Royalist parties of Cambodia want to approach May elections hand in hand

Phnom Penh (Cambodia). 2/02/2009: Leu Lai Sreng, former Minister of Rural Development and current First Deputy President at FUNCINPEC, with NRP president Chhim Siek Leng, toasting after the NRP (Norodom Ranariddh Party) and FUNCINPEC MoU ceremony at the FUNCINPEC headquarters. ©John Vink/ Magnum

Ka-set

By Duong Sokha
02-02-2009

After the creation on January 15th of the Democratic Movement for Change by the Sam Rainsy Party and the Human Rights Party, it is now the turn of the FUNCINPEC and the Norodom Ranariddh Party (NRP) to come together, with, in perspective, the next Cambodian local elections in May. The leaders of both parties met on Monday February 2nd at the FUNCINPEC headquarters in Phnom Penh and signed a royalist Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between their political formations, after which the parties' respective leaders, Keo Puth Rasmey (FUNCINPEC) and Chhim Siek Leng (NRP), duly celebrated with a toast.

“Brotherly” parties

After signing the MoU, FUNCINPEC president Keo Puth Rasmey, caught by journalists, explained that the parties had been like two “brothers” ever since the creation of the NRP, the most recent formation out of the two. He presented this unity of strength as a strategy to better establish their position in the May elections for new councils in the capital, municipalities, provinces and districts of Cambodia, which will be conducted on the basis of indirect suffrage. “This is a cooperation, not an alliance”, he insisted, putting forward the fact that their formations were realistic and did not aim, by uniting, “to compete with other political parties”.

Expecting better results in the elections

FUNCINPEC secretary-general Nhek Bun Chhay called for his part to learn a lesson from the past. “We have in the past been divided: it is an experience that we must think through. If our two parties had got together in the last legislative elections, we would not have got two seats each but 17 altogether! Having said that, this new cooperation does not affect in any way relations between FUNCINPEC and the CPP...” And to him, there is no doubt that this cooperation will pay off. According to his projections, FUNCINPEC and NRP together could score three times better in May than if the FUNCINPEC presented an election list under a single name.

Not a reaction to the opposition

Movement NRP secretary-general You Hokry emphasised the same line of argument and offered his own projections for the elections, explaining that each party had something to gain from this MoU. Each party had as a matter of fact set up a technical group to discuss the terms of the cooperation, he detailed. “I do not want to see that cooperation die before the elections!”, he stressed, claiming that the new bonds tied by the two parties claiming to be royalist were in no way a “response” to the recent creation of the Democratic Movement for Change (DMC).