The Sam Rainsy Party (Khmer: Kanakpak Sam Rainsy; SRP) is a personalist liberal party in Cambodia. The party is a member of the Council of Asian Liberals and Democrats, Liberal International, and the Alliance of Democrats. The name of the leader, Sam Rainsy, is pronounced in Khmer as “Som Rangsee”.
The Sam Rainsy Party, founded in 1995 as the Khmer National Party and given its current name in 1998, constitutes the official opposition to the ruling Cambodian People's Party. Since the decline of the junior coalition partner, Funcinpec, in the 2008 National Assembly elections, the Sam Rainsy Party is now considered the second largest party in Cambodia.
The Sam Rainsy Party won 15 of the 123 seats in the National Assembly in the 1998 elections, 24 seats in the 2003 elections, and 26 seats in the 2008 elections with 21% of the vote. The SRP won two seats in the 2006 Senate elections.
In 2009, it formally allied with the Human Rights Party in the Democratic Movement of Change.
In 2008, party activist Tuot Saron was arrested on a charge of "being an accomplice to unlawful confinement". International human rights groups including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International described the charges as a politically motivated attempt to intimidate other SRP activists. Tuot Saron was released on 26 November 2010, following a Royal Pardon decree.
In the 2012 Cambodian Senate elections, the Sam Rainsy Party gained nine new seats in the Senate.
Famous quotes containing the words sam and/or party:
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—Richard Wilbur (b. 1921)
“We are the party of all labor.
The whole earth shall be ours to share
And every race and craft our neighbor.
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