Opposition leader Sam Rainsy arrived in Phnom Penh Thursday morning after an almost two months-long stay in France, a return that coincided with the CPP dropping a demand that has been a key stumbling block in negotiations to form a new government.
Upon his arrival, Sam Rainsy said he was optimistic about the CPP and Funcinpec’s declaration Wednesday of renewed cooperation to resolve the nearly 10-month-long political deadlock.
“We are hopeful that the talks in Phnom Penh will make progress and produce good results for His Majesty the King,” Sam Rainsy said.
Funcinpec Secretary-General Prince Norodom Sirivudh was also in France this past week and returned on the same flight Thursday morning. He did not speak to reporters.
Sam Rainsy, however, told reporters that he had received information in Europe that the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund had decided to withhold aid to Cambodia if the new government is not formed by September.
Previous claims by Sam Rainsy that the European Union would suspend assistance to Cambodia were dismissed by EU diplomats earlier this year.
On Thursday, CPP spokesman Khieu Kanharith said his party had scrapped its demand for a simultaneous National Assembly vote on the Assembly’s new leadership and new government positions.
The simultaneous vote had been vehemently rejected by Funcinpec and the Sam Rainsy Party.
The CPP will now agree to hold an Assembly vote to determine the heads of the new parliament before it determines the positions of particular individuals in the new government, Khieu Kanharith said.
Under the Constitution, the top officials of both institutions must be approved by a two-thirds majority vote in parliament.
Following previous elections, the parliament has customarily been established first, before the creation of a new government. But this time around, the CPP has insisted on a simultaneous vote to ensure that if its lawmakers were to vote in a Funcinpec member as National Assembly leaders, their royalist counterparts would in turn approve of Prime Minister Hun Sen’s continuing as premier.
The CPP’s move to withdraw this demand could pave the way for the parties to first install a functioning Assembly, leaving the contentious matter of government power-sharing for further discussion.
A number of bills and agreements, including Cambodia’s membership in the World Trade Organization and plans for a UN-backed Khmer Rouge tribunal, are still waiting ratification by the Assembly.
Khieu Kanharith declined to elaborate on the reasons behind the CPP’s latest change of heart, saying only that the party wanted to see a quick end to the deadlock.
Earlier this week, King Sihanouk summoned the three parties to an urgent meeting this month at his temporary residence in North Korea in a bid to resolve the political deadlock.
While the three parties agreed to attend the meeting, Funcinpec and the CPP appealed for more time to try to work matters out for themselves. Since the King’s invitation, Funcinpec and the CPP have made numerous, almost instant, retreats from earlier demands that had created tense disputes between the two parties.
In a public letter Thursday, King Sihanouk lamented that “because we don’t have a National Assembly, Cambodia has transformed from a liberal multi-party democracy into a dictatorship.”
Funcinpec and the CPP are scheduled to resume negotiations today over the formation of a new government. Funcinpec ministers are also expected this morning to attend their first Council of Ministers meeting since they boycotted the sessions shortly after the July 2003 election.
(Additional reporting by Wency Leung)
