Funcinpec or the Sam Rainsy Party must guarantee that Hun Sen will remain prime minister before talks can begin on the formation of a new National Assembly, CPP spokesman Khieu Kanharith said Wednesday.
Funcinpec and Sam Rainsy Party officials last week said they would postpone the issue, leaving open the possibility of first discussing the chairmanship of the new Assembly.
But, Khieu Kanharith said formation of the Assembly and the government must be negotiated together.
“All this must be in the same package,” he said. The CPP cannot strike a deal on the chairmanship of the Assembly unless it secures a “gentleman’s agreement” from one of the two other parties to quit seeking Hun Sen’s removal, he added.
Under the Constitution, the King will designate a dignitary from the winning party to form the new government. This designation is made on the recommendation of the Assembly president and with the agreement of its vice presidents.
But, Khieu Kanharith said: “From our past experiences, some politicians never keep their word.”
Although the parliamentarians were sworn in to the Assembly earlier this month, they have yet to decide on the legislature’s president and vice presidents.
The CPP won the July 27 general election with 73 seats, nine short of the number it needs to form a government alone.
Meanwhile, Funcinpec and the Sam Rainsy Party officials are refusing to join a coalition government unless Hun Sen steps down. They also say they are adamant on pushing for his removal.
“We can put up many economic and social arguments for why Hun Sen should not be allowed to be prime minister. Now it’s Hun Sen’s turn to justify” why he should stay, Sam Rainsy Party spokesman Ung Bun-Ang said earlier this week.
Ung Bun-Ang pointed to Cambodia’s high illiteracy and child mortality rates as indicators that the country needed a new leader.
“Cambodia is one of the worst countries, one of the poorest countries, in the world. That’s why we’re so adamant that we need a new prime minister,” he said.
But Khieu Kanharith said Wednesday that the prime minister won’t be changed soon.
“Hun Sen is this way. If you push him to go right, he will go left,” he said.
The other parties have no grounds to call for Hun Sen’s removal because his candidacy for prime minister was decided long before the election, Khieu Kanharith said.
He added: “If he is a bad man, it would ensure [the other parties’] victory in 2008.”
The CPP will not budge on its support for Hun Sen’s continued premiership, Khieu Kanharith said. “He’s the one who conducted us to victory. He’s the one who mobilizes our members.
Khieu Kanharith declined to speculate on how long Hun Sen will continue as head of the government. But, he said, “for many times, I think he wanted to resign” in the past.
On Tuesday, Hun Sen suggested that Funcinpec and the Sam Rainsy Party collaborate with the CPP to change the Constitution, allowing a new government to be formed by a simple majority vote in the Assembly. That amendment would leave both Funcinpec and the Sam Rainsy Party to act as opposition parties.
But opposition leader Sam Rainsy rejected that idea.
“We cannot change the Constitution arbitrarily,” Sam Rainsy told reporters Wednesday morning at his party headquarters in Phnom Penh.
“We have to find a hat to fit our head, not cut the head to fit the hat.”
Meanwhile, Khieu Kanharith said the CPP preferred to work in a two-party coalition instead of leading a minority government.
“A two-party government is best. You have less enemies,” he said. The CPP is happy with its current coalition agreement with Funcinpec, he added.
“We work well with Funcinpec,” he said, adding that conflict between CPP and the royalists were merely “conflicts of personality rather than on political lines.”
