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Cambodia opposition chief demands local polls soon

PHNOM PENH: Cambodian opposition leader Sam Rainsy opened a two-day party congress on Saturday with a demand that long-delayed local elections be held this year.

"The commune elections must be held this year. We're pushing for them to be held this year," Sam Rainsy said in a speech to some 2,000 party members at his Phnom Penh headquarters.

"Commune elections are very important because they will help push the roots of democracy deep down in the countryside."

Elections in Cambodia's more than 1,000 communes should have been held during the term of the previous government, before a 1998 general election, but were delayed largely due to hostility between the previous coalition's two main partners.

Political analysts say the polls will be a key test for Prime Minister Hun Sen's ruling Cambodian People's Party which has been in charge of most communes for years.

The former finance minister and fiery government critic also slammed corruption which he said was causing widespread poverty and the destruction of natural resources.

He repeated calls for former leaders of the Khmer Rouge regime to be tried by a UN-organised tribunal, not a Cambodian-dominated court as the government is insisting.

Sam Rainsy, whose party controls 15 of the 122 seats in parliament, also said one of his party activists, Chim Choun, had been shot dead in Kompong Cham province.

The man's seven-year-old daughter was also killed in the shooting which Sam Rainsy said he believed was a political attack. -Reuters