A Survey Shows Hun Sen's CPP Will Win 2008 election

photo: Sam Rainsy(L), Hun Sen (R)

Dear Readers,

According to the article below Hun Sen will comfortably win the 2008 election. But if my arithmetic is correct the CPP is actually losing. According to the poll prediction the CPP will win 61 seats, the Sam Rainsy Party will win 42 seats and the remaining 20 seats will be shared between the other parties. The 61 seats that the CPP wins represent less than 50%. Under the new laws amended by Hun Sen under the deal with Sam Rainsy in early 2006 requires 50% plus 1 to form a government. If the poll prediction is correct and if the other small paties refuse to form a coalition with Hun Sen's CPP then it means he loses the election. On the other hand if the other small parties decides to join Sam Rainsy then Rainsy has enough numbers (42+20=62 seats)to form the government.

Whatever the poll says the CPP will win because its election-cheating machine, the National Election Committee, will make sure that the CPP get the numbers. The only question is who will be the prime minister? Sam Rainsy's bold attempt to introduce a law limiting the prime ministerial term to a one 5-year term could be a deciding factor for the prime ministership. If his ideas get the support of the other CPP's leaders (because they want to be PM too) then Hun Sen could be in trouble.

Also in order to make sure that the opposition win Sam Rainsy should seriously start negotiating with the other parties, particularly the Norodom Ranariddh Party and the Human Right Party, in order to form a united force to go to the election with only one voice so they will not split the opposition votes. If they go to the election separately they will split the votes and therefore minimise the chance of winning more parliamentary seats. This is what I think.

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Cambodia's ruling party victorious in 2008 national election
http://www.chinaview.cn/index.htm 2007-11-08 11:07:20

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PHNOM PENH, Nov. 8 (Xinhua) -- The ruling Cambodian People's Party (CPP) will comfortably win the July 27, 2008 national election, according to the results of survey conducted by an independent political observer, the Institute for Civic Education (ICE), local media said on Thursday.
The preliminary findings of ICE found that based on previous election results, the CPP may obtain 61 parliamentary seats, the Sam Rainsy Party (SRP) 42, with other parties sharing the remaining 20, reported Cambodian-language newspaper the Sralanh Khmer.
However, SRP president Sam Rainsy said the prediction is not necessarily 100 percent accurate.
"For CPP, we have observed that in past commune elections, it has received increasing votes, but in national elections, it received less," said Sam Rainsy, arguing that his party will win in the upcoming election as more and more voters are supporting his party.
Although predicting that CPP may win the forthcoming election, the survey doesn't rule out the decisive factor of the 2.5 million voters absent in the 2007 commune election, reported another Cambodian-language newspaper the Koh Santepheap.
There will surely be great change if they go to vote in the 2008 election, the paper added.
In the 2007 commune election on April 1, CPP won most posts in the communes, while SRP trailed CPP with its quality performance.
CPP has co-governed the kingdom with the Funcinpec Party for more than a decade. SRP has emerged as the largest opposition party in recent years.