CNRP amends bylaws yet again
IN AN effort to stave off further government claims of illegitimate leadership, the opposition CNRP yesterday held its second extraordinary congress of the year, voting to change bylaws that the Ministry of Interior had cited in refusing to recognise its deputy presidents.
Just six weeks ahead of the Kingdom’s commune elections, hundreds of Cambodia National Rescue Party supporters converged to pass a new amendment to their bylaws allowing the party’s central committee to approve one or more deputies at any point after the resignation of a party president.
The clause at the centre of what has been a weeks-long fracas – part of Article 47 of the party’s internal rules – had previously put a time limit of 30 days on the appointment of new deputies.
In what analysts have suggested is an effort to entangle the opposition in red tape, the Ministry of Interior at first refused to recognise the elevation of Kem Sokha to the party’s presidency – as well as the appointments of lawmakers Pol Ham, Mu Sochua and Eng Chhay Eang as deputies – after the resignation of long-standing opposition leader Sam Rainsy in February.
The ministry claimed the selections were illegitimate because they breached the CNRP’s own bylaws, though the relevant bylaws had been amended at the same extraordinary congress that elected the new leaders. The ministr y later accepted CONTINUED
– PAGE 2