Infighting After The Paris Peace Accords and The Dismantling of The BLDP
As in early 1986, there was a dissension among the party ranks in 1995. However, this time it was not a disagreement between military and political control, but a conflict between two politicians: Son Sann and Ieng Mouly.
According to sources, Sann and Mouly had been arguing about different topics for many years. Some of their more vocal disagreements were: Sann being fiercely anti-Vietnamese, Sann’s hasty rescinded order to boycott the 1993 UN elections, and Mouly’s questioning of the appropriateness of the Cambodian monarchy being involved in the new democracy.
Despite these differences and so many more not mentioned, Mouly and Sann reached a type of power-sharing agreement after the 1993 elections. In exchange for Sann remaining the head of the party, Mouly would get the party’s only cabinet position (minister of information). The two decided on this arrangement because it was better to keep the BLDP together, rather than split and lose the party’s legislative power, as well as its position in the power sharing coalition.
However this arrangement did not last very long, for in 1995 the two sides quarreled. To begin with, Sann constantly supported anti-Vietnamese legislation. This irritated Mouly and his supporters, essentially keeping tension between the two groups from subsiding. The boiling point was finally reached when Sann supporters announced that Mouly had been kicked out of the party. This set off a firestorm and Mouly’s side immediately responded in kind, stating the opposite: Sann, instead of Mouly, had been removed from the party.
As time passed, the latter turned out to be true. On July 9, 1995 Ieng Mouly summoned a special congress of the BLDP in order to select new leadership. Due to the non-attendance of Son Sann and his supporters, Mouly was elected unanimously by the congress. However, shortly after the congress, the BLDP dissolved. Mouly went on to become leader of the Liberal Democratic Party and Sann’s supporters created the Son Sann party. Neither side has won a seat in the National Assembly since the split.
Read more about this topic: Khmer People's National Liberation Front
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