http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2006/11/09/...ia_Politics.php
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia: Cambodia's royalist party has fired another prince from its ranks for refusing to endorse the recent ouster of Prince Norodom Ranariddh as the party leader, officials said Thursday.
Prince Norodom Chakrapong, a half-brother of Prince Norodom Ranariddh, was expelled from the Funcinpec party during a meeting Tuesday, Nhek Bun Chhay, the party's secretary-general.
Ranariddh was sacked Oct. 18. Both princes are sons of retired King Norodom Sihanouk.
Under the party bylaws, the expulsion has automatically stripped Chakrapong of his position as a senator representing the party in Cambodia's upper house of parliament, Nhek Bun Chhay said.
"He has been active in helping the ousted leader (Ranariddh) set up a new political party, and that is contrary to the Funcinpec party's internal rule," Nhek Bun Chhay said.
During a special meeting last month, the royalist party dumped Ranariddh as its president, citing his incompetence and frequent absences from the country.
Ok Socheat, an adviser to Ranariddh, called Chakrapong's expulsion as "unjust and politically motivated" as that of his brother's. He said Chakrapong had refused to sign a petition supporting Nhek Bun Chhay's move to sack his half-brother.
Ranariddh, now in Malaysia, is in the process of forming his own political group called Norodom Ranariddh Party, Ok Socheat said.
The Funcinpec party is a junior coalition partner of the current government led by Prime Minister Hun Sen.
The party officials have maintained that Ranariddh's removal is aimed at restoring the party's credibility ahead of upcoming local and national elections in 2007 and 2008.
Norodom Sihanouk, the country's retired but still-revered king founded Funcinpec, which won a U.N.-organized 1993 election. Funcinpec was originally founded on a platform to defend Cambodia's monarchy and to unseat Hun Sen, who has ruled the country — democratically and undemocratically — since the mid-1980s.
But the party's popularity steadily declined under Ranariddh's leadership and its main rival, Hun Sen's CPP, defeated Funcinpec in the last two general elections in 1998 and 2003