Kem Sokha to resume politics – good candidate, good idea, but not a good time

Kem Sokha to resign from CCHR presidency to resume politics

Cambodian Press Review

Kem Sokha, president of prominent NGO the Cambodian Center for Human Rights (CCHR) and former senator of co-ruling Funcinpec, has unveiled a plan to retire from the center and resume political life, newspapers reported yesterday and today.

“I submitted a resignation from the center to the CCHR’s Governance Council, but the Governance Council has yet to make a decision because it has not found someone to substitute me,” Kampuchea Thmey quoted him as saying Friday.

He said that he expects the council to officially accept his resignation in April, during which he will send the Ministry of Interior an application form requesting it sanction the establishment of a political party to join the 2008 national election as he has won over hundreds of thousands of people throughout the country, according the newspaper. However, The Cambodia Daily reports Kem Sokha will leave his CCHR office as of May 1.

“The idea [to form the political party] is from the people….The people want me, need me,” he said, writes The Cambodia Daily. “In Cambodia we have many political parties…(and) every party says they’re democratic. I want to establish the model of democratic political party,” where total control does not only go to its leader,” he added.

The party’s president will be allowed to remain in office for only two terms, he said, adding that his friends living overseas will back the party and that he has not received financial support from any countries for its creation, according to Kampuchea Thmey. Kem Sokha said that he and supporters have yet to name the planned party, noted Samleng Yuvechun Khmer.

According to an unnamed source, the party will be called “Khmer Freedom” with a logo bearing the picture of white dove in flight with a black background, reports Rasmey Angkor. The source added that those who will join the party are mostly former members of the defunct Khmer National Liberation Front Party (KNLFP) and others will come from officials from the Sam Rainsy Party.

Heng Samrin, chairman of the National Assembly and honorary president of the ruling CPP, told The Cambodia Daily that Kem Sokha’s announcement failed to surprise him. “If there are people that he can convince, let him convince them….There are only a few people who work with him,” said Heng Samrin.