The result of the next general election, which is due in mid-2013, appears to be a foregone conclusion, with Hun Sen's CPP expected to record another convincing victory. In 2009 the SRP and another opposition party, the Human Rights Party (HRP), led by Kem Sokha, formed an alliance, the Democratic Movement for Change, to contest indirect elections to provincial and district councils. However, the move proved ineffective. A formal merger between the two parties is possible ahead of the next general election. At the 2008 election they won a combined 29 seats in the lower house (26 for the SRP and three for the HRP), a modest improvement on their performance in the 2003 poll. However, their gains came at the expense of the two royalist parties, the National United Front for an Independent, Neutral, Peaceful and Co-operative Cambodia (FUNCINPEC) and the Norodom Ranariddh Party, rather than hurting the CPP. Direct elections to commune councils that are to be held in early 2012 may provide an early indication of the likely scale of the CPP's victory at the 2013 general election.