In Kampong Thom’s Sakream commune, the Grassroots Democratic Party’s Choeun Nasy spent five years trying to work with the ruling CPP in his role as second deputy chief. “I almost gave up,” he says.
Candlelight candidate Sin Rozeth is in her third campaign to become O’Char’s commune chief, after losing her seat in 2017 following the dissolution of the CNRP. The former commune chief hopes to make a comeback in June and pick up her agenda to improve the commune’s infrastructure.
The last time the Candlelight Party contested elections, it was known as the Sam Rainsy Party. Returning for the June commune election, Candlelight Party president Thach Setha called on opposition supporters to unite behind his party rather than remain fractured.
VOD sat down with Kong Monika, the president of the Khmer Will Party, to talk about the party’s prospects and the policies it will pitch to the electorate. Monika admitted that the party was still small and lacking in resources but was focused on making commune administrations nonpartisan and reducing corruption and abuse of power by commune chiefs.
The Kampucheaniyum Party is the latest entrant in a growing group of political parties born out of the defunct Cambodia National Rescue Party. Party president Yem Ponhearith has been a longtime ally of CNRP president Kem Sokha and a senior member of the Human Rights Party.
This video is the first in a series of interviews with senior members of small parties about their policies and aspirations for the upcoming commune election.
In Kampong Speu, a forest-dwelling monk hoots to mimic animals’ cries and talks of living in harmony with nature. But the community forest where he lives has been handed to the military, and nearby residents are camping among the trees to protect the land.
On paper, the protected biosphere reserve around Tonle Sap lake is a flooded forest. But across vast tracts in Kampong Chhnang, there are only rice fields or uncultivated wetlands, bare of any substantial trees. Decades of encroachment have only accelerated in recent years.
Preah Vihear’s Prey Preah Roka Wildlife Sanctuary is dotted with clearings and fresh stumps. As a local patroller walks through the protected forest, he points out dozens of logged areas, many now being cultivated by local residents. Some say they were pushed out from plantation land or are struggling with debt.
On patrol in Keo Seima, community members clash over deforestation and chainsaws. At the front line of a multibillion-dollar global climate-change program, Mondulkiri’s volunteer patrollers say they feel powerless as their reports of logging are ignored.
As mega-developer OCIC completes the filling-in of Phnom Penh’s new island, Koh Norea, nearby Chbar Ampov residents are staring at a mound of sand anxiously unsure if they will be evicted by the development or driven out by real estate speculation.
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