Roiled royalist Bun Chhay leaving the fold
Thu, 4 February 2016 ppp
Vong Sokheng and Jack Davies
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| Nhek Bun Chhay and Prince Norodom Ranariddh are going their separate ways – again. |
Bun Chhay, deputy president of Ranariddh’s Funcinpec party, said yesterday that he is leaving the party to form his own, the Khmer National United Party (KNUP).
The announcement comes 13 months after he pledged to put aside his differences with party president Prince Norodom Ranariddh.
“We found that we cannot work together with the prince. Therefore, we decided to establish a new party in order to avoid internal disputes within Funcinpec,” Bun Chhay told reporters at his home yesterday morning.
He claimed KNUP has representatives in all 25 provinces of Cambodia, although he has yet to submit party registration documents to the Ministry of Interior.
Phouk Kung, president of the Cambodian Institute for Strategic Studies, said the development bodes poorly for the struggling royalists.
“Funcinpec has always been a party of struggles among the top leadership, and this will deal another major blow to the party,” he said. “I don’t think this will be in the interest of any of the leaders.
There’s also deep distrust over things that happened in the past . . . there’s so many problems. In a way, this was to be expected really.”
Kung’s sentiments were echoed by veteran analyst Chea Vannath, who laughed before saying, “Wow, I’m not surprised. Funcinpec had problems since they returned to Cambodia and competed in the elections in 1993. They’ve had ongoing problems.”
Speaking at yesterday’s press conference, Bun Chhay said, “A year after the reconciliation of members of the royalist Funcinpec, I found that the procedure of unity has failed again due to the old matters of nepotism, partisanship and a background of internal disputes.”
Last January, after a nine-year absence in which he launched his eponymous Norodom Ranariddh Party and the short-lived and Community of Royalist People’s Party, Ranariddh returned to Funcinpec. The party he once led as prime minister has not held a single parliamentary seat since the 2013 election.
Bun Chhay, whose relationship with the prince dates back to their time in the 1980s as guerrilla commanders in Funcinpec’s ANKI militant wing, initially appeared to welcome Ranariddh back into the fold, but the veneer of cordiality quickly wore thin.
By February 2015, Bun Chhay was accusing Ranariddh of attempting to “dismantle” the party’s leadership. Tensions between the two continued to escalate throughout the year, each taking shots at the other through the press.
Bun Chhay and Ranariddh’s inability to play nicely is down to each lacking the ability to dominate the other, according to analyst Vannath.
“[Neither] of them have much stronger leadership than the other. It seems like Bun Chhay considers himself an important person in Funcinpec or at least at an equal footing with the prince, not like the CPP with Hun Sen, who has a very strong leadership where everyone just follows him,” she said.
“In Funcinpec . . . it’s more of a competition.”Last weekend, an anonymous letter surfaced on a local news portal lambasting the prince’s leadership of Funcinpec. Bun Chhay denied being its author but admitted opinions expressed in it chimed with his own.
As to what comes next, Vannath thinks it “very possible” Bun Chhay will align his new party with the ruling CPP. “He used to have a kind of good relationship for years working with the CPP,” she said.
Yesterday evening, CPP spokesman Sok Eysan refused to tip the party’s hand. “I dare not comment whether the CPP will keep its alliance with Funcinpec or the new party led by Nhek Bun Chhay. I don’t know which; it depends on the leaders of the CPP.”
Bun Chhay will have his hands full over the coming weeks collecting the 4,000 thumbprints needed to register KNUP with the Interior Ministry. He is confident, though.
“We will not face any obstacle, and we will become good sellers to our clients in the challenging market of eliminating land disputes, eliminating corruption and [protecting] territorial sovereignty as considered in our political platform,” he said at yesterday’s press conference.
Multiple Funcinpec officials including Prince Ranariddh were not reachable.
5 comments:
Seriously form a new political party?. then he should name his new party 'gorilla party',because he looks like one
Why do these old fools think that the Cambodian people wants them to lead the country. Go away! We need more young blood to take the reign. Anyone can steer a ship with calm water, but it takes a real leader to navigate a ship through turmoil water and reach dock safely. The most powerful weapon is not gun, it's your vote at the ballot box. Vote carefully with your conscience not coerce or intimidation. Don't be a sheep. 2018 is around the corner. Time to vote out the old guards. Time to bring in new leadership with fresh ideas and faces. Our country will be better off. Start with increase defense spending (i.e Israel). Israel is a small country with less population than Cambodia. But Israel kicked all the Arab countries who tried to annihilated her. We need to learn from Japan. We can modernize our country and at the same time keep our pride culture. Clean up all money hungry culture such as the Chinese and Vietnamese influence in our country. Embrace Japanese and American cultures. We keep Buddhist as our religion. But adopt a more aggressive border approach.That means, lock up all illegals. Warn any jets and military personnel of countries who violate Cambodian airspace and if they ignore, shoot down (i.e Turkey) shot down a Russian jet fighter.
Continues from the first comment.
And no one will ever take it away from him.
Addition to the 2nd comment. Invest in "EDUCATION." Improve infrastructures. Attract foreign investments with high tech jobs. Labor intensive like garment and Rice farming will not sustain the growth. Once it reach a peak level, it will go down fast. High tech will potentially spur other industries with high paying jobs. When people have good paying jobs, crimes go down and poverty also will decrease. Go into government as servants to serve the country not as privilege elites who suck every Khmer blood. CNRPs needs to campaign with these slogans not just border issues. We need to make these issues bullet points so that voters understand what and why they vote
Mechor nhek bun chhay still play game even his game was over ,his politic game ne one has been support even a baby but he remain show his face off in the public,he should hide off no body want to see him again,he should know himself that he is a Hun sen puppet and Ranarith also a fool prince political in cambodia should stop now before it became get worst .
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