A  Brief History of Sam Rainsy party

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A PARTY WITH VISION AND COMMITMENT

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“There is nothing more difficult to carry out, nor more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to handle than to initiate a new order of things. For the reformer has enemies in all those who would profit by the old order, and only lukewarm defenders in all those who would profit by the new order, this lukewarmness arising partly from their adversaries and partly from the incredulity of mankind, who do not truly believe in anything new until they have had actual experience of it.” Niccolo Machiavelli, from ‘The Prince’.

Indeed, obstacles for reformers seem insurmountable; but the Sam Rainsy Party is fully committed to building roads for a peaceful transition towards a liberalised democracy and self-sustainable economic development in Cambodia. To put it simply, it believes Cambodia can no longer afford to uphold the old order with feudalistic traits that favour a select few and has caused so much anguish to Cambodian people for centuries. A regime that has relied on instigating fears on population to administer a country definitely has a used-by date. A regime that continually depends so heavily
on foreign handouts will not be able to secure a sustainable economic development in the long run. Time and again has it been proved in human history the old order can not co-exist with an increasingly clear trend of the new order of liberalised democracy.

With an unwavering determination to offer Cambodian people a better alternative government, a new political party, the Khmer Nation Party (KNP), was formed in early November 1995 under the leadership of Sam Rainsy. Sam Rainsy’s robust stance against corruption and economic mismanagement of the government earned a few friends in Cambodian politics. He was fired from his position as senior Minister for Finance and Economy in October 1994, then
removed from his former party, FUNCINPEC, in May 1995 and unconstitutionally expelled from his seat in the National Assembly a month later. Sam Rainsy was then convinced that only with a new party with clear vision and commitment would Cambodia have any chance of pulling itself from the abyss.

To cultivate a political party that upholds common decency has not been, by any means, easy. In fact, it has been a dangerous route. In addition to unyielding threat and intimidation, four grenades were eventually thrown into a peaceful and authorised demonstration led by Sam Rainsy on Easter Sunday 1997 killing at least 17 demonstrators, and injuring more than one hundred. The demonstrators were demanding a reform of the judiciary to render justice for the people, a creation of the Constitutional Council, and a creation of the Supreme Council of Magistrates as stipulated in the Constitution. The government has either been incompetent or covered up the attacks as the culprits and the mastermind remain unidentified and still at large to this day…read more.