[4] The party was to sweep the 1947 National Assembly elections, assisted by an enthusiastic team of activists (including a young Saloth Sar, later to become known as Pol Pot, and Ieng Sary).
The defection of Yem Sambaur and several other deputies to the Liberals in 1948 and the subsequent assassination of Democrat leader Ieu Koeus in 1950 by a member of Norindeth's entourage led to a period of fragmentation and division in the party.
[6] However, despite the temporary ascendancy of the Liberals, the Democrats continued to attract many members of the Khmer intellectual elite in the period leading up to and immediately following Cambodian independence in 1953,[7] and retained particular support amongst civil servants and the urban educated classes.
Son Ngoc Thanh, a former Prime Minister under the Japanese occupation, was also to join the Democrats between 1951 and 1952, when he left for the forests of northern Cambodia to start a right-leaning independence movement.
[8] At this stage, its stance emphasized the importance of the 1954 Geneva Conference in guaranteeing independence and the undesirability of accepting American aid as a result (a position similar to that of the rival socialist Pracheachon party).