Rainsy ‘escape’ remains divisive
AYEAR ago today, opposition leader Sam Rainsy turned his back on a promise to return to Cambodia and face down a two-year prison sentence for defamation revealed while he was abroad.
Few had believed the former investment banker would make good on the promise, and many of those who did would still have had trouble feigning surprise when he announced the decision to again go into exile mere hours before his flight was scheduled to land.
At least publicly, officials from the Cambodia National Rescue Party – a precarious coalition he established in July 2012 with his onetime rival and now-deputy leader Kem Sokha – for months said they supported his choice to again flee abroad. Then, in October, that suddenly changed.
“If Sam Rainsy came to be with me, it would be better,” Sokha said in a televised interview. His daughter, Kem Monovithya, who is also a party official for the CNRP, even called Rainsy “Peter Pan” due to his perceived childishness in continually running away from arrest threats.
Prince Sisowath Thomico, protected from any punishment by the implicit royal stamp of approval he alone brings the CNRP, last month then threatened to call a party vote on whether Rainsy should stay abroad or return. He was convinced, apparently, that “return” would triumph.
“I don’t pay any attention,” Rainsy said about the open dissent by telephone from CONTINUED
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