Patriotic and Democratic Front of the Great National Union of Kampuchea

In theory, the Union served as an interim organization fulfilling the conditions of a government in exile at the Kampuchean-Thai border until the formation of the Coalition Government of Democratic Kampuchea in 1982. Within a year the Front had published a draft of its political program. With Chinese backing it disowned some of the "errors" of the 1975-1979 period and announced that the ability to freely marry and to practice religion was to be respected, while also calling for a "liberal democratic system" replacing the 1976 constitution as it "renounced the building of socialism and communism for tens or hundreds of years in order to mobilize a broad national front to crush the Vietnamese enemy, the Lê Duẩn clique." The Front promoted calls for free, contested elections with UN oversight after the expulsion of Vietnamese troops and encouraged the development of private property along with the participation of hitherto persecuted Buddhist monks in the governing affairs of the country. These activities however were widely seen as having ulterior and dishonest motives, with Prince Sihanouk denouncing the Front and its program as a "ploy," and "only a few responded to the Khmer Rouge's appeal for unity under the PDFGNUK," though despite this the Front formally continued to exist as of 1987 under the Party of Democratic Kampuchea. ==References==