The previous general elections in 2008 were won by the Cambodian People's Party, which managed to secure an absolute majority of the seats: 90 out of 123.

Despite winning a parliamentary majority, the CPP chose to form a coalition with the royalist FUNCINPEC, which won 2 seats.

[4] The voter roll was finalised on 31 December 2012, at which time Rainsy was living abroad after being controversially convicted in 2010 of making changes to a map to suggest the country was losing land to neighbouring Vietnam.

The opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party played up this anti-Vietnamese rhetoric in campaigning leading up to the election.

[9] One of the controversies that beset the Cambodian election before it even began was the use of an ostensibly indelible ink that was used to mark which voters had already voted.

Documentation by poll monitors before the election demonstrated the ink could simply be washed off using bleach or lime juice in minutes upon drying.

"[8] The international non-governmental organisation Human Rights Watch (HRW) issued a statement that read that "the ruling Cambodian People's Party (CPP) appears to have been involved in electoral fraud" and called for an "independent commission" to investigate "allegations of election fraud and other irregularities, including bias in the election machinery".

[7] Brad Adams, HRW's Asia Director, further stated that some of the fraud consisted of "senior ruling party officials appear to have been involved in issuing fake election documents and fraudulently registering voters in multiple provinces.