Cambodian opposition returns to National Assembly

By Lauren Crothers

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AA) - Lawmakers from the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) ended a months-long boycott of parliament on Tuesday, which they began after two of their members were beaten by a mob last year.

The CNRP won 55 seats to the ruling Cambodian People’s Party’s 68 seats in the 2013 election, but the opposition’s term since has been defined by several boycotts.

The most recent came in response to fears for lawmakers’ safety after two CNRP MPs were beaten outside parliament last year, and authorities began honing in on the party’s deputy leader, Kem Sokha, who remains in hiding.

CNRP chief whip Son Chhay told Anadolu Agency on Tuesday that members of parliament attended the National Assembly to “debate the national budget [for] 2017”, and that Sokha was not in attendance.

Earlier this month, the appeal court upheld a five-month prison sentence handed to Sokha in September for failing to appear for questioning at the court in a prostitution case, which critics say is spuriously linked to recordings of Sokha and his mistress leaked at the start of the year.

In hiding since May 26, Sokha has left the CNRP compound where he’s been hiding only once -- in early October, when he registered as a voter and candidate in the 2018 national elections.

The CNRP’s leader, Sam Rainsy, has been in exile for the past year to avoid being imprisoned in a years-old defamation case.

Last week, he was found guilty of defamation for accusing Prime Minister Hun Sen of buying fake “likes” to boost his Facebook page -- the latest in a string of cases against Rainsy.

Cambodian politics is not an individual’s game, political analyst Ou Virak told Anadolu Agency on Tuesday, underlining that because the seats in parliament belong to a party, there’s little that the CNRP can really do even if the boycott is now over, and that what the public needs to hear is something of substance from the opposition.

“It won’t make a lot of difference,” he said. “When they boycotted in the first place it was because of security issues and the beating up of two MPs, which is quite a legitimate reason for anybody. I thought that was fine, but it went on for a long time.”

He added, “I don’t know if there is any more use of the boycott, because either way it won’t make a difference. They don’t have the numbers to stop anything… There’s absolute party discipline in the Cambodian context. The MP is occupying the seat on behalf of the party. You can do the math as to who controls the National Assembly.”

On Tuesday, the CNRP posted pictures of Sokha hosting a ceremony in memory of more than 350 people who died in a Water Festival stampede in Phnom Penh in November 2010.