Cambodia Assembly Holds Seat for Long Beach Winner

Will Por Bun Sroeu please come back to Cambodia?

Bun Sroeu was one of 120 candidates who won a parliamentary seat during Cambodia’s national elections, held in the last week of May. He was on the ballot for the opposition royalist party known as FUNCINPEC in the province of Kompong Cham.

But before the results were published, Bun Sroeu returned to Southern California, where friends said he has spent the past several years living in Long Beach. Now FUNCINPEC wants him to come back.

“We don’t know where he is,” said a FUNCINPEC spokeswoman when Bun Sroeu didn’t show up Monday for the opening of Cambodia’s Constituent Assembly. “We sent him several messages. Maybe he’s scared to return.”

FUNCINPEC party officials have expressed concern about violence directed against party leaders in several provinces, including Kompong Cham, by officials of the Phnom Penh government angered over their party’s loss in the elections. FUNCINPEC won 58 seats; the Phnom Penh government’s Cambodian People’s Party won 51.

Not only is Bun Sroeu important in helping FUNCINPEC maintain its majority, but he also is one of at least two U.S. citizens elected to the assembly.

The other is Ahmad Yahya, a member of Cambodia’s Cham minority who is an investment adviser in Herndon, Va. Yahya, who ran on the FUNCINPEC ticket in Phnom Penh, said he is now planning to move back to his homeland to serve in the assembly.

“I feel America is my homeland, and I will always respect the government and system there,” Yahya said. “But when I see Cambodia’s needs, I have to come back and do something.”

While the two FUNCINPEC candidates won, more than 20 other ethnic Cambodians who are also U.S. citizens did not. Most of them are from Southern California.

Many expatriate Cambodians joined small parties in the hope that they would win at least one or two seats in the elections. But the results indicated that most Cambodians voted for one of the two main parties.

Gone is the “Communism is Evil” sign erected in the center of Phnom Penh by Kim Kethavy, a Lakewood, Calif., service station owner whose Republic Democracy Khmer Party garnered less than 1% of the vote. Kethavy returned to California on the day voting ended.

“I think we lost because most people are scared and fearful for their lives,” said Pok Thuan, an official of the Liberal Democratic Party, which had 11 Southern Californians on the ballot. “It was the power of the gun and the power of name recognition.”

The Phnom Penh regime was criticized by the United Nations for a campaign of intimidation during the election. FUNCINPEC had name recognition because it was founded by Prince Norodom Sihanouk, Cambodia’s head of state.

Pok Thuan’s wife, Nanda Chamroeun, also ran for the assembly and lost.

Despite the loss, the Santa Ana, Calif., couple have decided to stay in Cambodia rather than return to Orange County.

Another defeated candidate was Ted Ngoy, who made a fortune in Orange County doughnut restaurants before returning to form his own party.

“The whole of Asia is not ready for democracy yet,” said Ngoy, who is a registered Republican in Orange County. “I’m very disappointed.”

Ngoy said he, too, is staying on for the foreseeable future, having made a 10-year commitment to himself when he returned to Cambodia.