Mu Sochua: 'We will do everything possible to compete in 2018. But we really don’t know what’s going to happen' © AFP

Cambodia opposition fights back against Hun Sen attacks

Official who once fought to deport paedophile Gary Glitter now battles to stop her party’s destruction

The Financial Times | 18 July 2017

[excerpts]

Vannarith Chheang, a visiting fellow at Singapore’s Iseas-Yusof Ishak Institute think-tank, said the political outlook looked increasingly bleak in a country that suffered genocide in the 1970s and is now a cheap manufacturing hub for global brands. “Cambodia will face political turmoil and instability if the opposition party is dissolved because of the violation of the [new] law,” he said. 

The main target of the new political party law is widely seen as Sam Rainsy, the former finance minister and long-time opposition totem now in self-exile because of a criminal defamation conviction his supporters say is trumped up. Ms Mu Sochua brandished her iPad to show how her party would be forced to undertake a cleansing of recordings and images of Mr Sam Rainsy — including posts on her own Facebook page.