Norodom Norindeth

Prince Norodom Norindeth (Khmer: នរោត្តម នរិន្ទដេត, 1906?–1975) was a member of the royal family of Cambodia. Active as a politician and diplomat during the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s, he started a notable political party.

Biography

Norindeth was a grandson of Norodom of Cambodia and was educated at the University of Paris. Under the French-imposed Cambodian constitution, any member of the Norodom or Sisowath descendants of King Ang Duong could be chosen as the country's king, and after the 1941 death of Sisowath Monivong, Norindeth, along with Sisowath Monireth and Norodom Suramarit, was one of several main candidates for the throne. However, the French authorities ultimately selected his 19-year-old nephew Norodom Sihanouk as king, though Norindeth was made a member of the Council of Regency.

In 1946 Norindeth formed the Liberal Party, initially known as the Constitutionalist Party. It was the first to be created in the country's history. The Liberals were broadly pro-French and advocated a gradual approach to self-rule, maintaining strong French links: Norindeth hoped to gain the guaranteed support of the elite, anticommunists, and the country's Cham minority. Unlike their main rivals, the radical and pro-independence Democratic Party of Ieu Koeus and Prince Sisowath Youtevong, the Liberals were heavily funded by the French, who backed them covertly as a way of maintaining their influence. Norindeth organised Party meetings at his home, though these served to convince some observers that the Prince "had no idea of politics".