PHNOM PENH - Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen looked set on Monday for an overwhelming victory after landmark local elections that have been hailed as a step forward for democracy but marred by accusations of violence and cheating, Reuters reported.

Initial results suggested hun Sen's ruling Cambodian People's Party (CPP) would retain control of most of the country's 1,621 "communes" or clusters of villages, following the country's first local polls since independence in 1953.

"According to the preliminary results we received from 15 (of 23) provinces, the CPP has taken almost 70 percent of the vote," Leng Sochea, chief of Information at the National Election Committee, told Reuters.

The communes are Hun Sen's powerbase. His party has controlled all communes for two decades since Vietnam toppled the Khmer rouge's "killing fields" regime.

The results of Sunday's polls suggest he has little to fear from general elections due to be held next year.

"We cannot say exactly how many percent this or that party won, but we see the CPP has won most of the communes," said Koul Panha, director of the Committee for Free and Fair Elections in Cambodia (COMFREL).

But he said there were doubts over whether the poll was fair.

"Intimidation and gift donations went hand-in-hand and must affect this result," Koul Panha said.

**** Final Result Days Away ****

In the key constituency of Phnom Penh, Hun Sen's CPP appeared to have won 70 of the 76 communes, with the Sam Rainsy Party winning the remaining six, local officials said. But final results of the election will take days, officials say.

Opposition parties, election monitors and the United Nations all expressed concern ahead of the vote that violence and intimidation could influence the result.

More than 20 political activists were killed ahead of the election. But police said there was no political motive for any of the killings.

The opposition Sam Rainsy Party, which complained the polls were unfair and said more than 10 of its activists had been killed, appeared to have won at least 10 commune positions, while the royalist Funcinpec, a junior coalition partner with the CPP, seemed to be trailing, election observers said.

Sam Rainsy said at a news conference on Monday he would accept the result of the election but that it had been flawed.

"The result is all right, and can be accepted, but the whole process of the election was not free or fair," he told reporters.

Sam Rainsy said intimidation and Hun Sen's domination of the media made it an unfair contest, and added that many eligible voters had not registered to vote.

"One million eligible voters did not have the opportunity to vote because of irregularities and intimidation which made them afraid," he said.

Prince Norodom Ranariddh, head of Funcinpec, said ahead of the election he expected to win 40 percent of the vote, but the party appeared to have fallen far short of this.

Klaing Huot, a Funcinpec member and district governor in Phnom Penh, said his party must learn from the result.

"This is a lesson for Funcinpec as we near the 2003 general election," he told Reuters by telephone.