I N the wake of the reshuffle party leaders have warned maverick MPs they face expulsion from the National Assembly, one of the threatened lawmakers has claimed.

In a letter obtained by the Post the MP said: "A number of Members of Parliament have recently been threatened by their party leaders with dismissal from their respective parties and, once dismissed from their parties, with automatic expulsion from the National Assembly.

"These kinds of threats are made with the intention of making the members... listen to and follow the orders of their party leaders, making them vote merely as they are told to, forbidding them from raising questions or objections in NA meetings."

The MP who declined to be named also said in the letter that the move was undermining the country's fledgling democracy.

"By acting in this matter, the... leaders wish to turn the National Assembly, which was born out of the May 1993 elections, into a puppet assembly, simply rubber-stamping all decisions of the Party leaders.

"Due to this kind of pressure... the present political system of Cambodia cannot truly be called a liberal democracy.

"In fact, it is a Party-ocracy in which just two Party leaders dictate whichever meandering course they so wish."