Democratic Party (Cambodia)
민주당 (캄보디아)
A pro-independence Cambodian party founded in 1946 by Prince Sisowath Youtevong and others. Winning landslides in the elections of 1946 and 1947, it dominated Cambodian politics until Sihanouk’s Sangkum appeared in 1955. Defeated by the Sangkum in the 1955 election and then repressed, it dissolved itself in August 1957.
In depth
According to the French source, the Democratic Party was founded in April 1946 by members of the educated elite who had studied at the Lycée Sisowath in Phnom Penh, such as Sim Var, a nationalist of the 1930s, and Ieu Koeus, an intellectual from Battambang, and it benefited from the prestige of Prince Sisowath Youtevong, a royal who had returned from France. The Khmer and English sources say Youtevong had been a member of the French Section of the Workers’ International. In the Constituent Assembly elections of September 1946 the party won 50 of 67 seats. Unlike the Liberal Party of Prince Norodom Norindeth and the Progressive Democrats of Prince Norodom Montana, it called for immediate independence and regarded the Thai-backed Khmer Issarak resistance as patriots, angering the colonial authorities. The death of Youtevong at 34 in July 1947 was a heavy blow to the party.
In the 1947 elections the party won 54 of 74 seats; the French source says its young activists included Saloth Sar, later Pol Pot, Ieng Sary, Hu Nim and In Tam. The defection of Yem Sambaur and other deputies to the Liberals in 1948 and the assassination of party leader Ieu Koeus in 1950 split the party, but it kept the support of the intellectual elite and urban officials and educated classes. A congress in June 1952 chose the economist Son Sann as party president, but on 15 June King Sihanouk dismissed the Huy Kanthoul government and took charge of a cabinet himself, beginning the party’s marginalisation.
After independence the party moved leftward under the influence of radicals back from Paris such as Keng Vannsak, and early in 1955 it elected a new central committee with Prince Norodom Phurissara as secretary-general. When Sihanouk, having abdicated in 1955, created the Sangkum, some leaders such as Penn Nouth left to join him. In the September election, held amid police and militia violence and intimidation, the Sangkum took all seats with 82 percent of the vote and the Democrats won only 12 percent.
On 11 August 1957 Sihanouk held a public debate with five Democratic leaders at the Royal Palace, and on leaving the palace they were beaten by soldiers and guards. The French source says the party dissolved itself shortly afterwards. After Lon Nol’s coup of 1970, In Tam, one of the coup leaders, revived a party of the same name, and he founded it again after the 1991 Paris peace agreements, but it won no seats in the 1993 election.