Cambodia's royalist party merger plan likely to fail: party officials

Xinhua | 18th June, 2012
By Agencies

The merger plan between the two royalist parties--Funcinpec Party and Norodom Ranariddh Party (NRP) -- ahead of next year's general election is likely to fail because the NRP's core activists have different political stance, Nhiek Bun Chhay, executive president of the Funcinpec, said Monday. 

He revealed that among the NRP's core activists, there are two groups: one sides with the current government and the other has opposition trend. "We, Funcinpec, won't merge with the NRP if they fail to clarify that they are in line with the incumbent CPP government," he told Xinhua over telephone."Funcinpec is the alliance party in the current ruling Cambodian People's Party (CPP), so if the NRP has opposition trend, the CPP-led government will sack us ( Funcinpec). 

The rift between the two parties occurred just three weeks after they signed an agreement on May 24 to merge as the Funcinpec party in order to reunite royalists towards the parliamentary elections in July next year.

Pen Sangha, the NRP's spokesman, agreed that the merger plan was likely to fail, but denied that the party has two groups. "I think that Nhik Bun Chhay wants to walk out of the agreement and his accusation on our party is his pretext to tear up the agreement," he told Xinhua on Monday. "The NRP has only one group led by Prince Norodom Ranariddh." "The party's stance is centrist: neither opposes, nor supports the current government," he said.