It's Friday, so time to wrap up the week's news from Cambodia for those of you who've come to count on me doing so.

I'll start out by mentioning that my dear friend Gay has arrived safely in Phnom Penh and will be heading out to the provinces soon to build houses with a Tabitha USA group like she did last year.

If you'd like to hear more about her 2006 trip, you can find posts here, and here, where she talks about her visit to the orphanage that cared for my kids, and here.

And now to headline news ...

Last weekend's commune council elections brought out 70% or the more than seven million registered voters in the country.

Only the second of its kind, this election had 102,266 candidates from twelve parties running for 11,353 seats in 1,621 communes nationwide.

(Just an aside ... I find it very interesting that Americans refer to someone "running" for office, while the British say they're "standing". Rather points to a fundamental difference, doesn't it?)

Election officials are quoted as saying that the vote was carried out in a, "smooth and free atmosphere".

Hun Sen's ruling CPP party is predicted to win an increased majority.

The final results will be announced on the 24th of April, giving time for ballot counting and addressing any election-related complaints.

Prior to the election, the Cambodia National Election Committee had ordered at all SMS facilities be shut down, so all text messaging was off.

Cambodia has around 1.6 million cell phone users, so it was no small number impacted by the rather sudden switch-off. The touted premise was to minimize potential political violence after hundreds were killed in the months leading up to the national elections in '98 and '03.

The opposition Sam Rainsy Party objected to the text ban, saying that it " ... severely curbs people's freedom to communicate as guaranteed by the constitution."

Twenty-eight Americans are now in Cambodia as the first ever Peace Corps mission to the country.

They will serve in seven provinces over the next two years, teaching English to kids in the countryside after spending the past eight weeks in Kampong Cham studying Khmer and adjusting to the culture.

Cambodia is the 139th country to receive Peace Corps volunteers. It's been around now for 46 years and has about 7,500 volunteers in now 73 nations.

Continued ...