CPP Readies for One-Party Vote On Assembly Committees

Senior CPP members selected nominees for the National Assembly’s nine permanent committees behind closed doors on Tuesday, while the opposition CNRP, which has continued to boycott the Assembly over July’s disputed election, urged some of Cambodia’s foreign donors to immediately sever ties with the government of Prime Minister Hun Sen. … The CPP’s 68 lawmakers on September 24 approved an Assembly president, chairs for the Assembly’s nine committees and Mr. Hun Sen’s new Cabinet in a move the opposition called illegitimate and unconstitutional because its own 55 lawmakers were not present in parliament owing to their boycott of the proceedings. Undeterred, those nine committee chairs Tuesday met and selected the remaining committee members. The CPP’s 68 lawmakers will now vote to approve the committees’ membership on Thursday. … Cambodia Express News reported Tuesday that Mr. Yeap repeated an earlier warning from Mr. Hun Sen that the National Election Committee (NEC) could give away the 55 CNRP seats in parliament if they continued their boycott. Mr. Yeap reportedly said the opposition had three months to take their seats or face losing them. “If the CNRP lawmakers don’t come to fulfill their roles at the Na­tional Assembly, the next procedure is that the NEC will distribute all those CNRP seats to the eight political parties that participated in the election based on the formula in the law,” he reportedly said. The law says the NEC can give a party’s seats away if it “declares to abandon” them. … With the CPP pressing on at the Assembly without them, the CNRP has stepped up its efforts to discredit the new government among Cambodia’s international financiers. In a letter dated Monday and sent to the European Union, World Bank, International Monetary Fund and Asian Development Bank, opposition leader Sam Rainsy urges them to freeze all current deals with a government the CNRP is calling “illegal.” …

Hul Reaksmey
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/elections/cpp-readies-for-one-party-vote-on-assembly-committees-44695/