Cambodian politics: Sex, power and audiotape

[geovalin]

ON A wet afternoon several dozen activists keep watch outside the offices in Phnom Penh of the Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP), the main opposition group. For six weeks Kem Sokha, the party’s vice-president, has been holed up inside—sleeping in an office and daring authorities loyal to Hun Sen, prime minister for 31 years, to come and get him. One supporter says he is there to act as an observer, should the government make a move; he thinks plain-clothes police officers are lurking a little way down the street.

The stand-off is the latest chapter in a strange saga that started in March, when recordings of flirtatious telephone conversations, purportedly between Mr Kem Sokha and his hairdresser, were leaked online. The courts say he has failed to comply with a summons for questioning in connection with the case. The details are murky, but the ruling Cambodia People’s Party (CPP) has suggested that the tapes implicate the opposition politician in soliciting a prostitute. The hairdresser is suing him for $300,000, which she claims he promised to give her. Separately, a social-media starlet and once-vocal opposition supporter claims she was defamed by criticism of her heard on the tapes.

read more http://www.economist.com/news/asia/21701771-crackdown-cambodia-leads-curious-siege-sex-power-and-audiotape

[ggt]

Wow, who knew! A Thai Soap Opera being played out in real life in the halls of government in Cambodia...

Must be the talk of the town...how exciting for a Cambodian who lives an otherwise ho-hum life...