Cambodia Opposition Party To Demand Re-Election

The Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) will push for a re-election if Prime Minister Hun Sen’s government continues to refuse calls for an independent probe into widespread irregularities in the July polls, the opposition party’s deputy president, Kem Sokha, said Tuesday. He warned that the party, which has boycotted parliament over the disputed polls, would demand new elections during mass protests beginning Dec. 15 to put pressure on the government to conduct a port-mortem of the July 28 vote. “We want to send the message to the government and the National Election Committee [the government-appointed election body] that we are demanding the truth, and if they don’t give us the truth, we will demand a re-election,” Kem Sokha told RFA’s Khmer Service. Following a mass demonstration on Dec. 15, the party will hold regular demonstrations every Sunday until its demand is met, he said. He said the party was hoping to see 300,000 people—or a tenth of the 3 million people the CNRP says voted for it in the polls—turn out for the demonstration. … CNRP lawmakers have refused to join parliament unless their call for an investigation into the polls are met, leaving the party in a political deadlock with Hun Sen’s Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) which had been declared polls winner by the National Election Committee. Talks between the two parties have stalled after a meeting earlier this month yielded little progress. …

 Radio Free Asia
http://www.rfa.org/english/news/cambodia/cnrp-11262013192513.html