Cambodia opposition MPs brace for dissolution
PHNOM PENH: Dozens of their fel the prime minister has warned they face “hell”, but a handful of Cambodian opposition politicians ruling almost certain to dissolve their party for good.
Among the holdouts is Lim Kimya, 65, who continues to show up to work for the painstaking task of debating the government’s 2018 budget.
But his routine belies the perilous state of his Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP), which strongman premier Hun Sen has promised will be disbanded by the Supreme Court on Thursday.
Hun Sen, who has dominated Cambodia for more than three decades, has tightened his grip on the country after recent CNRP electoral gains shook his authority.
The court ruling could carry a Kimya and more than 100 other CNRP politicians and staff—a fatal blow to a popular movement that has campaigned tirelessly to break Hun Sen’s 32-year hold on power.
With dual French-Cambodian citizenship, Lim Kimya could have easily joined the three dozen MPs who have fled abroad after the party’s president was detained on treason charges in September. Yet Lim Kimya refuses to quit. “I will never give up politics,” he told Agence France-Presse from the CNRP’s headquarters in Phnom Penh, where just 20 other MPs and a skeletal staff remain.
Most MPs are keeping a low a country with a grim history of political violence.
When Lim Kimya and other MPs protested outside the remote border prison where their leader Kem Sokha has been held since his arrest, guards told them: “We’ll break your head,” the MP recounted.
Death knell for democracy?
last month by the government, has been blasted by rights groups as - nate his rivals ahead of 2018 polls.
The case accuses the party of conspiring with foreign forces to stage a revolution.
Like many Cambodians, Lim Kimya doesn’t have any illusions about how judges will rule in a - ence seeps through all layers of government. Last week the premier bluntly told CNRP politicians to defect to his party, an offer only one MP has taken.
“We give you a ladder... If you do not climb on it, you will go to hell,” Hun Sen told a crowd in the capital.
While past moves to tighten control have been alternated with spells of relative freedom— a tactic that kept western aid taps CNRP shows no sign of abating.