About 700 lawyers will cast their votes today for the ninth mandate president of the Cambodian Bar Association, Yim Sary, spokesman of the CBA, said yesterday.

Sary said Bun Honn and Suon Visal were the most likely of eight candidates to be elected because they ran what he believed to be superior campaigns with more clearly articulated policies.

“The most outstanding candidates must protect the interests of the legal profession by serving the poor and seeking assistance to support the new generation of lawyers,” he said.

Candidate Visal, a human rights defence lawyer, was elected in 2004 as mandate president, but controversially lost his seat when a rival candidate accused him of forging a stamp used by the bar.

Honn, a practising lawyer since 1998, declined to comment extensively, simply stating that he hoped to win the ballot.

To contact the reporter on this story: Vong Sokheng at [email protected]