UPDATE 1-Cambodia's ruling party won all parliamentary seats in July vote - election committee

Cambodia's ruling Cambodian People's Party (CPP) won all 125 parliamentary seats in a July 29 general election, the president of the National Election Committee (NEC) said on Wednesday, but the opposition branded the result illegitimate.

Rights groups say the vote was neither free nor fair due to the absence of a significant challenger to Prime Minister Hun Sen, who has ruled the country for more than three decades.

The CPP won in all 25 provinces and cities, said Sik Bun Hok, chairman of the NEC.

NEC spokesman Dim Sovannarom said the CPP won all 125 parliamentary seats.

"The CPP won 4.8 million votes from the sixth mandate of the National Assembly members elected and that won all 125 parliamentary seats," Dim Souvannarom told Reuters by telephone.

The only viable opposition party, the Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP), was dissolved last year by the Supreme Court and 118 members were banned from politics for five years.

CNRP leader Kem Sokha was jailed on treason charges in September. He remains in pre-trial detention.

Authorities launched a sweeping crackdown in the lead-up to the vote targeting non-governmental organizations, rights groups, and independent media.

Mu Sochua, CNRP's vice president, who lives in self-imposed exile abroad, called the new members of parliament illegitimate.

"The CPP is leading the nation to a one-party state with one man making all decisions for the entire nation through a sham election rejected by democratically elected governments," Mu Sochua told Reuters.

"Sham elections cannot produce a legitimate National Assembly," she said.

Voter turnout was 83 percent, the NEC said in a separate statement on Wednesday.

In the previous general election in 2013 turnout was 69.61 percent or 6.73 million voters.

The CPP was banking on a high voter turnout to bestow a veneer of legitimacy on the election which many, including the United Nations and some Western countries, had criticized.

The royalist Funcinpec party of Prince Norodom Ranariddh, who was once Hun Sen's main rival but is now aligned with the prime minister, came second in the election, winning 374,510 votes.

The United States, which already imposed visa curbs on some Cambodian government members close to Hun Sen over the crackdown, said it would consider steps, including an expansion of visa restrictions, in response to July's "flawed election".

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)