During the Second World War, Nazi Germany invaded France and in 1945 the Japanese ousted the French from Cambodia, with Sihanouk proclaiming his country's independence. After the war ended with Germany's and Japan's defeat, France reasserted its control over Cambodia in 1946, but allowed for the creation of a new constitution and the establishment of various political parties. The most successful of these was the Democratic Party, which won the 1946 general election. According to Chandler, Sâr and Sary worked for the party during its successful election campaign; conversely, Short maintains that Sâr had no contact with the party. Sihanouk opposed the party's left-leaning reforms and in 1948 dissolved the National Assembly, instead ruling by decree. Operatives of Ho Chi Minh's better established Vietnamese Marxist–Leninist group, the Việt Minh, also established a nascent Marxist–Leninist movement, but it was beset by ethnic tensions between the Khmer and Vietnamese. News of the group was censored from the press and it is unlikely Sâr was aware of it.