In July 1998,under the watchful eyes of the world, Cambodia successfully held its first independently conducted general election.But even the 122National Assembly members elected to respond to the expectations of the people have little expertise in running a parliament along democratic lines,and the status of political dialogue between the ruling Cambodian People's Party and the opposition FUNCINPEC and Sam Rainsy Parties is extremely unclear.

In the first year of this three-year project,a workshop was held in Cambodia and a total of 10 legistators representing the three partieswere instructed in the history and present form of the parliamentary cabinet system, using Japan as a model. They then visited Japan in October,where they learned about the role of ruling and opposition parties in a parliamentary democracy,policy coordination between parties,the techniques of preparing legislator-initiated bills,and the relationship among the legislative,executive, and the judicial branches of government from Japanese lecturers,including Koji Kakizawa and Motohisa Furukawa,both members of the House of Representatives. The Cambodian legislators also observed party politics in Japan firsthand, visiting the offices of the ruling Libural Democratic Party and the opposition Democratic Party of Japan,the Ministry of Foreign Affairs,and the National Diet Building.