[Philip Ruddock holds an important position (“chief whip”) for the Liberal Party in the Australian parliament, and was previously immigration minister from 1996 to 2003. His remarks in parliament quoted below were reported in the Cambodia Daily on 8 March 2014.] I was interested to read press reports of your recent comments on Cambodia and its elections. In the 1980s, which I gather is the last time you visited Cambodia, it would probably be fair to describe Cambodia as a “one-party state”. (That is not necessarily a criticism of the one party, because at that time there were not many parties willing and able to take on, or even help with, rebuilding the country and fighting the Khmer Rouge, who were being supported by a number of powerful foreign governments.) However, since 1993 Cambodia has had regular multiparty elections; in the most recent one, the opposition won a larger proportion of seats than was won by the Labor opposition in the last Australian election. The...
