DRAFT - Cambodia The National Assembly and Senate of the Kingdom of Cambodia (original) (raw)

Routledge Handbook of Asian Parliaments

Routledge Handbook on Asian Parliaments, edited by Rehan Abeyratne and Po Yen Yap) 1 Of course, under the auspices of the Khmer People's Revolutionary Party, the CPP had ruled a single-party state (the People's Republic of Kampuchea) throughout the 1980s (from the fall of the Khmer Rouge in 1979 to the beginning of the UNTAC experiment in 1992). involved in Cambodia's parliamentary practice, these are acknowledged wherever possible throughout the chapter. 1. Structure and Composition a. The Configuration (and Reconfiguration) of the Legislative Branch The legislative branch was originally designed as a unicameral parliament by Cambodian constitution-makers in 1993. However, constitutional amendments in 1999 established the Senate (!ពឹ ទ% ស' or Prethsaphea) as the upper house, supplementing the National Assembly (រដ+ ស' or Rathsaphea) in what is now a bicameral system. The creation of a second chamber of parliament is widely understood as the result of a power-sharing compromise. The CPP secured the involvement of the royalist party, Funcinpec, 2 as a junior partner in a coalition government after the 1998 election by accommodating members of the latter party with seats in the newly-established Senate. 3 b. The Structure of Cambodia's Bicameral Parliament Members of the National Assembly are elected every five years. 4 The National Assembly elections (hereafter, general election) are supposed to operate on the basis of "universal, free, equal, direct suffrage and a secret ballot," 5 with a system of proportional representation within provincial constituencies. 6 The number of seats awarded to each party is calculated (on a constituency-by-constituency basis) according to the d'Hondt method, as outlined in Article 135 of the Law on Election of Members of the National Assembly (LEMNA). 7 Despite being elected by provincial constituencies, however, Members of the National Assembly are elected to represent the nation as a whole. According to Article 77 of the Constitution, MPs are "the representatives of the whole Khmer Nation and not only of the citizens of their constituencies." The National Assembly is currently made up of 125 members. While Article 76 of the Constitution specifies only that the body should contain a minimum of 120 members, the 125person composition is specified by amendments made to LEMNA in 2015. Another amendment made to LEMNA in 2015, this time to Article 6, lays out the precise number of 2 Funcinpec is an acronym for the French Front uni national pour un Cambodge indépendant, neutre, pacifique, et coopératif.