Welcome the Centrist Democrats, ICAPP
Today, after 21 days of campaigning, is the final day of elections campaigns. I am pleased to warmly welcome presence of members of the Cambodian People’s Party of Phnom Penh and hundreds of thousands others in the whole Kingdom of Cambodia, who may be watching and listening to this live broadcast. Taking this opportune moment, please allow me to welcome HE Andres Pastrana, former President of Columbia, and chairman of the Centrist Democrats International, and HE Jose (Claveria) de Venecia, former Speaker of the House of Representatives of the Philippines, and member of ICAPP (International Conference of Asian Political Parties), and other leaders, including also former Vice President of Iran.
A Solidarity in the Whole Cambodia
I wish to take this opportune moment, on behalf of the Permanent Committee of the Cambodian People’s Party, to express our sincere thanks to members of the Cambodian People’s Party in the whole country for the last 21-day campaigns carried out in a responsible manner and as a party with maturity. I sincerely thank over five million members of the Cambodian People’s Party for their active participations in the campaign and supports of my candidacy as Prime Minister for the term to come. This has clearly showed a firm solidarity not only in the Permanent Committee and/or the Central Committee of the Party, but a solidarity pooled together in the whole country to unanimously support my candidacy for the post of Prime Minister for the term to come.
To Lead the Country to No Failure, to No Bloodshed
Let me declare with assurance to members of the Party that I will not lead the party to failure and I will not lead the Royal Government and country to bloodshed as (some leaders) did in the past. Members of the Cambodian People’s Party must be aware of our efforts to stand up from four or five people to hundreds, to thousands, and now to millions becoming the only force to resolve and care for our country’s destiny through its nearly forty years in power, and over forty years of our resistance. The party has grown big along with other people’s movements and I thank members of the Cambodian People’s Party everywhere and every generation for joining with me and other leaders of the Cambodian People’s Party to walk the country through to this stage. I am dedicated before our compatriots, especially members of the Cambodian People’s Party, to do no wrong politically and/or morally to fail and/or disappoint our supporters.
Thank and Appreciations to 19 Political Parties in the Campaign Trails
I wish to take this opportune moment, on behalf of the ruling party and as Prime Minister of the Royal Government, to offer my sincere appreciations to political parties and their supporters for taking campaigns to everywhere in the country that clearly indicate our commitment to supporting democracy. Our party has also been campaigning for supports but as a ruling party and incumbent Prime Minister, we have followed closely ups and downs, and related works, concerning the elections. As you can see, besides the Cambodian People’s Party, we have had 19 other parties in the campaign trails, and we all will abide by the laws, procedures, and orders of the Cambodian National Elections to end the campaigns today […]
No Violence and/or Terrorist Attacks, Rescuing People from Flood
Every party, big or small, have all been in full actions. Freedom to perform their actions have been guaranteed everywhere and there were no death and/or major conflict involved. We knew that Pakistan had just has their elections done in violence and terrorist attacks. In Cambodia, there have not been political violence and/or act of terror that threaten people’s life. Allow me to take this moment to express my sincere thanks and appreciations for the provincial, district, communal authorities, and armed forces for protecting our people in the time of elections campaigns but also for rescuing them from rainwater and seasonal river flooding. They have evacuated people to safety and no one has died of the calamity and without our care and concern. In Stoeung Treng, while a dam broke loose in Laos, our authority and armed forces help people move to higher ground in the district of Siem Pang.
Moving Voting Stations to Higher Ground
I have inquired if we could or could not proceed to voting in those areas affected by flood. Concerned provincial governors communicated with the provincial elections committee and they are ready to move the voting stations to higher ground so that people relocated provisionally from their homes for flood would be able to vote. I am so happy and proud to see members of the Cambodian People’s Party at every level – city, provincial, armed forces, etc., taking responsible actions to resolve challenging issues of flooding […]
Peace Brings Development, Development to Keep Peace
I have made a statement on the elections campaign opening day already concerning the political platform of the Cambodian People’s Party to seek our people’s support and adoption. I have no need to reiterate every lines of it. What I wish to affirm here today is that the Cambodian People’s Party gives a high priority to peace and development, a knot of two strings together. We must have peace to work on development, and we must ensure development to keep peace. This is the prioritized policy of the Cambodian People’s Party – before, now and in the future. Peace is for all and all for peace.
Trading Life for Peace
For peace, the Cambodian People’s Party made crucial efforts in various stages to trade lives for liberation of the country from the regime of genocide. On this point, we can see every evolutionary steps taken by the Cambodian People’s Party. We have traded our lives to bring back peace that went missing from this country since 18 March 1970, the day when a coup supported by foreign countries overthrew Samdech PreahNorodom Sihanouk and created war in the whole country.
End/Prevent Return of Genocide, Negotiate Peace, Implement Win-Win Policy
Members of the Cambodian People’s Party have united and stood up to liberate the country from the regime of genocide. That was a milestone foundation of our revival – a basic human rights, the right to life in dignity. We have continued to prevent possible return of the regime of genocide. We conducted negotiations to reach the Paris Peace Settlement to the Cambodian problem. We made efforts to implement win-win policy to bring about peace and territorial unification for the first time in our latest hundreds years of history.
We May Pay Certain Prices to Prevent War from Recurring
Lastly, we have taken effective legal measures to eliminate national traitors who have attempted to overthrow the legal Royal Government and to bring the country again to war. We are determined to safeguarding peace, no matter what price we may have to. We must keep people’s lives. We condemned those who carry out actions detrimental to national security. Should we not take them out by legal means, Cambodia might have been in a certain kind of war. Many people in Phnom Penh have now come to terms about differences they are seeing between this elections and the ones held previously. This time around, in the time of elections campaign, estate prices continue to go up, while in previous elections, because of sense of insecurity, people were obviously concerned. We have evaded those political conflicts and taken stern measures of peace, independence, and sovereignty. We are ready to pay certain prices but we will not allow war to recur and destroy people’s lives […]
Economic Growth of 7.7% in Two Consecutive Decades
Not only members of the Cambodian People’s Party, but also those who support other political parties have all known about transformations in their living conditions taking into consideration from the time when the Cambodian People’s Party took power from 7 January 1979. We put out and implemented with successes already in the last two consecutive decades to achieve economic growth of 7.7% per annum, and in the time of economic downturn and financial crisis, our economy kept its growth at 7% per annum. Poverty rate has gone down at roughly 1% per annum. Though we have not yet conducted a new census, according to our estimation, Cambodia’s poverty rate stays somewhere at around 9%.
Go to Higher Income in 2030 – We Khmers Can Do It
This has been how the Cambodian People’s Party stay close to its socio-economic policy and it has been a formulation in which I, as Prime Minister, have overseen for the last more than 33 years. I am so proud for the supports delivered by the Cambodian People’s Party to improve lives of the Cambodian People to transform our country from poor to lower-middle income and we will keep going to achieve or goal of being a higher middle income country by 2030. I believe – we Khmer can do it […]
Priority Continues on Four Areas
To chive the above mentioned goal, we will continue to focus priority on four areas – firstly, investing in human resource […] I will continue to provide financial allocation for education and health to make sure that Cambodian people and children are well educated for the country’s needs; secondly, building basic and necessary infrastructures – land, rail, water, and air […]; thirdly, providing water for consumption and also for irrigation […]; and fourthly, resolving issues concerning electricity to ensure progress in agriculture, industry, and service sector […]
In addition to these, we also continue policy to impose no tax on agricultural land and also to assist farmers with their needs for irrigation, markets and others […] we will continue to increase salary for civil servants, armed forces, and workers in private sectors, together with our measures from 2019 on to pay not on a monthly but every two weeks basis. Some in private sectors have already conducted this measure. I am calling on state and private institutions to be prepared to start paying salary in every two weeks from January 2019 […]
Six Recommendations for Compatriots, CPP Members
Before moving on to the Botum Buddhist pagoda, please allow me to remind our compatriots and CPP members on the following: firstly, respect strictly law, order, and procedure of the elections until they are finally over […] I am calling on our compatriots to end campaign before 10pm tonight […]; secondly, please do not take or sell alcohol on 28 and 29 July […] we must make efforts to prevent violence […] and I hope there would be less number of traffic accidents too […]; thirdly, CPP members to verify and make sure they have what identification papers they need to go to vote on 29 July […]; fourthly, please remember the logo of the party. CPP’s logo is in slot number 20 […]; fifthly, I am sending a message to the more than five million members of the Cambodian People’s Party that our Party has a crucial role to play in the course of building and defending our homeland, especially safeguarding peace and development. To show our maturity, please go to vote and tick in the right box […]; sixthly, I am calling on the Cambodian registered voters to go to vote. Those who vote will be supporters of democracy and they will be living in peace and harmony with everyone in their villages/communes […]
Those who would not go to vote because of incitement from traitors would be the ones to destroy democracy. They would be disappointed. I am calling you all to rethink about it […] I am calling on authorities to keep their eyes on this movement of “staying and eating Khmer noodle” on 28 and 29 July as incited by outlaws in exiles […] there have been propagandas that elections will be on three days. I must reassert that voting day will be on 29 July – only one day from 7am through to 3pm […]
[At Botum Buddhist Pagoda]
Voting CPP for Political, Socio-economic, and Cultural Advantages
[…] as you all know, even those whose professions were in arts, in 1979, we had so much difficulties to gather human resources remaining from deaths to restore culture and arts and continue to training human resource in this area. We have now ascertained that arts have blossomed in the whole country, in urban as well as in rural areas. We have TV channels throughout the country, which guarantee our people’s access to basic political, socio-economic, and cultural advantages […] it is in this note that the only best choice is to vote for the Cambodian People’s Party […]
Former and Later Generations Work Together with CPP
I am taking this chance to express my sincere appreciation and thanks for people in general, members of the Cambodian People’s Party in particular, for supporting and making active contributions to the Cambodian People’s Party from the beginning till the present. I hope that both former and later generations will continue to do so to guarantee that younger generations will uplift our culture and arts of all forms […] I have danced a bit here and I wish to send a signal to international community and to foreign nations to see that in the time of Techo, Cambodia is not in discrimination. Cambodia is in peace and leaders would not even need a bullet proof vest […] this is a real Hun Sen, who started up with people in every sectors – farmers, workers, traders, artists, etc. […]./.