 |
| Senate President Say Chum speaks at the senate session today in Phnom Penh. Heng Chivoan |
Senate passes controversial legal amendments to sideline Rainsy
Phnom Penh Post | 18 July 2017
The Cambodian Senate, as predicted, passed contentious changes to the Law on Political Parties this morning in a bid to erase self-exiled opposition figure Sam Rainsy from Cambodia’s political scene.
The amendments – which prohibit a party from using the image, voice
or written materials of a convicted criminal – were passed by the
National Assembly last week, and expressly targeted the former Cambodia
National Rescue Party (CNRP) president, who has a slew of convictions to
his name in what observers characterise as politically-motivated
defamation and incitement cases.
Rainsy was forced to resign from his party’s presidency earlier this
year or face its forced dissolution following a previous round of
amendments to the law finalised in March.
Of the 50 ruling Cambodian People’s Party senators, 42 were present
and unanimously supported all of the controversial changes, which were
forwarded to the Senate floor as a matter of “urgency”.
The proposed new changes were aligned with “free multiparty
democracy” and would “strengthen the rule of law”, the Senate maintained
in a press statement.
“This law proposal also refers to the promotion of rights and the
duty of every Khmer citizen … [and] the rights, obligation and
responsibility of every political party to guarantee proper respect
according the constitution and the law,” the statement said.
The Sam Rainsy Party’s 11 senators chose to boycott the Senate vote, said SRP senator Teav Vannol.
“The political amendments are not serving the Cambodian people. That law just targets individuals,” he said.
“We send a strong message when we boycott.”
The amendments were sent back to the National Assembly today and will
be sent to the Constitutional Council tomorrow. They must still be
signed by the King before they are brought into effect.
The YUON's CPP rank and file, doctors, lawyers, business communities big and small and the Cambodian youth will discreetly abandon Hun Sen on this 2018 election for the CNRP [with or without Kem Sokha and Sam Raingsy]. And there is nothing HUN SEN can do about it. They will take HUN SEN's money to discreetly vote for the CNRP... Bravo the Khmer people [without Hun Sen]!!!
ReplyDeleteYup, this is the end of the road for the YUON's troll/propagandist here on T2P and everywhere else as we know it! The Yuon's trolls will end up in Hun Sen's black dossier for sure...
Unknown but verified sources
CNRP is useless. All they can do is: Boycotting. Have CNRP passed any useful law at all? I demand CNRP to pass a law to require the factory's ambient temperature below 32 degree C.
ReplyDeleteCPP passed the law to control the rent (to protect the garment workers). Do something right for a change, CNRP.