It also adopted a new statute for the party, but did not release the text. Very little is known about the Third Party Congress, also known as the Congress for Party Reconstruction, except that Pen Sovan was elected first secretary of the Central Committee and that the party had between sixty-two and sixty-six regular members. Politburo and the Secretariat to enter into the new Standing Committee, Chea Sim as President and Hun Sen as Vice-president. The report expressed satisfaction with party reconstruction since 1981, especially with the removal of the "danger of authoritarianism" and the restoration of the principles of democratic centralism and of collective leadership. "They are not for two to three years but for the next 50 years, 100 years, you have to remember," Hun Sen added. "There is no one," he said after inspecting the construction of a new provincial airport. It aims to turn Cambodia into a higher-middle-income country by 2030 and high-income country by 2050. My revelations on the tensions within the CPP in November 2015 suggest that Sar Kheng, despite appearances and the blandness of his declarations, must be the person Hun Sen watches the most closely.The current trial of Kem Sokha for “treason” due to his alleged collaboration with the United States is not just an act of repression against the opposition, but also a threat to more conciliatory figures within the ruling party itself. This more conciliatory position contradicts that of Hun Sen who decided on, and wants to maintain, the dissolution of the CNRP, the only opposition party, which he sees as a threat to his regime.The CNRP scored 44 percent in the legislative elections of 2013, as in the commune elections of 2017, despite numerous irregularities in favor of the ruling party.The danger for Hun Sen will be even greater if the moderate elements of the CPP, led by Sar Kheng, make common cause with the united democratic opposition that the CNRP represents to liberalize the regime, currently in the hands of a single, increasingly paranoid man.I can now reveal the real reason for the failure of my first attempt to return to Cambodia on November 16, 2015 (my most recent attempt on November 9, 2019 has been well publicized).In the absence of any unusual political tension, I had left Cambodia on November 6, 2015 for a working visit to Mongolia, Japan, and South Korea. Inside Cambodia’s ruling party, the CPP, there is never a guarantee of consensus amid the autocratic power and nepotism of Prime Minister Hun Sen.The party’s more moderate elements, represented by the Minister of the Interior and Deputy Prime Minister Sar Kheng – even though he publicly denies any divergence with the prime minister – do not systematically seek confrontation with the opposition and would even favor an understanding with the CNRP to consolidate a fragile democratic system. — AFP pic. "Who has the capability to replace Hun Sen right now? Despite rooted in socialism, the CPP was not ideologically blind. It won 64 of the 123 seats in the National Assembly in the 1998 elections, 73 seats in the 2003 elections and 90 seats in the 2008 elections, winning the popular vote by the biggest margin ever for a National Assembly election with 58% of the vote. By subscribing, you accept the terms and conditions in our Cambodia PM says ruling party to dominate for up to 100 yearsThank you for subscribing our enewsletter. Now the slight hope of economic recovery has been dashed.The attempt by Sam Rainsy to return to Cambodia on November 9, 2019, though unsuccessful, shows who is afraid.The meeting between Hun Sen and the opposition-leader-turned-treason-suspect is a political signal -- but of what?Hun Sen is playing a high-stakes political game by downplaying fear of the coronavirus. For instance, the CPP played an indispensable role in Cambodian peace negotiation process, which led to the signing of the Paris Peace Accords on 23 October 1991 and the creation of the second Kingdom of Cambodia. This dissolution and the return to a single-party system signalled a severe crackdown on civil society, in particular human rights organizations, unions, and any media that showed signs of independence. Nationalists in Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos shared the same belief that to free themselves from France successfully they needed to work together. Contrary to the reports of some ill-informed journalists, I did not “flee” in the face of any particular threat.On November 16, 2015 I was scheduled to return to Phnom Penh by an evening commercial flight back from Seoul, where I was paying a three-day visit to Cambodian workers in South Korea. The original Kampuchean People's Revolutionary Party (KPRP) was founded on 28 June 1951 by Cambodian nationalists who struggled to free Cambodia from However, the triumph of the Japanese during the early stage of In 1955, a subsidiary party named People’s Party was established to contest in the national election that year. The Congress, attended by 162 delegates, elected twenty-one members of the party Central Committee, who in turn elected Pen Sovan as general secretary and the eight members of the party inner circle to the Political Bureau (Heng Samrin, number 2 member; Chea Sim, number 4 member; Hun Sen, number 6 member; Chan Sy, minister of defense and prime minister from December 1981; number 7, including Chea Soth, deputy prime minister, Bou Thang, chair of the Party’s Central Propaganda Committee, deputy prime minister from 1982 to 1992 and minister of defense from 1982 to 1986; and Chan Sy), seven members of Secretariat (including Hun Sen). Cambodia’s top monastic leader, Supreme Patriarch Tep Vong, urged the nation’s monks yesterday to vote for the ruling Cambodian People’s Party, explaining that the outcome of the 2018 national election has been “arranged already”. The Fourth Party Congress reviewed Pen Sovan's political report and defined the party's strategy for the next several years. After the Fifth Congress, the party's organizational work was intensified substantially. Hun Sen, the Prime Minister of Cambodia, has served as the party's President since 2015.