The Cambodian People Party (CPP), on Thursday, said they were preparing a lawsuit against the opposition party CNRP who still wanted to use their slogan "Replace commune chief working for political party by commune chief working for the people" for the upcoming commune election campaign.
According to the CPP, the slogan was a kind of incitement to hatred, it also undermined the hardship of all commune chief who was working to serve the people across the country.
Mr. Sok Ey San, spokesman for the CPP, told reporters on Thursday that lawyers from his party were examining this case before filing a complaint to the court. But in the meantime, at least three charges were already found out - offence against the Law on the Election of the Commune, offence against public servant, and intentional incitement to discrimination.
He added that if found guilty, the CNRP would face the dissolution of their party.
Regarding the lawsuit, Mr. Yim Sovann, spokesman for the CNRP, declined to comment. He only said that if the CPP wanted to do a lawsuit against his party, the CPP could do whatever they wanted.
However, Mr. Sovann added that the slogan was not against the law, and he did not hear any lawyer confirm that the slogan was illegal. The CPP alone thought the slogan was illegal.
As of March 9, more than 200 CPP commune chiefs from different provinces in Cambodia have been issuing different petitions, but with almost the same content, to condemn the CNRP for accusing them of working only for the sake of their political party.
The petitions repeated what the CPP's declaration issued on March 6 said on the fact that the CNRP's slogan was an intention to destroy the hardship of all commune chiefs who were working to serve the people. It was also an act of looking down on the will of the people who had voted to choose them as commune chief.
"In addition, the slogan is intending to destroy the Cambodian commune proportional representation system," read the petitions.
The petitions also said that the Law on the Election of the Commune requires candidates from different political party to propose their development programme. As a result, all commune chiefs, who had been elected, were directly working to serve people living in their commune by implementing their development programme to build roads, wells, ponds, irrigation system, school, hospital etc.
"The election campaign is aimed at providing any political party [...] to disseminate to the electorate its policy and political program as regards to the development of the commune/sangkat," read Article 77 of the Law on the Election of the Commune.
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