Cambodian Peoples Party From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search Cambodian Peoples Party គណបក្សប្រជាជនកម្ពុជា Kanakpak Pracheachon Kâmpuchéa Cpplogo.PNG Leader Hun Sen President Chea Sim Founded Founded as Kampuchean Peoples Revolutionary Party in May 1981, renamed in 1991 Ideology Reformed Socialism[1] Formerly: Communism Marxism–Leninism National Assembly 68 / 123 Senate 46 / 57 Communes 1,592 / 1,633 Website cpp.org.kh/ Politics of Cambodia Political parties Elections The Cambodian Peoples Party (Khmer: គណបក្សប្រជាជនកម្ពុជា, Kanakpak Pracheachon Kâmpuchéa) is the current ruling party of Cambodia. This party was formerly known as the Kampuchean Peoples Revolutionary Party (KPRP). It was the sole legal party in the country at the time of the Peoples Republic of Kampuchea and the first two years of the State of Cambodia. 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 December 5, 1981 was Pen Sovan.[2] The KPRP was originally a Marxist-Leninist party, although it took on a more reformist outlook in the mid-1980s under Heng Samrins leadership.[3] In the 1990s, the KPRP officially dropped its Marxist-Leninist ideology when it renamed itself as the Cambodian Peoples Party. However, most of its KPRP-era members remained within the party, and certain aspects of its outlook that it inherited from its Communist era are still preserved.[4] Presently the party has an outright majority in both the National Assembly and Senate, 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 Reformed Socialism. Contents 1 History 1.1 Forerunner organizations 1.2 Constitution and early days Pen Sovans leadership (1979–1981) 1.3 Fourth Party Congress: Change of strategy (1981) 1.4 Heng Samrins leadership 1.5 Birth of the Cambodian Peoples Party (1991) 1.6 Leaderships 2 General election results 3 See also 4 Notes 5 Bibliography 6 External links History Forerunner organizations The original Kampuchean Peoples Revolutionary Party (KPRP) was founded in French colonial times, 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 CPK in 1966. In one sense the 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.[5] Constitution and early days Pen Sovans leadership (1979–1981) In early 1979, a group of dissident CPK members held a congress. At this gathering, the dissident group declared itself the true successor 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. A national committee led by Pen Sovan and Roh Samai was appointed by the Congress. The womens 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.[6] 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 partys best traditions.[7] 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. Fourth Party Congress: Change of strategy (1981) In Pen Sovans political report to the Fourth Party Congress held May 26 to 29, 1981, he was careful to distance the KPRP from Pol Pots 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 leaderships 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 regimes effort to build the countrys political and administrative infrastructure. The Fourth Party Congress reviewed Pen Sovans political report and defined the partys 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 partys 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 Pots 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. Heng Samrins leadership The KPRPs pro-Vietnamese position did not change when Heng Samrin 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 Hanois endorsement by acknowledging Vietnams 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 16, 1985, to reflect on the previous five years and to chart a new course for the next several years. The partys 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 Samrins 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 Samrins 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 Samrins 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 countrys industries were languishing from lack of fuel, spare parts, and raw materials. Transition toward socialism, the report warned, would take dozens of years. Cambodian People Party election poster 2008 To hasten the transition to socialism, the Fifth Congress unveiled the PRKs 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 Samrins 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 KPRPs 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 Samrins 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 partys 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. Members of the Politburo (1990): Heng Samrin (General Secretary), Chea Sim, Hun Sen, Chea Soth, Math Ly, Tea Banh, Men Sam An, Nguon Nhel, Sar Kheng, Bou Thang, Ney Pena, Say Chhum and alternate members: Sing Song, Sim Ka, Pol Saroeun. Members of the Secretariat (1990): Heng Samrin, Say Phuthang, Bou Thang, Men Sam An, Sar Kheng Birth of the Cambodian Peoples Party (1991) In 1991 the party was renamed Cambodian Peoples 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. Leaderships The party is headed by a 34-member Central Executive Committee, also referred to as the Politburo.[8] The present-day Senior Party Members[9] are: Chea Sim Chairman Heng Samrin Honorary Chairman Hun Sen Vice Chairman Hor Namhong Member of the Permanent Committee General election results Election Total seats won Total votes Share of votes Outcome of election Election leader 1993 51 / 120 1,533,471 38.2% Increase51 seats; governing coalition (FUNCINPEC-CPP) Hun Sen 1998 64 / 122 2,030,790 41.4% Increase13 seats; governing coalition (CPP-FUNCINPEC) Hun Sen 2003 73 / 123 2,447,259 47.3% Increase9 seats; governing coalition (CPP-FUNCINPEC) Hun Sen 2008 90 / 123 3,492,374 58.1% Increase17 seats; governing coalition (CPP-FUNCINPEC) Hun Sen 2013 68 / 123 3,235,969 48.83% Decrease22 seats; governing party Hun Sen See also Kampuchean United Front for National Salvation Peoples Republic of Kampuchea Modern Cambodia Politics of Cambodia Notes Jump up ^ Cambodia. Talktalk.co.uk. Retrieved on 2013-08-03. Jump up ^ Cambodia Jump up ^ [1] Jump up ^ Guo (2006), p. 69 Jump up ^ Cambodia, Appendix B – Major Political and Military Organizations Jump up ^ Kate Frieson, In the Shadows: Women, Power and Politics in Cambodia Jump up ^ Frings, K. Viviane, Rewriting Cambodian History to Adapt It to a New Political Context: The Kampuchean Peoples Revolutionary Partys Historiography (1979–1991) in Modern Asian Studies, Vol. 31, No. 4. (Oct., 1997), pp. 807–846. Jump up ^ New lineup at CPP Politburo following death of Chea Soth, 24 January 2012, The Cambodia Herald Jump up ^ Cambodian Peoples Party website. Permanent Committee members. Retrieved 2008-11-19. Bibliography This article incorporates public domain material from websites or documents of the Library of Congress Country Studies. Guo, Sujian, The Political Economy of Asian Transition from Communism, Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., 2006, ISBN 0754647358 External links CPP website List of incidents attributed to the Cambodian Peoples Party on the START database [hide] v t e Cambodia Political parties in Cambodia Parliament In Government Cambodian Peoples Party In Opposition Cambodian National Rescue Party Royal Arms of Cambodia.svg Not represented in the parliament Funcinpec Party League for Democracy Party Khmer Democratic Party Hang Dara Democratic Movement Party Society of Justice Party Khmer Republican Party Khmer Anti-Poverty Party Portal:Politics List of political parties Politics of Cambodia Categories: Ruling Communist parties Political parties in Cambodia Communist parties in Cambodia Parties of single-party systems Peoples Republic of Kampuchea Navigation menu Create account Log in Article Talk Read Edit View history Main page Contents Featured content Current events Random article Donate to Wikipedia Interaction Help About Wikipedia Community portal Recent changes Contact page Tools Print/export Languages العربية Deutsch Español Français 한국어 Bahasa Indonesia Italiano Bahasa Melayu नेपाली 日本語 Norsk bokmål Polski Português Српски / srpski Srpskohrvatski / српскохрватски Suomi Svenska ไทย Tiếng Việt 中文 Edit links This page was last modified on 1 November 2013 at 18:53. 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