CNRP deputy leader Kem Sokha on Saturday told supporters that the government had failed in its efforts at national reconciliation after the country’s civil war, rhetoric dismissed by the CPP as a cynical bid to secure a pardon for his six-month prison sentence.

Speaking at an event to mark four years since the death of King Norodom Sihanouk, who led the efforts to end the civil war in October 1991, Sokha on Saturday told supporters at the CNRP’s headquarters that the CPP had not lived up to the King Father’s example.

“We really want for his spirit to possess all the Cambodian politicians,” Sokha said. “At the moment, Cambodians are not unified but are fragmenting, killing each other and abusing one another.”

In a message on the CPP’s website, spokesman Sok Eysan said it was in fact the CNRP dividing the nation. “He is the one who does not unify the nation. If he wants to unify, he would obey the rules,” Eysan said. “He has problems with the law, and he asks for a pardon [in the name of] ‘national unification’.

“National unification does not rest upon impunity, but the rule of law.”