CPP leader Hun Sen warns of political crisis

CPP leader Hun Sen warns of political crisis

PHNOM PENH (AP): Cambodian leader Hun Sen warned yesterday of a new political crisis if opposition parties protesting alleged election fraud followed through on threats to block the formation of a new government.

"If the two parties boycott, this will cause a crisis... because the old National Assembly will be dissolved," Hun Sen said in an interview with Radio Australia's Khmer-language service. "If that really happens, the situation will look very bad. There will be a constitutional crisis."

Hun Sen made his comments one day after official results were announced for the July 26 parliamentary election. He warned that his Cambodian People's Party (CPP) might try to govern alone if no opposition parties joined him in a coalition government.

He said he might try to convene a session of the outgoing National Assembly to amend the constitution so that just 50 percent plus one member of parliament would be needed to be confirm a new government, rather than the two-thirds majority now necessary.

Pending recounts of some votes, his CPP appeared to have won a slight majority in the 122-seat National Assembly, but nowhere near the two-thirds majority needed to form a government or pass new laws.

Opposition parties, meanwhile, stepped up their attacks on the legitimacy of the electoral process, denouncing the formula the National Election Committee will use to allocate parliamentary seats.

Prince Norodom Ranariddh, leader of the opposition FUNCINPEC party, and his ally Sam Rainsy issued a statement yesterday describing as "illegal" a little-noticed change sometime before the election in the allocation formula.

The change favors the party winning the most votes in any particular province. In practice, it worked to the advantage of the ruling party, because under the original formula it would have won 59 seats, less than a majority.

Under the new formula, the CPP is slated to take 64 parliamentary seats, FUNCINPEC 43 and the Sam Rainsy Party 15. Seats are awarded on a province-by-province basis.

The election committee has insisted the formula change was legal and aboveboard, but so far has been unable to provide the reasons for doing it or explain why the National Assembly was left out of the process.

The CPP said yesterday that its victory at the polls was a victory for the nation and for pluralistic democracy, and called on the opposition to join in the new government.

"This victory is not a victory exclusively for the CPP but is also of the entire nation which is on its path of liberal democracy," the party said, promising to work hard to build up the economy and social development.

A coalition with other parties that won seats in the elections is the "best way to guarantee national stability and to build trust among the Cambodian people toward the government," it said in a statement broadcast on a television station it controls.

However, Hun Sen said in his interview, which was rebroadcast on Cambodian radio, that it might be better not to have the Sam Rainsy Party in government, so it could provide a strong parliamentary opposition.

The election came one year after Hun Sen ousted Ranariddh as his co-prime minister in a violent coup, shattering a tense dual premiership formed after United Nations-sponsored polls in 1993.

Hun Sen hoped that new election would restore his legitimacy in the eyes of the international community and foreign aid lost after his takeover.