On September 25, 2012, opposition leader Sam Rainsy wrote the
following letter to The Cambodia Daily:
ANY ELECTION IN CAMBODIA WOULD BE MEANINGLESS
WITHOUT THE PARTICIPATION OF THE NATIONAL RESCUE PARTY
In “Opposition Parties Threaten to Boycott Next Year ‘s Elections”
(September 25, page 20) Mr. Koul Panha, executive director of the
Committee for Free and Fair Elections in Cambodia, is quoted as saying
that a boycott by the two main opposition parties would have a
negative effect on the elections, and that “even the CPP would get a
less credible result.”
In fact, any election in 2013 without the participation of the Sam
Rainsy Party (SRP) and the Human Rights Party (HRP) – which are in the
process of merging to form a united democratic opposition under the
banner of the Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) – would just be
meaningless.
Cambodia’s political landscape has dramatically changed. There are now
only two competing political blocks: the ruling CPP and the opposition
CNRP. No other party is likely to get any representation at the
National Assembly at the upcoming polls. If we translate the
plummeting votes they obtained at the June commune elections into
National Assembly seats, the two small royalist parties aligned with
the CPP – Funcinpec and the Norodom Ranariddh Party (NRP) – stand to
lose the four parliamentary seats they now have (out of 123). This
leaves only the CPP and the CNRP.
There can’t be a two-party race if the two parties don’t take part.
Mr. Koul Panha’s comment therefore errs only in the sense of
understatement. The CPP’s inevitable landslide victory in the event of
a boycott would be just as meaningless as that achieved last Sunday by
the ruling party in Belarus. The communist-type government there left
the democratic opposition with no option but to boycott the elections
after it imprisoned opposing politicians and created criminal records
to prevent others from standing.
Sam Rainsy
Elected Member of Parliament
President of the CNRP
