Buddhist Liberal Democratic Party

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Buddhist Liberal Democratic Party
Party leader Son Sann
Secretary General Kem Sokha
Deputy Chairman Ieng Mouly
founding May 21, 1992
resolution 1997
Alignment Center-right
Conservatism
Liberal Conservatism
Buddhist Socialism

The Buddhist Liberal Democratic Party ( khm .: គណបក្សប្រជាធិបតេយ្យ សេរីនិយម ព្រះពុទ្ធសាសនា; English Buddhist Liberal Democratic Party , BLDP; French Parti libéral démocratique bouddhiste ) was a Cambodian party that was a minority partner in the government from 1993 to 1998, but was dissolved before the end of the 1997 legislative period after internal disputes.

history

The party was on 21 May 1992 by former Prime Minister Son Sann as a successor to the National Liberation Front of the Khmer ( Khmer People's National Liberation Front , founded KPNLF), a resistance movement against the regime of Democratic Kampuchea of the Khmer Rouge . Another successor party to the KPNLF had previously founded the Liberal Democratic Party , Sak Sutsakhan , the former military commander in chief of the Khmer Republic .

Son Sann chaired the meeting, Ieng Mouly was vice-president and Kem Sokha was the general secretary . The aim when it was founded was to be able to take part in the parliamentary elections of 1993 .

The election result of the BLDP as the third strongest party (3.81% of the vote, 10 of the 120 seats in the new National Assembly ) did not meet the expectations of the party founders by far. The reasons for the poor performance were the fact that many members lived abroad and were therefore unable to participate in the elections, as well as harassment by the administration, which is dominated by the Cambodian People's Party (CPP). However, the election winner, the monarchist FUNCINPEC , could have referred to these as well , which nevertheless won 45.47% of the votes and 58 seats. Rather decisive for the defeat of the party was that many voters identified it with the KPNLF and thus made it jointly responsible for the suffering suffered during the regime of the Khmer Republic. In addition, the party did not succeed sufficiently in differentiating itself from FUNCINPEC, with whom it had formed the non-communist resistance in the People's Republic of Kampuchea for more than ten years . It also lacked the votes of the renegade general Sak Sutsakhan, who won 1.56% of the vote with the Liberal Democratic Party as the fourth strongest party.

Despite its poor performance, the BLDP was accepted into the coalition government with FUNCINPEC and the Cambodian People's Party (CPP). Son Sann even held the position of President of the National Assembly in June 1993 until the constitution was promulgated in October 1993, when he passed the office to his successor, Chea Sim .

In October 1993, the Buddhist Liberal Democratic Party was a founding member of the Council of Asian Liberals and Democrats (CALD).

The party broke up before the end of the 1993–1998 legislative period. During the election campaign for the 1998 parliamentary elections , there were deep differences of opinion between Son Sann and Vice President Ieng Mouly, which even led Son Sann to replace Mouly in the Supreme National Council (SNC) by the UNTAC (Interim Administration of the United Nations in Cambodia) The authority appointed by UNTAC and responsible for the administration of Cambodia until parliament is elected to request another representative of the BLDP. However, UNTAC refused the request. With the suicide of the BLDP parliamentarian Meas Chan Leap, who was torn between his allegiances for both sides, the situation worsened dramatically. Shortly afterwards, a grenade attack on a congress of supporters of Son Sann killed around 30 people. Ieng Mouly had wanted to ban Congress, which wanted to distance itself from the government.

The clashes eventually led to the final split in the party. Ieng Mouly founded the Buddhist Liberal Party and received the legal right to be the only party to use the name Buddhist . Son Sann reacted to this by founding the Son Sann Party and handed it over to his son Son Soubert. Five of the ten parliamentarians of the now dissolved BDLP followed the Buddhist Liberal Party , five from the Son Sann Party . However, the two parties only won 0.9 and 0.7% of the vote in the 1998 parliamentary elections and were subsequently dissolved.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Michael Leifer: Dictionary of the Modern Politics of Southeast Asia. Routledge , London 2014, ISBN 978-1-317-62232-1 ( limited preview in Google Book Search).
  2. ↑ Gen Sutsakhan dies. In: The Phnom Penh Post . May 6, 1994.
  3. ↑ Biographies. Ieng Mouly. Northern Illinois University .
  4. ↑ Kem Sokha Biography. In: The Famous People .
  5. ↑ a b Raoul-Marc Jennar: Chroniques cambodgiennes 1990-1994. Reports au Forum International des ONG au Cambodge (= Recherches asiatiques ). Éditions L'Harmattan, Paris 2000 (1st edition 1995), 526 pages, ISBN 978-2-7384-3659-7 , part III, chap. 27 ( Samdech Pteah Upayuvaraj Norodom Sihanouk ), p. 460.
  6. ↑ Marie-Claude Smouts, Ingolf Diener: ONU et la guerre. La diplomatie en kaki (= Espace international ). Éditions Complexe, Brussels 1994, 159 pp., ISBN 978-2-87027-533-7 , p. 60.
  7. ↑ Jean-Claude Pomonti: Le prince Sihanouk et M. Hun Sen protestent contre la faiblesse de l'Autorité provisoire de l'ONU. In: Le Monde . No. 14912, January 6, 1993.
  8. ^ Liang Fook Lye, Wilhelm Hofmeister: Political Parties, Party Systems and Democratization in East Asia. World Scientific , Singapore 2011, 348 pp., ISBN 978-981-4327-94-7 , chap. Cambodia: A Hegemonic Party System in the Making , p. 85.
  9. ↑ Richard Sola: Le kaléidoscope cambodgien. In: Politique étrangère . Institut français des relations internationales , No. 4, 1985, pp. 885/896.
  10. ↑ Raoul-Marc Jennar: 30 ans depuis Pol Pot. Le Cambodge de 1979 à 2009 (= Points sur l'Asie ). Éditions L'Harmattan, Paris 2010, 330 pp., ISBN 978-2-296-12345-8 , pp. 138/139.
  11. ↑ a b Chhorn Sopheap: Les élections législatives au Cambodge depuis 1993. Lumière University of Lyon II , Faculté de Droit et Science politique, January 12, 2004.
  12. ↑ Amélie de la Musardière: Quatre années au Cambodge (= Témoignages ). Société des Écrivains, August 28, 2014, 520 pp., ISBN 978-2-342-02590-3 , p. 351.
  13. ↑ About us. History. Council of Asian Liberals and Democrats.
  14. ↑ Ros Sokhet, Matthew Grainger: Suicide MP sought party unity. In: The Phnom Penh Post. August 11, §995.
  15. ^ Night of misery for Son Sann loyalists. In: The Phnom Penh Post. October 6, 1995.
  16. ^ Jason Barber: Mouly's history: the disputes that split a party. In: The Phnom Penh Post. September 22, 1995.
  17. ^ Ieng Mouly Party to Reconcile Resistance Roots. In: The Cambodia Daily . April 6, 1998.
  18. ^ Paulin G. Djite: The Language Difference. Language and Development in the Greater Mekong Sub-Region. Multilingual Matters, January 15, 2011, 236 pages, ISBN 978-1-84769-340-2 , page 195.