The newly formed Hang Dara Movement Democracy Party expects to win parliamentary seats now held by Funcinpec lawmakers in next year’s national elections, the president of the party said Sunday.
Hang Dara, who says he is a former member of Funcinpec, was selected president at the party’s first congress on Sunday. More than 1,000 party supporters attended the meeting in Phnom Penh.
Members also selected a secretary-general and six deputy secretaries-general and approved party statutes and a strategy plan for the scheduled July 2003 elections.
Hang Dara announced in May that he would form the new party. At the time, he said he was “not happy” with Funcinpec President Norodom Ranariddh and said he expected his party to win at least 20 seats next year. Hang Dara has also claimed to have more than 200,000 followers nationwide.
The announcement came within weeks of Prince Norodom Chakrapong’s decision to form his own royalist party. Funcinpec officials have said on several occasions since then that they have never heard of Hang Dara.
On Sunday, Hang Dara said he joined Funcinpec in the 1980s, working inside Cambodia to recruit members to the resistance movement sponsored by then-Prince Norodom Sihanouk that was fighting Vietnamese and communist forces along the border.
“I met Prince Ranariddh in 1983 in Bangkok, and he signed a letter to let me lead a movement inside the country,” Hang Dara said.
He was arrested for his activities and sent to prison by the Hun Sen-led government in 1988, he said. He was released in 1992, ahead of the 1993 Untac-sponsored elections that Funcinpec won, but did not receive a position in the government, he said.
Hang Dara said Funcinpec officials “dare not say they know me” because they are afraid of losing political influence inside the current CPP-led government coalition.
“I also do not know them,” he said. “I do not want to know them.”
Hang Dara said he was pleased with the turnout at Sunday’s congress, which he said shows that his followers are determined to succeed in the 2003 elections.
Another party meeting will be held in about two months, Hang Dara said.
Hang Samrith, a newly elected deputy secretary-general, said the party has no plans to ally itself with another political party after the elections.
