Cambodia's verdict

Published : Aug 29, 2003 00:00 IST

Cambodians repose faith in Prime Minister Hun Sen's party but deny it a two-thirds majority in Parliament, which is necessary to pass important legislation.

THE victory of the Cambodian People's Party (CPP), led by Prime Minister Hun Sen, in the parliamentary elections held in the last week of July came as no surprise. Its rivals were no longer united, with the two major Opposition parties fighting each other. The results of the local government election held last year had already indicated the unassailable position of the CPP. However, the CPP could not win a two-thirds majority in Parliament. More than 20 parties contested for the 123 seats.

Indications are that the politically savvy Hun Sen will either manage to co-opt the royalist party Funcinpec (United National Front for an Independent, Neutral, Peaceful and Cooperative Cambodia), led by Prince Ranariddh, or engineer defections from the Opposition. The CPP has been in power in Cambodia since the fall of the bloody Khmer Rouge regime in 1979. The July general elections were the fourth since then. Hun Sen has been Prime Minister since 1985.

The Opposition, as was expected, has refused to accept the electoral verdict. International monitors have, on the contrary, certified the elections as one of the fairest held in the country. Sam Rainsy, the leader of the SRP (Sam Rainsy Party), which fared slightly better than the Funcinpec, has vowed never to cooperate with the CPP to form the government. Prince Ranariddh too has vowed not to participate in a new coalition government. Both the Opposition leaders have cited electoral malpractices as a major reason for boycotting the CPP. As a two-thirds majority is necessary to pass bills in the National Assembly, coalition governments have been the norm in Cambodia, in the past decade.

The three major parties have been sharing power at the local level following the long-delayed elections to the commune councils held in February last year. Though the CPP won more than 62 per cent of the votes and its candidates were elected to most of the top positions at the local level, it still had to share power with Funcinpec and the SRP, for the first time, at the local level. The local elections had shown that Funcinpec was on the decline. Its vote share had gone down by more than 8 per cent while that of the CPP increased dramatically.

The party could not, however, replicate that performance in the general elections. All the same, its performance has been impressive when compared with its performance in the two previous general elections. The CPP is now well entrenched in the rural areas, while the urban areas continue to prefer the Opposition parties. (Most Cambodians live in the rural areas.) The SRP did well mainly in Phnom Penh and other towns where Vietnam-baiting, apparently, found an appreciative audience. Funcinpec's credibility has taken a beating for its role in the earlier government, which made many Cambodians discount it as an alternative to the CPP. Last year many senior Funcinpec leaders even initiated moves to sideline Prince Ranariddh and install a leader who would be capable of challenging Hun Sen effectively.

The Cambodian monarch, Prince Sihanouk, is expected to bring his good offices into play this time round as well, as he did five years ago, to bring about a political reconciliation. The ailing, 80-year-old Sihanouk is not known to have a soft corner for Hun Sen, a former Khmer Rouge soldier and a Communist. But he would not want Cambodia to plunge into anarchy and bloodletting, which characterised the politics in the 1960s and the 1970s. In the months preceding the elections, Sihanouk and Hun Sen were engaged in political sparring in typical Cambodian style.

In fact, Sihanouk, writing under the pseudonym "Rom Ritt", has been critical of Hun Sen's style of functioning. In a letter published in the local media, he sarcastically described Hun Sen as a "great leader" running a "beggar nation". But a truce of sorts has now been worked out between the King and the Prime Minister. Especially since Hun Sen will have a decisive say in selecting a new King when Sihanouk departs. "I have no right to be the King, but I have the right to create a King," Hun Sen remarked last year. The monarch, it seems, is not too fond of his numerous children. Instead, he wants one of his wives to succeed him. Sihanouk is still held in high esteem by the people and the issue of royal succession is an emotive one for them.

Political stability is important for Cambodia. The violence that followed the announcement of the 1998 election results caused panic among foreign investors and businessmen. Funcinpec eventually agreed to join the government as a junior partner. The international business community seemed to be in favour of Hun Sen and the CPP retaining power with Funcinpec in tow. Sam Rainsy, the U.S.-educated politician, who hopes to dislodge Hun Sen eventually, is seen by many as too xenophobic and volatile. He and his party unabashedly tried to exploit the anti-Vietnamese sentiments of urban Cambodians. Vietnam had played a key role in helping the Cambodian people get rid of the Khmer Rouge.

The Khmer Rouge, during its rule, had targeted the sizable Vietnamese minority community residing in Cambodia. Many opposition parties, especially SRP, seem keen to portray Vietnam as a big, domineering neighbour out to exploit Cambodia's resources. Ties between Phnom Penh and Hanoi remain strong. Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos together had fought against colonialism and later against American imperialism. The ruling parties in all the three countries also share close ties, though the CPP, unlike the Vietnamese Communist Party, no longer adheres to a socialist worldview. Thailand, which also shares borders with Cambodia, had a very profitable relationship with the Khmer Rouge regime. Timber and precious stones found their way illegally into Thailand in great quantities during the Khmer Rouge dispensation.

THE Cambodian government is also close to Washington. In fact, the Bush administration gave the impression that it would prefer Hun Sen and his party to continue in power, which was not the case during previous elections. Hun Sen was demonised by the Western media, and the favoured candidates of the West were Prince Ranariddh and Sam Rainsy, who fought the elections jointly. Hun Sen, like many other South-East Asian leaders, has gone out of his way to show his support for America's "war against terror".

Some schools run by Cambodia's small Islamic minority with money coming from Saudi Arabian charity foundations have been shut down. Government officials claimed that the schools were propagating "terrorist dogma", though no evidence was provided. The government has not done enough in the field of education. It is reported that around half of the school-going children drop out before completing school. A study by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has also reported that living standards have gone down, with infant mortality rate rising from 79 deaths per 1,000 live births in 1987 to 95 per 1,000 in the year 2000.

During the election campaign the CPP claimed credit for defeating former Khmer Rouge leaders, and then bringing them to trial. In August 2001, the Cambodian National Assembly passed the Khmer Rouge Tribunal Law, to bring the Khmer Rouge leaders to justice. But the United Nations has since said that the tribunal would not meet the international standards of "impartiality, independence and objectivity". The government, however, plans to continue with the trials despite the doubts expressed by the U.N. and some neighbouring countries, notably China.

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