Returning to parliament this week from a six-month long boycott, Sam Rainsy Party officials said they were troubled by a new assembly rule that requires lawmakers to form groups of 13 in order to take the assembly floor for debate.
The new internal rule, which was passed while the Sam Rainsy Party was boycotting parliamentary sessions, is a disadvantage to the opposition party because they have 24 members in the assembly—just enough to form one group but stranding their remaining 11 lawmakers in silence.
Meanwhile Funcinpec, with 26 lawmakers, can form two groups comfortably. The CPP, with 73 lawmakers, can form five groups with only eight remaining.
“Why choose 13? It is because Funcinpec has 26 seats, isn’t it?” opposition lawmaker Son Chhay asked the Assembly on Wednesday.
“The National Assembly is strong when the opposition’s voice is respected. Don’t see the opposition as an enemy but as a partner,” he implored his fellow parliamentarians.
Keo Remy, another opposition lawmaker, told reporters after the session that the 13-in-a-group “rule eliminates the voices of Sam Rainsy Party’s lawmakers.”
Funcinpec parliamentarian Monh Saphan, a member of the Assembly’s permanent commission, said that the rule was adopted by a two-thirds majority and that the opposition party must respect the majority’s voice.
“Lawmakers have the right to request amendment to the rule but it depends on agreement from the majority,” he said.
Monh Saphan acknowledged that the groupless lawmakers from one party would be unlikely to join with another party to create a special group because “each party has separate political goals.”
Koul Panha, director of the Committee for Free and Fair Elections, said the assembly rule has the political goal of “cutting the freedom of opposition lawmakers.”
“It is not a fair division,” he said.
