Front for an Independent, Neutral, Peaceful, and Cooperative Cambodia) or
FUNCINPEC, founded by Prince Sihanouk; the Khmer People’s National Liber-
ation Front (KPNLF) led by former prime minister Son Sann; and the surviving
Khmer Rouge army and leadership.^45
The 1991 peace accord and the 1993 constitution
In October 1991 , the warring political factions signed a major peace accord and
invited the United Nations to intervene in Cambodia. The United Nations Transi-
tional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC) was mandated to create a neutral political
environment for free and fair elections. Under Annex 3 to the 1991 Paris Peace
Agreement, a constituent assembly consisting of 120 members was to be created
within three months of the general election to ‘complete its tasks of drafting and
adopting a new Cambodian Constitution and transform itself into a legislative
assembly which will form the new Cambodian Government’.^46
UNTAC held general elections for the 120 -member Constituent Assembly in
May 1993 , and FUNCINPEC won fifty-eight of the 120 seats, leaving Hun Sen’s
Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) with fifty-one seats and the KPNLF with ten
seats. FUNCINPEC’s majority in the Constituent Assembly proved problematic as
the CPP – who controlled all the state’s institutions and apparatus – were reluctant
to surrender control. Negotiations for the drafting of the Constitution proved
difficult. In the end, the Constitution was not drafted by the Assembly but instead
by a twelve-member multiparty committee^47 formed to draft the Constitution.^48
Menzel describes the difficulties as follows:
Despite massive criticism by the media and NGOs about the secrecy
surrounding the deliberations, they remained widely confidential.
The committee had no spokesperson and members were not allowed
to speak publicly about the process. Even the other members of the
Constituent Assembly were not informed about the drafting process
in detail! Foreign influence was blocked from the beginning of
the committee’s work and the draft for a ‘bill of rights’ prepared
by the UNTAC Human Rights Component was not even disseminated
to the members of the Constituent Assembly. In the end there were two
options, one republican (seemingly favoured by CPP) and one monar-
chic (seemingly favoured by FUNCINPEC). Hun Sen and Ranariddh
travelled to consult with former King Sihanouk in Pyong Yang
(^45) Sorpong Peou, ‘Cambodia: after the Killing Fields’, in Funston,Government and Politics
in Southeast Asia,p. 36 at 38.
(^46) Art. 1 , Annex 3 , Paris Peace Agreement, 23 October 1991.
(^47) Of these, six were members of FUNCINPEC, five were members of the CPP and one was
a member of the Buddhist Liberal Democratic Party.
(^48) Menzel, ‘Cambodia: from civil war’, at 48.