Cambodia's opposition Sam Rainsy Party (SRP) said yesterday it would boycott the opening of parliament due later this month, complaining that it had been denied a vote recount in two closely contested provinces.
Official results in July's general election have handed victory to the ruling Cambodian People's Party (CPP) of Prime Minister Hun Sen, a former Khmer Rouge soldier who has been in charge for nearly 20 years.
However, the SRP said it had been poorly served by the war-scarred southeast Asian kingdom's National Election Commission (NEC) and by a complaints procedure which did not give them the recount they had wanted.
International observers gave a qualified thumbs-up to the elections, Cambodia's third since a 1991 peace deal to end decades of civil war, although the UShas criticized the NEC for failing "to establish a credible process to resolve election complaints".
"Either you allow yourself to be walked all over by the CPP, or you have to stand up and take a position," said SRP spokesman Ung Bun-Ang.
King Norodom Sihanouk, a revered figure of national reconciliation who defused a post-election stalemate in 1998, said he would be unable to open parliament -- due to happen within 60 days of the July 27 poll -- if the SRP did not turn up.
"If one or two elected parties out of the three political parties from the elections do not go to the National Assembly, I will not go to open the third parliamentary session," Sihanouk said in a statement.
Cambodia's hastily written 1993 constitution makes no mention of elected parties having to attend the opening of parliament, saying only that 70 percent of parliamentarians -- 87 in its present form -- are required for a quorum.
Diplomats speculated that Sihanouk was trying to encourage former finance minister Sam Rainsy to attend parliament in the interests of national reconciliation.
Hun Sen was the clear winner in the polls, winning 73 seats in the 123-member National Assembly. However, he is nine short of the two-thirds majority needed to run the country on his own.
RSS