Cambodian People's Party
Encyclopedia
The Cambodian People's Party (Khmer
: គណបក្សប្រជាជនកម្ពុជា, Kanakpak Pracheachon Kâmpuchéa) is the current ruling party of Cambodia
.
This party was formerly known as Kampuchean People's Revolutionary Party (KPRP, French
acronym 'PRPK'). It was the sole legal party in the country at the time of the People's Republic of Kampuchea
(PRK) 1981-1989 and the first two years of the State of Cambodia
1989-1991. Its name was changed during the transitional times of the State of Cambodia, when the single-party system, as well as the Marxist-Leninist ideology were abandoned.
The General Secretary of the party from 1979 to 5 December 1981 was Pen Sovan
. The KPRP was originally a Marxist-Leninist party, although it took on a more reformist
outlook in the mid-1980s under Heng Samrin
's leadership.
Presently the party has an outright majority in the National Assembly of Cambodia
, but governs in coalition with the royalist Funcinpec
party. The current (as of 2007) Prime Minister, Hun Sen
, is the vice president of the party. The party adheres to a platform of Socialism
.
, in September 1951, when the Indochinese Communist Party
(ICP), founded by Ho Chi Minh
in 1930, was dismembered into three national parties, the KPRP, the Vietnam Workers' Party and the Lao Itsala, prior to the independence of the three countries.
The name of the party was changed to the WPK in 1960 and then to the KCP in 1966. In one sense thje KPRP was a new organization; in another sense it is the continuation of the parties that preceded it. The date of the KPRP founding is uncertain, although the First Party Congress held publicly was convened in May 1981; the party may have come into existence after mid-1978.
was appointed by the congress. The organization considered itself as the genuine inheritor of the original KPRP founded in 1951 (which had evolved into the CPK), and labelled the congress as the '3rd party congress' (thus not recognizing the 1963, 1975 and 1978 congresses of CPK as legitimate). The party considered June 28, 1951 as its founding date. The women's wing of the party, the National Association of Women for the Salvation of Kampuchea, was also established in 1979 with a vast national network of members that extended to the district level.
The existence of the party was kept secret until its 4th congress in May 1981, when it appeared publicly and assumed the name KPRP. The name-change was carried out 'to clearly distinguish it from the reactionary Pol Pot
party and to underline and reassert the continuity of the party's best traditions'.
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.
The KPRP decided at the Fourth Party Congress to operate "openly." This move seemed to reflect the leadership's growing confidence in its ability to stay in power despite the ongoing guerrilla war with the Khmer Rouge. The move may have had a practical dimension as well because it involved the people more actively in the regime's effort to build the country's political and administrative infrastructure.
The Fourth Party Congress reviewed Pen Sovan's political report and defined the party's strategy for the next several years. The Congress adopted five "basic principles of the party line," which were to uphold the banners of patriotism
and of international proletarian solidarity; to defend the country (the primary and sacred task of all people); to restore and to develop the economy and the culture in the course of gradual transition toward socialism; to strengthen military solidarity with Vietnam
, Laos
, the Soviet Union, and other socialist nations; and to develop "a firm Marxist-Leninist party." At the Congress it was decided that henceforth the party would be known as the KPRP, in order to distinguish it from "the reactionary Pol Pot party and to underline and reassert the community of the party's best traditions." The Fourth Party Congress also proclaimed its resolve to stamp out the "reactionary ultra-nationalist doctrine of Pol Pot," to emphasize a centralized government and collective leadership, and to reject personality cults. The "ultra-nationalist doctrine" issue was an allusion to Pol Pot's racist, anti-Vietnamese stance. 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 seven members of the party inner circle to the Political Bureau. It also adopted a new statute for the party, but did not release the text.
According to Michael Vickery, veterans of the independence struggle of the 1946 to 1954 period dominated the party Central Committee. A majority of the Central Committee members had spent all or part of the years 1954 to 1970 in exile in Vietnam or in the performance of "duties abroad."
suddenly replaced Pen Sovan as party leader on December 4, 1981. Pen Sovan, who was reportedly flown to Hanoi
under Vietnamese guard, was "permitted to take a long rest," but observers believed that he was purged for not being sufficiently pro-Vietnamese. In any case, the new general secretary won Hanoi's endorsement by acknowledging Vietnam's role as senior partner in the Cambodian-Vietnamese relationship. The party recognized the change in leadership symbolically by changing the official founding date of the KPRP from February 19, 1951, to June 28, 1951, in deference to the Vietnam Workers' Party (Dang Lao Dong Viet Nam), which was established in March 1951.
In mid-1981, the KPRP was essentially a skeleton organization. It had few party branches except for those in Phnom Penh
, in Kampong Saom, and in the eighteen provincial capitals. Party membership was estimated at between 600 and 1,000, a considerable increase over 1979 but still only a fraction of the number of cadres needed to run the party and the government. In 1981, several of the 18 provinces had only one party member each, and Kampong Cham, the largest province with a population of more than 1 million, had only 30 regular members, according to Cambodia specialist Ben Kiernan
.
The party held its Fifth Party Congress from October 13 to October 16, 1985, to reflect on the previous five years and to chart a new course for the next several years. The party's membership had increased to 7,500 regulars (4,000 new members joined in 1985 alone). The party had an additional pool of 37,000 "core" members from which it could recruit tested party regulars. There were only 4,000 core members in mid-1981. According to General Secretary Heng Samrin's political report, the KPRP had twenty-two regional committees and an undisclosed number of branches, circles, and cells in government agencies, armed forces units, internal security organs, mass organizations, enterprises, factories, and farms. 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. It pointed out "some weaknesses" that had to be overcome, however. For example, the party was "still too thin and weak" at the district and the grass-roots levels. Ideological work lagged and lacked depth and consistency; party policies were implemented very slowly, if at all, with few, if any, timely steps to rectify failings; and party cadres, because of their propensities for narrow-mindedness, arrogance, and bureaucratism, were unable to win popular trust and support. Another major problem was the serious shortage of political cadres (for party chapters), economic and managerial cadres, and technical cadres. Still another problem that had to be addressed "in the years to come" was the lack of a documented history of the KPRP. Heng Samrin's political report stressed the importance of party history for understanding "the good traditions of the party."
The report to the Fifth Congress noted that Heng Samrin's administration, in coordination with "Vietnamese volunteers," had destroyed "all types" of resistance guerrilla bases. The report also struck a sobering note: the economy remained backward and unbalanced, with its material and technical bases still below pre-war levels, and the country's industries were languishing from lack of fuel, spare parts, and raw materials. Transition toward socialism, the report warned, would take "dozens of years."
To hasten the transition to socialism, the Fifth Congress unveiled the PRK's First Plan, covering the years 1986 to 1990. The program included the addition of the "private economy" to the three sectors of the economy mentioned in the Constitution (the state sector, collective sector, and the family sector). Including the private economy was necessary because of the "very heavy and very complex task" that lay ahead in order to transform the "nonsocialist components" of the economy to an advanced stage. According to the political report submitted to the congress, mass mobilization of the population was considered crucial to the successful outcome of the First Plan. The report also noted the need to cultivate "new socialist men" if Cambodia were to succeed in its nation-building. These men were supposed to be loyal to the fatherland and to socialism; to respect manual labor, production, public property, and discipline; and to possess "scientific knowledge."
Heng Samrin's political report also focused on foreign affairs. He recommended that Phnom Penh strengthen its policy of alliance with Vietnam, Laos, the Soviet Union, and other socialist countries. He stressed—as Pen Sovan had in May 1981—that such an alliance was, in effect, "a law" that guaranteed the success of the Cambodian revolution. At the same time, he urged the congress and the Cambodian people to spurn "narrow-minded chauvinism
, every opportunistic tendency, and every act and attitude infringing on the friendship" between Cambodia and its Indochinese neighbors. (He was apparently alluding to the continued Cambodian sensitivity to the presence of Vietnamese troops and of about 60,000 Vietnamese settlers in Cambodia. CGDK sources maintained that there were really about 700,000 Vietnamese settlers in the country.)
The KPRP's three objectives for the period 1986 to 1990 were to demonstrate military superiority "along the border and inside the country" for complete elimination of all anti-PRK activities; to develop political, military, and economic capabilities; and to strengthen special relations with Vietnam as well as mutual cooperation with other fraternal countries. Before Heng Samrin's closing address on October 16, the 250 party delegates to the congress elected a new Central Committee of 45 members (31 full members and 14 alternates). The Central Committee in turn elected Heng Samrin as general secretary, a new Political Bureau (nine full members and two alternates), a five-member Secretariat, and seven members of the Central Committee Control Commission.
After the Fifth Congress, the party's organizational work was intensified substantially. The KPRP claimed that by the end of 1986 it had more than 10,000 regular members and 40,000 candidate members who were being groomed for regular status.
In 1991 the party was renamed Cambodian People's Party (CPP) during a UN
-sponsored peace and reconciliation process.
Prime Minister Hun Sen has continued to lead the party to election victories after the transition to democracy. 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. The CPP also won the 2006 Senate elections.
The present-day Senior Party Members are:
Khmer language
Khmer , or Cambodian, is the language of the Khmer people and the official language of Cambodia. It is the second most widely spoken Austroasiatic language , with speakers in the tens of millions. Khmer has been considerably influenced by Sanskrit and Pali, especially in the royal and religious...
: គណបក្សប្រជាជនកម្ពុជា, Kanakpak Pracheachon Kâmpuchéa) is the current ruling party of Cambodia
Cambodia
Cambodia , officially known as the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country located in the southern portion of the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia...
.
This party was formerly known as Kampuchean People's Revolutionary Party (KPRP, French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
acronym 'PRPK'). It was the sole legal party in the country at the time of the People's Republic of Kampuchea
People's Republic of Kampuchea
The People's Republic of Kampuchea , , was founded in Cambodia by the Salvation Front, a group of Cambodian leftists dissatisfied with the Khmer Rouge, after the overthrow of Democratic Kampuchea, Pol Pot's government...
(PRK) 1981-1989 and the first two years of the State of Cambodia
People's Republic of Kampuchea
The People's Republic of Kampuchea , , was founded in Cambodia by the Salvation Front, a group of Cambodian leftists dissatisfied with the Khmer Rouge, after the overthrow of Democratic Kampuchea, Pol Pot's government...
1989-1991. Its name was changed during the transitional times of the State of Cambodia, when the single-party system, as well as the Marxist-Leninist ideology were abandoned.
The General Secretary of the party from 1979 to 5 December 1981 was Pen Sovan
Pen Sovan
Pen Sovan, sometimes also spelt Pen Sovann , was the first Prime Minister of the Hanoi-backed People's Republic of Kampuchea. He served from June 27, 1981 until December 5, 1981. And he was Secretary General of Kampuchean People's Revolutionary Party from 1979 to 5 December 1981...
. The KPRP was originally a Marxist-Leninist party, although it took on a more reformist
Reformism
Reformism is the belief that gradual democratic changes in a society can ultimately change a society's fundamental economic relations and political structures...
outlook in the mid-1980s under Heng Samrin
Heng Samrin
Heng Samrin is a Cambodian politician. He was the chairman of the People's Republic of Kampuchea and the State of Cambodia , and later vice chairman and chairman of the National Assembly of Cambodia since 2006....
's leadership.
Presently the party has an outright majority in the National Assembly of Cambodia
National Assembly of Cambodia
The National Assembly of Cambodia or Radhsphea is the lower house of the Parliament of Cambodia.It has 123 members, elected for five year terms by proportional representation, using provinces as constituencies of 1 to 18 members, and the D'Hondt method of seat distribution.-Elections:Summary of the...
, but governs in coalition with the royalist Funcinpec
Funcinpec
FUNCINPEC is a royalist political party in Cambodia. Before the 2008 election, FUNCINPEC and the Cambodian People's Party formed a coalition government, although FUNCINPEC's significance has decreased steadily since 1998, when it had an equal relationship with the CPP in the coalition.FUNCINPEC is...
party. The current (as of 2007) Prime Minister, Hun Sen
Hun Sen
Hun Sen is the current Prime Minister of Cambodia.He has been the sole leader of the Cambodian People's Party , which has governed Cambodia since the Vietnamese-backed overthrow of the Khmer Rouge in 1979...
, is the vice president of the party. The party adheres to a platform of Socialism
Socialism
Socialism is an economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy; or a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises,...
.
Forerunner organizations
The original Kampuchean (or Khmer) People's Revolutionary Party (KPRP) was founded in French colonial timesFrench Indochina
French Indochina was part of the French colonial empire in southeast Asia. A federation of the three Vietnamese regions, Tonkin , Annam , and Cochinchina , as well as Cambodia, was formed in 1887....
, in September 1951, when the Indochinese Communist Party
Indochinese Communist Party
The Indochinese Communist Party was a political party which was transformed from old Vietnamese Communist Party in October 1930...
(ICP), founded by Ho Chi Minh
Ho Chi Minh
Hồ Chí Minh , born Nguyễn Sinh Cung and also known as Nguyễn Ái Quốc, was a Vietnamese Marxist-Leninist revolutionary leader who was prime minister and president of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam...
in 1930, was dismembered into three national parties, the KPRP, the Vietnam Workers' Party and the Lao Itsala, prior to the independence of the three countries.
The name of the party was changed to the WPK in 1960 and then to the KCP in 1966. In one sense thje KPRP was a new organization; in another sense it is the continuation of the parties that preceded it. The date of the KPRP founding is uncertain, although the First Party Congress held publicly was convened in May 1981; the party may have come into existence after mid-1978.
Constitution and early days Pen Sovan's leadership (1979 - 1981)
A national committee led by Pen SovanPen Sovan
Pen Sovan, sometimes also spelt Pen Sovann , was the first Prime Minister of the Hanoi-backed People's Republic of Kampuchea. He served from June 27, 1981 until December 5, 1981. And he was Secretary General of Kampuchean People's Revolutionary Party from 1979 to 5 December 1981...
was appointed by the congress. The organization considered itself as the genuine inheritor of the original KPRP founded in 1951 (which had evolved into the CPK), and labelled the congress as the '3rd party congress' (thus not recognizing the 1963, 1975 and 1978 congresses of CPK as legitimate). The party considered June 28, 1951 as its founding date. The women's wing of the party, the National Association of Women for the Salvation of Kampuchea, was also established in 1979 with a vast national network of members that extended to the district level.
The existence of the party was kept secret until its 4th congress in May 1981, when it appeared publicly and assumed the name KPRP. The name-change was carried out 'to clearly distinguish it from the reactionary Pol Pot
Pol Pot
Saloth Sar , better known as Pol Pot, , was a Cambodian Maoist revolutionary who led the Khmer Rouge from 1963 until his death in 1998. From 1976 to 1979, he served as the Prime Minister of Democratic Kampuchea....
party and to underline and reassert the continuity of the party's best traditions'.
Very little is known about the Third Party Congress, also known as the Congress for Party Reconstruction, except that Pen Sovan
Pen Sovan
Pen Sovan, sometimes also spelt Pen Sovann , was the first Prime Minister of the Hanoi-backed People's Republic of Kampuchea. He served from June 27, 1981 until December 5, 1981. And he was Secretary General of Kampuchean People's Revolutionary Party from 1979 to 5 December 1981...
was elected first secretary of the Central Committee and that the party had between sixty-two and sixty-six regular members.
Fourth Party Congress: Change of strategy (1981)
In Pen Sovan's political report to the Fourth Party Congress held May 26 to May 29, 1981, he was careful to distance the KPRP from Pol Pot's CPK, and he denounced the CPK as a traitor to the party and to the nation.The KPRP decided at the Fourth Party Congress to operate "openly." This move seemed to reflect the leadership's growing confidence in its ability to stay in power despite the ongoing guerrilla war with the Khmer Rouge. The move may have had a practical dimension as well because it involved the people more actively in the regime's effort to build the country's political and administrative infrastructure.
The Fourth Party Congress reviewed Pen Sovan's political report and defined the party's strategy for the next several years. The Congress adopted five "basic principles of the party line," which were to uphold the banners of patriotism
Patriotism
Patriotism is a devotion to one's country, excluding differences caused by the dependencies of the term's meaning upon context, geography and philosophy...
and of international proletarian solidarity; to defend the country (the primary and sacred task of all people); to restore and to develop the economy and the culture in the course of gradual transition toward socialism; to strengthen military solidarity with Vietnam
Vietnam
Vietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...
, Laos
Laos
Laos Lao: ສາທາລະນະລັດ ປະຊາທິປະໄຕ ປະຊາຊົນລາວ Sathalanalat Paxathipatai Paxaxon Lao, officially the Lao People's Democratic Republic, is a landlocked country in Southeast Asia, bordered by Burma and China to the northwest, Vietnam to the east, Cambodia to the south and Thailand to the west...
, the Soviet Union, and other socialist nations; and to develop "a firm Marxist-Leninist party." At the Congress it was decided that henceforth the party would be known as the KPRP, in order to distinguish it from "the reactionary Pol Pot party and to underline and reassert the community of the party's best traditions." The Fourth Party Congress also proclaimed its resolve to stamp out the "reactionary ultra-nationalist doctrine of Pol Pot," to emphasize a centralized government and collective leadership, and to reject personality cults. The "ultra-nationalist doctrine" issue was an allusion to Pol Pot's racist, anti-Vietnamese stance. The Congress, attended by 162 delegates, elected twenty-one members of the party Central Committee
Central Committee
Central Committee was the common designation of a standing administrative body of communist parties, analogous to a board of directors, whether ruling or non-ruling in the twentieth century and of the surviving, mostly Trotskyist, states in the early twenty first. In such party organizations the...
, who in turn elected Pen Sovan as general secretary and the seven members of the party inner circle to the Political Bureau. It also adopted a new statute for the party, but did not release the text.
According to Michael Vickery, veterans of the independence struggle of the 1946 to 1954 period dominated the party Central Committee. A majority of the Central Committee members had spent all or part of the years 1954 to 1970 in exile in Vietnam or in the performance of "duties abroad."
Heng Samrin's leadership
The KPRP's pro-Vietnamese position did not change when Heng SamrinHeng Samrin
Heng Samrin is a Cambodian politician. He was the chairman of the People's Republic of Kampuchea and the State of Cambodia , and later vice chairman and chairman of the National Assembly of Cambodia since 2006....
suddenly replaced Pen Sovan as party leader on December 4, 1981. Pen Sovan, who was reportedly flown to Hanoi
Hanoi
Hanoi , is the capital of Vietnam and the country's second largest city. Its population in 2009 was estimated at 2.6 million for urban districts, 6.5 million for the metropolitan jurisdiction. From 1010 until 1802, it was the most important political centre of Vietnam...
under Vietnamese guard, was "permitted to take a long rest," but observers believed that he was purged for not being sufficiently pro-Vietnamese. In any case, the new general secretary won Hanoi's endorsement by acknowledging Vietnam's role as senior partner in the Cambodian-Vietnamese relationship. The party recognized the change in leadership symbolically by changing the official founding date of the KPRP from February 19, 1951, to June 28, 1951, in deference to the Vietnam Workers' Party (Dang Lao Dong Viet Nam), which was established in March 1951.
In mid-1981, the KPRP was essentially a skeleton organization. It had few party branches except for those in Phnom Penh
Phnom Penh
Phnom Penh is the capital and largest city of Cambodia. Located on the banks of the Mekong River, Phnom Penh has been the national capital since the French colonized Cambodia, and has grown to become the nation's center of economic and industrial activities, as well as the center of security,...
, in Kampong Saom, and in the eighteen provincial capitals. Party membership was estimated at between 600 and 1,000, a considerable increase over 1979 but still only a fraction of the number of cadres needed to run the party and the government. In 1981, several of the 18 provinces had only one party member each, and Kampong Cham, the largest province with a population of more than 1 million, had only 30 regular members, according to Cambodia specialist Ben Kiernan
Ben Kiernan
Benedict F. Kiernan is the Whitney Griswold Professor of History, Professor of International and Area Studies and Director of the Genocide Studies Program at Yale University. He is a prolific writer on the Cambodian genocide...
.
The party held its Fifth Party Congress from October 13 to October 16, 1985, to reflect on the previous five years and to chart a new course for the next several years. The party's membership had increased to 7,500 regulars (4,000 new members joined in 1985 alone). The party had an additional pool of 37,000 "core" members from which it could recruit tested party regulars. There were only 4,000 core members in mid-1981. According to General Secretary Heng Samrin's political report, the KPRP had twenty-two regional committees and an undisclosed number of branches, circles, and cells in government agencies, armed forces units, internal security organs, mass organizations, enterprises, factories, and farms. 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
Democratic centralism
Democratic centralism is the name given to the principles of internal organization used by Leninist political parties, and the term is sometimes used as a synonym for any Leninist policy inside a political party...
and of collective leadership. It pointed out "some weaknesses" that had to be overcome, however. For example, the party was "still too thin and weak" at the district and the grass-roots levels. Ideological work lagged and lacked depth and consistency; party policies were implemented very slowly, if at all, with few, if any, timely steps to rectify failings; and party cadres, because of their propensities for narrow-mindedness, arrogance, and bureaucratism, were unable to win popular trust and support. Another major problem was the serious shortage of political cadres (for party chapters), economic and managerial cadres, and technical cadres. Still another problem that had to be addressed "in the years to come" was the lack of a documented history of the KPRP. Heng Samrin's political report stressed the importance of party history for understanding "the good traditions of the party."
The report to the Fifth Congress noted that Heng Samrin's administration, in coordination with "Vietnamese volunteers," had destroyed "all types" of resistance guerrilla bases. The report also struck a sobering note: the economy remained backward and unbalanced, with its material and technical bases still below pre-war levels, and the country's industries were languishing from lack of fuel, spare parts, and raw materials. Transition toward socialism, the report warned, would take "dozens of years."
To hasten the transition to socialism, the Fifth Congress unveiled the PRK's First Plan, covering the years 1986 to 1990. The program included the addition of the "private economy" to the three sectors of the economy mentioned in the Constitution (the state sector, collective sector, and the family sector). Including the private economy was necessary because of the "very heavy and very complex task" that lay ahead in order to transform the "nonsocialist components" of the economy to an advanced stage. According to the political report submitted to the congress, mass mobilization of the population was considered crucial to the successful outcome of the First Plan. The report also noted the need to cultivate "new socialist men" if Cambodia were to succeed in its nation-building. These men were supposed to be loyal to the fatherland and to socialism; to respect manual labor, production, public property, and discipline; and to possess "scientific knowledge."
Heng Samrin's political report also focused on foreign affairs. He recommended that Phnom Penh strengthen its policy of alliance with Vietnam, Laos, the Soviet Union, and other socialist countries. He stressed—as Pen Sovan had in May 1981—that such an alliance was, in effect, "a law" that guaranteed the success of the Cambodian revolution. At the same time, he urged the congress and the Cambodian people to spurn "narrow-minded chauvinism
Chauvinism
Chauvinism, in its original and primary meaning, is an exaggerated, bellicose patriotism and a belief in national superiority and glory. It is an eponym of a possibly fictional French soldier Nicolas Chauvin who was credited with many superhuman feats in the Napoleonic wars.By extension it has come...
, every opportunistic tendency, and every act and attitude infringing on the friendship" between Cambodia and its Indochinese neighbors. (He was apparently alluding to the continued Cambodian sensitivity to the presence of Vietnamese troops and of about 60,000 Vietnamese settlers in Cambodia. CGDK sources maintained that there were really about 700,000 Vietnamese settlers in the country.)
The KPRP's three objectives for the period 1986 to 1990 were to demonstrate military superiority "along the border and inside the country" for complete elimination of all anti-PRK activities; to develop political, military, and economic capabilities; and to strengthen special relations with Vietnam as well as mutual cooperation with other fraternal countries. Before Heng Samrin's closing address on October 16, the 250 party delegates to the congress elected a new Central Committee of 45 members (31 full members and 14 alternates). The Central Committee in turn elected Heng Samrin as general secretary, a new Political Bureau (nine full members and two alternates), a five-member Secretariat, and seven members of the Central Committee Control Commission.
After the Fifth Congress, the party's organizational work was intensified substantially. The KPRP claimed that by the end of 1986 it had more than 10,000 regular members and 40,000 candidate members who were being groomed for regular status.
Birth of the Cambodian People's Party' (1991)
United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...
-sponsored peace and reconciliation process.
Prime Minister Hun Sen has continued to lead the party to election victories after the transition to democracy. 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. The CPP also won the 2006 Senate elections.
The present-day Senior Party Members are:
- Chea SimChea SimChea Sim is a Chinese Cambodian politician. He was the President of the National Assembly from 1981–98 and is currently the President of the Senate .-Biography:...
Chairman - Heng SamrinHeng SamrinHeng Samrin is a Cambodian politician. He was the chairman of the People's Republic of Kampuchea and the State of Cambodia , and later vice chairman and chairman of the National Assembly of Cambodia since 2006....
Honorary Chairman - Hun SenHun SenHun Sen is the current Prime Minister of Cambodia.He has been the sole leader of the Cambodian People's Party , which has governed Cambodia since the Vietnamese-backed overthrow of the Khmer Rouge in 1979...
Vice Chairman - Hor NamhongHor NamhongHor Namhong is a Cambodian diplomat who has served in the government of Cambodia as Minister of Foreign Affairs since 1998. He previously held the same post from 1990 until 1993...
Member of the Permanent Committee
See also
- Kampuchean United Front for National SalvationKampuchean United Front for National SalvationThe Kampuchean United Front for National Salvation , often simply referred to as Salvation Front or by its French acronym FUNSK , was the nucleus of a new Cambodian regime, that would later establish the People's Republic of Kampuchea .Its foundation took place in 1978 in Vietnam by...
- People's Republic of KampucheaPeople's Republic of KampucheaThe People's Republic of Kampuchea , , was founded in Cambodia by the Salvation Front, a group of Cambodian leftists dissatisfied with the Khmer Rouge, after the overthrow of Democratic Kampuchea, Pol Pot's government...
- Modern CambodiaModern CambodiaAfter the fall of the Pol Pot regime of Democratic Kampuchea, Cambodia was under Vietnamese occupation and a pro-Hanoi government, the People's Republic of Kampuchea was established...
- Politics of CambodiaPolitics of CambodiaThe Politics of Cambodia takes place in a framework of a constitutional monarchy, whereby the Prime Minister is the head of government and a Monarch is head of state. The kingdom formally takes place according to the nation's constitution in a framework of a parliamentary, representative...