Sar Kheng recommends power-sharing cooperation, Dr. Hun Xen said no power-sharing: CPP does not know what it talking about?

Deputy Prime Minister Sar Kheng speaks at a meeting Thursday last week. (Photo by: HENG CHIVOAN)

CPP must cooperate in power-sharing: Sar Kheng

Monday, 09 March 2009
Written by Vong Sokheng
The Phnom Penh Post

DEPUTY Prime Minister Sar Kheng has told representatives of the ruling Cambodian People's Party that they must work together with other parties' officials to ensure power is shared across party lines at the local level after May's indirect council elections.

The country's 11,353 commune councillors will vote on May 17 to select the members of newly created district, provincial and municipal levels of government - key planks in the government's decentralisation efforts.

Sar Kheng, who is also minister of the interior and head of the government's decentralisation committee, told provincial governors and police officials that the success of decentralisation would require the participation of all four political parties.

"Mixed composition at the local level will bring new ideas.... Fourteen days after the council elections, the new councillors from the four political parties will take their positions, and therefore we should not make any obstacles for any reason," Sar Kheng said at the gathering at the Interior Ministry onThursday. "A dark corner will remain if there is just one party operating."

The National Election Committee has said four political parties will contest the council elections: the CPP with candidates in all 24 provinces, the main opposition Sam Rainsy Party with candidates in 23, the Norodom Ranariddh Party with candidates in seven, and Funcinpec with candidates in five.

In his speech at the ministry, Prime Minister Hun Sen said the government had last year spent US$57 million on commune council development projects. He said $82 million was earmarked for the reform program in 2009.

"Although we were flooded with work in 2008, we were still able to deliver support to communes and sangkats, and to coordinate the projects of various development partners through the smooth implementation of the decentralisation and deconcentration policy," Hun Sen said.
Ke Sovannroth, the secretary general of the SRP and an MP, said decentralisation had transformed local government across the Kingdom since the first commune elections five years ago, but said political discrimination - particularly against the SRP - remained an obstacle.

She said some CPP activists put their party's political interests ahead of their willingness to cooperate with SRP councillors.

Partisan politics continues to clog commune councils

Boeung Keng Kang III's Commune Council building in Phnom Penh. (Photo by: Heng Chivoan)

Monday, 22 December 2008
Written by Khouth Sophak Chakrya
The Phnom Penh Post

PLAYING POLITICS
Mann Choeun, deputy governor of Phnom Penh, urged commune councilors to abandon partisan politics in the name of development. "If you want to improve your people and your commune, you must stop thinking in a partisan way," he said.

Commune officials have expressed renewed concern that widespread political discrimination is corroding local politics

RAMPANT political discrimination within the Kingdom's commune councils is derailing development and causing corruption, commune officials say.

"The commune chief told me there were not enough seats in the office for me to attend important meetings," said Heng Sochhada, second deputy commune chief of Prek Pra commune in Phnom Penh's Meanchey district, describing how she was excluded from key decision-making meetings due to her being a Sam Rainsy Party member.

According to Heng Sochhada, since she was elected during the first commune elections in 2002, the commune chief, who has been in the position since 2002 and is a member of the ruling Cambodian People's Party, has consistently refused to cooperate with her for no reason she can discern other than partisan politics.

"I was not allowed to attend meetings on the commune development plan, on budgeting for development projects, and if I attended they would cut the meetings off early," she said.

"It is unfair, as I was elected so that I could serve and improve the lives of people living in Prek Pra commune," she said.

Airing grievances

At a conference Wednesday at City Hall to assess the achievements over 2008 of all commune councils within the Phnom Penh municipality, some 700 councilors from 76 communes aired their grievances over the operation of commune councils.

According to Sem Chan, a member of the Boeung Trabek commune council in Phnom Penh's Chamkarmon district, political discrimination is eroding responsibility for local development.

He cited the example of the renovation of Road 123 in his area, when he and his constituents asked the commune chief if they could have an open meeting with the contractor before renovation began.

As the road was to be paid for with 70 percent government funds and with 30 percent provided by residents, locals felt they should be involved in the process, he said. But the commune chief refused to have a public meeting.

"Now, this road that cost more than US$300,000 for 160 metres is completely damaged after the people used it for just four-and-a-half years," said Sem Chan, adding that the lack of oversight caused by partisan politics had allowed corruption into the road renovation process.

Another disgruntled commune council member from Phnom Penh's Stung Meanchey commune said that political discrimination had prevented over 200 known opposition supporters in his commune from having proper identification documents - which then prevented them from voting in the July National Assembly elections.

"The people in my commune told me that the police and commune assistants conspired to demand about $20 from each non-CPP-voting person and if they did not pay they would not get identification documents," said Deouk Chhang.