US voters on Tuesday pushed Senator John Kerry to the forefront of the Democratic Party’s contest to challenge President George W Bush in the November election, giving a politician with a significant interest in Cambodia a shot at the White House.
Kerry visited Cambodia several times in 2000 to help break deadlocks in negotiations between the government and the UN and to push for a Khmer Rouge tribunal.
“I remember him,” Chea Sorn, the CPP’s chief of the Senate Cabinet, said Wednesday.
Kerry “has paid attention to Cambodia. If he were elected to be US president, he will continue to pay attention to the us,” Chea Sorn said.
The Cabinet chief said that, in general, most US senators have monitored Cambodia and have been supportive of the government here. “However, it is difficult to make an assessment of someone,” he added.
That was the sentiment of most politicians asked their opinion on a possible Kerry presidency.
“I don’t want to touch US politics,” said Om Yentieng, adviser to Prime Minister Hun Sen. “If I say good for one side, another side might not be happy.”
Kol Pheng, adviser to Funcinpec President Prince Norodom Ranariddh, said he recalled sitting in on a meeting between the US senator and the prince, but he also withheld comment.
Sam Rainsy Party parliamentarian Son Chhay, however, said a Kerry presidency could be problematic for his party’s Alliance of Democrats. “When we hear John Kerry is likely to be the [Democratic] candidate…it worries us a lot,” he said. “As you know, Kerry has been close to the Hun Sen administration in the past.”
Son Chhay said that the Alliance has enjoyed strong support from Republicans in the Bush administration. “The Democrats’ policy is more soft on the former communists,” he said, referring to Prime Minister Hun Sen’s CPP.
He described the Democratic Party’s tactics as “more diplomacy than pressure.”
Son Chhay said the Alliance would have to work harder to appeal to leaders of the Democratic Party in the US.
