King Norodom Sihanouk has rejected a proposal not to hold elections for a new Senate next year, saying he would refuse to appoint senators who had not been democratically elected.
“I will not accept this privilege,” the King wrote in handwritten comments on an article about the proposal in Friday’s Cambodge Soir.
“The Senate must ‘come’ from the sovereign People,” King Sihanouk wrote. “The Senators must be elected by the People.”
National Assembly President Prince Norodom Ranariddh on Thursday said he supported a CPP proposal to call off the constitutionally mandated 2004 elections and have the King appoint members of the 61-person body instead.
“We are financially unable to hold the election,” the prince said at his birthday party at Funcinpec headquarters. “Funcinpec has agreed because [the election] would cost a lot of money.”
The prince did not specify whether, under the plan, all existing senators would be appointed to a second term, or whether senators would be appointed in proportion to the results of July’s National Assembly elections.
The current Senate members were appointed in 1998 based on the results of that year’s national elections.
The opposition Sam Rainsy Party on Sunday came out in favor of the King’s statement. “Financial constraints are not a reason to scrap senatorial elections,” the party’s members of parliament said in a joint statement.
“Being above politics and the guarantor of Cambodian citizens’ rights and freedoms, the King is right not to associate himself with this anti-democratic plot.”
Government spokesman Khieu Kanharith on Sunday said no decisions had been made and calling off the 2004 elections would only be done as an emergency measure.
“Up to now, this is just what we are thinking about,” he said. “It depends on how much money we get for the general elections.” So far, donor pledges to the July polls have fallen far short of what the government says it needs.
“Of course it is better to have elections. If you just appoint everyone, that is a kind of cronyism,” Khieu Kanharith said. “But what is most important is the National Assembly. The Senate is more like an advisory group.”
Given that the international economic situation is uncertain, especially with the looming possibility of a US war in Iraq, it would be difficult for the government to come up with enough money for two elections in a row, he said.
Funcinpec spokesman Kol Pheng, secretary-general of the Assembly, said Sunday that Prince Ranariddh’s earlier statement was “only a suggestion.”
“There is some general suggestion from members of different parties that we are holding an election in 2003, so next year holding another election for the Senate would cost too much,” Kol Pheng said Sunday.
On Thursday, the prince also said he had consulted with Senate President Chea Sim and the UN Development Program about the prospect of canceling the elections.
UNDP spokeswoman Sue Spencer said “consulted” might be too strong a word.
“My understanding is it came up in a conversation Ranariddh had with a UNDP adviser,” Spencer said Sunday. “But the UNDP’s position is that whether to hold elections or not is up to the Cambodian government.”
