IN A country with a history of political violence, it appears that actual bloodshed has been limited. But otherwise the campaign for Cambodia’s general election on July 28th is as ugly as ever. The ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) will win again, shoring up the rule of one of Asia’s longest-serving strongmen, Hun Sen, prime minister since 1985. But the CPP’s majority may be cut and Mr Hun Sen and his party seem rather het up.

On June 9th the CPP backed a 30,000-strong march across the country in protest at comments by Kem Sokha, a leader of the main opposition Cambodian National Rescue Party (CNRP). He had claimed the horrors of Tuol Sleng, a Khmer Rouge torture centre, now a museum, were a fiction invented by the Vietnamese. Mr Kem Sokha argued that the Khmer Rouge would not have simply forgotten to destroy the prison before their defeat in 1979 by Vietnamese invaders (who installed the CPP government).

This repugnant nonsense seemed to stem from the opposition’s habit of using traditional anti-Vietnamese sentiment ahead of elections. This time it prompted Hun Sen to pass a law criminalising the denial of Khmer Rouge atrocities.

The passage of the law and the anti-denial march served Hun Sen well. The CNRP’s campaign had gathered some momentum, thanks to issues ranging from the government’s complicity in illegal land grabs to the plight of garment workers, galvanised by a disaster in a factory in Bangladesh in April. The garment industry accounts for about a fifth of total government revenue. Workers, who earn less than $100 a month, want more, and industrial accidents have spurred further protests, including a rally on June 3rd that saw clashes and arrests.

That rally changed the tone of the election campaign. The government, which seems increasingly paranoid, enforced a rarely used law intended to curb “party hopping”—ie, post-election defections by candidates of the losing party. The law restricts MPs to membership of one political party only.

A committee of CPP lawmakers then stripped CNRP politicians of their salaries and parliamentary rights because they were originally elected for two other parties, which later merged. America said the move “starkly contradicts the spirit of a healthy democratic process.” The CPP government responded in traditional fashion, accusing foreigners of interfering in Cambodia’s affairs. It seems more worried about the outcome of next month’s election than the niceties of the democratic process.