Cambodia: demonstrators urge legislature leader to resign

Cambodia's National Assembly’s First Vice President Kem Sokha surrounded by reporters. (Source: AFP)

Thousands of Cambodians gathered in front of the National Assembly (NA) on October 26 to call on the NA’s First Vice President Kem Sokha to resign.

The protesters lodged a complaint to NA President Heng Samrin, accusing Kem Sokha of fraud, incitement, provoking division and hostility and requesting members of parliament to vote to depose Kem Sokha.

The complaint emphasised that ‘with such behaviours, Kem Sokha does not deserve to hold a leadership position at the country’s leading agency’.

In the meantime, another group of 300 protesters congregated outside Kem Sokha’s house in the suburbs of Phnom Penh to require him to resign.

Kem Sokha, also the Vice President of the Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP), became the First President of the NA of Cambodia after Prime Minister Hun Sen’s ruling Cambodian People Party (CPP) and the CNRP reached a political agreement on July 22, 2014.

Under the agreement, the CNRP would end its 10-month NA boycott following a controversial election in 2013 in return for a bigger share of power in the NA and the reform of election.

In the 2013 election, the CPP won 68 seats and the CNRP took 55 seats in Cambodia’s 123-seat National Assembly.-VNA