CAMBODIA: Cambodia's prime minister, Hun Sen, said yesterday he would invite the opposition to join his government if the ruling party won the next general election.
The offer, made after a dramatic public reconciliation between Hun Sen and chief opposition leader Sam Rainsy, was welcomed promptly.
Hun Sen told a national conference on poverty reduction that the country, which has a long history of fractious politics, needed to work together as it recovered from the bloody Khmer Rouge years.
"Our people went through so much suffering, I need to gather all kinds of resources to work for the interests of the people regardless of whether they are the opposition," he said.
"I will mobilise more parties to work for the next government, including the opposition party if they want to," Hun Sen said.
The offer came just days after Sam Rainsy returned from a year of self-imposed exile in France during which he was sentenced to 18 months in jail on criminal defamation charges Hun Sen brought against him.
That, along with several similar cases, prompted tough criticism of Hun Sen from abroad, particularly from key aid donors to a country where an estimated 28 per cent of the 13 million people live below the poverty line.
But Cambodia's main political leaders patched up their differences this month and Sam Rainsy returned home declaring a new era.
Hun Sen's Cambodian People's Party (CPP), which won 73 seats in the 123-seat parliament in the 2003 polls, is expected to win the next election. - (Reuters)