baddeng village, Kompong Speu province – Ted Ngoy, president of the Free Development Republican Party, said he is “very optimistic” that he can capture two seats in Kompong Speu province.
“This province has been poor for centuries and centuries, and no one has cared for [the people here],” Ngoy said Wednesday while on the campaign trail at Wat Sokharan in Odong district, roughly 40 km north of Phnom Penh.
He calculates he needs about 30,000 votes out the approximately 200,000 eligible voters in the province to take at least one seat. The province holds six seats at the National Assembly.
Ngoy has been traveling almost daily from Phnom Penh to the province since December and has spent about $70,000 campaigning there, he said, adding that he has spent an additional $80,000 in Phnom Penh.
With an American and a Chinese associate in tow to help him on the stump, Ngoy brought his message of development through American investment to about 300 listeners at the wat.
Ngoy’s plan is to create an industrial development zone along Route 4 in the province.
“The best man to bring this American, Western development to Cambodia is Ted Ngoy,” Chuck Grider, an engineer during the Untac era, told an audience of mostly women and children.
Ngoy passed around pictures of his meeting Monday in Siem Reap town at the Royal Villa with King Norodom Sihanouk.
The Cambodian-American party leader told the audience the monarch had agreed with his ideas for improving Cambodia’s flat economy.
“I’m interested in him if he means what he says,” 50-year-old Kun Rin said during the speech-making, adding that she hadn’t committed herself to any candidate yet.
