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Self-exiled Cambodian opposition leader resigns

Xinhua, February 11, 2017 Adjust font size:

Sam Rainsy, president of the main opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP), resigned as the party's president on Saturday.

In a resignation notice to the party's board of directors and posted on his official Facebook page, Rainsy said that he resigned as the president and member of the CNRP due to "personal reasons."

He said his resignation took effect on Feb. 11, 2017.

"In all circumstances, I continue to cherish and to uphold the CNRP's ideals in my heart," he wrote on his Facebook page, along with the resignation notice.

Rainsy has been living in exile in France since November 2015 to avoid a two-year prison sentence over a defamation charge.

In December 2016, a Cambodian court also sentenced, in absentia, him to another five years in prison for conspiring to incite chaos in the country through posting fake documents on his Facebook page.

Rainsy's resignation came just a day after 60 ruling Cambodian People's Party (CPP) lawmakers submitted a petition to the parliament proposing a law amendment that bans convicts from serving as president of a political party. Endit