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.