Dear Editor

Presently, Cambodia is a police state just as were Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Bulgaria etc. ... during their occupation by the Red Army of the Soviet Union.

In the same way as the police state of Central Europe, the Cambodian People's Party (CPP) has absolute control of all aspects of Cambodian life: the police; the army; administration; education; healthcare; the economy; land; real estate; natural resources; and the National Election Committee (NEC), without transparency and true representative oversight.

As in Central Europe then, as in Cambodia now, the elections were a sham.

The solution is the integral implementation of the Paris Peace Agreement of October 23, 1991. 

To reach the full implementation of the 1991 Paris Peace Agreement, we urge the opposition parties to stick to the following strategy: The two main opposition parties, the Sam Rainsy Party (SRP) and Human Rights Party (HRP) must, as they have already done, reject the results of the July 27, 2008, election and continue to do so.

This means that SRP and HRP must agree that they were awarded respectively 26 and three "elected members", but they must claim that they should have obtained more than 29 seats. 

Therefore, they are contesting the validity of the mandate of the CPP's 90 elected members to the Parliament. The parties are not rejecting their own 29 "elected members" to Parliament.

Hence Article 118 E. of the Electoral Laws does not apply to these 29 "elected members". Therefore, the NEC cannot rip off the mandate of these 29 "elected members" of SRP and HRP to distribute these 29 seats to other parties, as Hun Sen declares.

The first line of Article 76 of the Constitution of the Kingdom of Cambodia stipulates that the National Assembly consists of at least of 120 members.

Hence, Article 76 will block the Fourth National Assembly from being fully constituted (born) if any four of the "elected members" refuse to participate to the first session of the Fourth National Assembly.

So, it needs only the non-participation to the first session of the Fourth National Assembly of any four "elected members" of SRP and HRP to block the Fourth National Assembly from being fully constituted.

Therefore, by blocking the Fourth Assembly from being fully constituted, the King, if he has the courage to do so, can ask for new elections to be organised and supervised by the United Nations, which is the only way to bring about the full implementation of the 1991 Paris Peace Agreement.

This is the only way to cut the Gordian knot and dismantle the police state that has ruled Cambodia since the signature of the 1991 Paris Peace Agreement.

Serey Ratha Sourn

Cambodian Action Committee for Justice and Equity