The royalist parties are dead, long life the royalist party?!?!

Nhiek Bun Chhay (L) from Funcinpec and You Hockry (R) from the Nationalist Party (Photo: Sovannara, RFI)

Royalist parties have a hard time getting out of destruction

03 April 2010
By Pen Bona Radio France Internationale
Translated from Khmer by Komping Puoy
Click here to read the article in Khmer

Following a destroying disunity that almost wiped out the royalist party from the Cambodian political scene, the Funcinpec and the Nationalist parties, the remainders of the royalist disunity, are trying to reach out to one another to try to save the royalists’ popularity. Like the SRP and the HRP, experience from disunity shows that the result is defeat. However, trying to unite with each other is not an easy task.

As water is entering their noses, the bitterly fighting former brothers, the Funcinpec and the Nationalist parties, are reaching out to one another in order to try to save the situation.

The two parties, whose leaders came from the same womb, did learn their lessons from this disunity. This disunity led the royalist party to be kicked out from leadership and turned it into a minor party that tries to hang tight to the tail of the ruling CPP party. This bitter lesson awoke the two parties and they now shout out that only unity could save their dire situation.

In reality, the “unity” rally cry among the smaller political parties which hold insignificant number of seats in the National Assembly is not something new. This word was repeated over and over again in the past two decades and people are now used to it. In particular, after each election, the results show that disunity simply means loss. In the case of Funcinpec, it used to be a leading party (with 58 seats at the National Assembly in 1993), but now it only holds 2 seats. This case should serve as political lesson for Cambodia.

This situation led the Funcinpec and the Nationalist party leaders – both of whom came from the same womb – to awake from their dream, and they now see that unity is their only last chance to try to revive their popularity once again. However, the word “unity” – a very important concept – is easy to claim but not easy to put to work.

It is not just the royalist parties that are facing difficulties, the opposition parties at the National Assembly – the Sam Rainsy Party and the Human Rights Party – also face similar situation. Who should unite with whom? Who should accommodate the other, when each party claims that it is the strongest? This problem arises because of the unlimited boasting by Cambodian politicians.

Case in point: the two royalist parties, even though each one of them hold only 2 seats at the National Assembly, each party still claims that it is the strongest one and wants the other party to submit to it. The same situation can also be seen in the SRP and HRP attempt to unite, but it always met with defeat up until now.

In conclusion, the unity among non ruling minor parties (in general), and the unity of the Nationalist Party and the Funcinpec party (in particular) still is valuable for the political balance of Cambodia, i.e. unity is not over yet, albeit late. Even though it is hard to believe that the royalist parties will ever regain their 1993-level popularity, at least the unity among the two parties could be a positive rather than a negative issue.

Furthermore, leaders from both parties should understand that Cambodia is a constitutional monarchy, therefore, the dropping to the bottom of the “royalist” parties’ popularity is not something to be considered normal. Therefore, the awakening and the attempt to get out of destruction through unity is the only choice left for the “royalists,” otherwise, history would blame them as the killers of the royalist parties.