Government to address systemic flaws in the voter registry and other shortcomings. We call on the National Election Committee to transparently and fully investigate all credible reports of irregularities and take appropriate action as needed".