- Title: CAMBODIA: ELECTION CAMPAIGNING BEGINS IN FESTIVE MOOD
- Date: 25th June 1998
- Summary: PHNOM PEHN, CAMBODIA (JUNE 25, 1998) (RTV) 1. SLV CAMBODIAN PEOPLE'S PARTY (CPP) SUPPORTERS AT RALLY 0.05 2. SCU RALLY/ CHILDREN, WOMEN, AND SUPPORTERS DANCING WITH TRADITIONS MASKS (2 SHOTS) 0.17 3. SCU CO-PREMIER HUN SEN, HIS WIFE BUN RANY SITTING UNDER CANOPY 0.21 4. MV TRADITIONAL DANCING, HUN SEN WATCHING (3 SHOTS) 0.44 5. SCU
- Embargoed: 10th July 1998 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: PHNOM PHEN/ KOMPONG CHAM, CAMBODIA
- City:
- Country: Cambodia
- Reuters ID: LVAF55VSF1EI7X599NCNCITF8RO
- Story Text: Promises, party flags and crisp new T-shirts were the order of the day on Thursday as the long-awaited campaign for Cambodia's July 26 election opened in festive mood.
Several thousand party faithful turned up at the headquarters of government leader Hun Sen's Cambodian People's Party (CPP) in Phnom Penh on Thursday (June 25) for a colourful celebration complete with Buddhist monks, traditional dancers and doves of peace.
Second Prime Minister Hun Sen, clad like hundreds of others at the gathering in a new CPP T-shirt, attended with his wife, Bun Rany, but did not speak at the rally.
The powerful CPP, the formerly communist party which ruled Cambodia with Vietnam's support through the 1980s, is widely seen as the front-runner in the race for the election which the international community hopes will restore stability in the country.
There were no reports of violence on Thursday.
The CPP's main challengers are deposed co-premier Prince Norodom Ranariddh's FUNCINPEC party and the party of former finance minister, Sam Rainsy, which bears his name.
Hun Sen ousted his co-premier Ranariddh, who won Cambodia's last election in 1993, last July plunging the country into months of turmoil.
But preparations for the election have been dogged by accusations of political violence and unfair tactics on the part of the CPP.
A top U.N.human rights official has slammed the government for failing to investigate the extra-judicial killing by security forces of almost 100 people, most of them opposition supporters, since Hun Sen seized power last July.
Ranariddh and his opposition ally Sam Rainsy have also criticised violence against their party supporters and a host of allegedly unfair tactics by the CPP.
Sam Rainsy was given a hero's welcome by more than 1,000 supporters, many wearing T-shirts bearing his burning candle party symbol, when he turned up at a Phnom Penh stadium to launch his campaign.
Rainsy, in an interview earlier, told Reuters that despite the festivities there was a general fatigue surrounding the Cambodian elections.
He also accused the international community's apathy of letting Cambodia's fledgeling democracy sputter.
"Behind the comestics, they are letting Cambodia down," he said."Democracy in Cambodia die out." Rainsy was referring to the international community endorsement of the July 26th elections he has long called "un-free and un-fair".
But Ranariddh took his challenge to the CPP's heartland, opening his campaign in Kompong Cham province, northeast of Phnom Penh, where Hun Sen was born and his brother Hun Neng is provincial governor.
Although Ranariddh has said he would be prepared to bring the CPP into a "government of national unity", he stressed he would not share the premiership again if he won.
"I want to promise all of you that if FUNCINPEC wins we will not share the power the people give us with the loser like last time," Ranariddh told a large crowd of several thousand cheering supporters.
FUNCINPEC won 58 of the 120 National Assembly seats up for grabs in the last election compared with 51 for the CPP but Ranariddh agreed to form a power-sharing coalition with the former ruling party after Hun Sen objected to the result.
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