The Kingdom’s tumultuous year
WITH its promised electoral showdown between the long-ruling Cambodian People’s Party and the insurgent Cambodia National Rescue Party, 2018 would have been the year many observers put their money on for major political fireworks. But thanks to a handful of shocking developments – not least of all the snap eradication of the CNRP by the Supreme Court – 2017 more than held its own. Indeed, the past 12 months have seen their fair share of drama on multiple fronts. What follows is a rundown of the 10 biggest stories to dominate the year gone by.
The final nail in the coffin
A seven-hour trial on November 16 dealt Cambodia’s opposition movement the biggest setback it had seen in years. The Supreme Court, led by senior CPP official Dith Munty, ruled that the primary electoral threat to Prime Minister Hun Sen’s three-decade hold on power had acted against the interests of the Kingdom by allegedly engaging in a so-called “colour revolution”.
The Cambodia National Rescue Party was immediately dismantled and 118 of its senior officials were banned from the political arena for five years. The ruling party also rammed through amendments to the electoral laws, distributing the CNRP’s National Assembly positions among smaller, electorally insignificant parties, however keeping a lion’s share of the commune council positions.
While the verdict was swift, the lead up to the trial saw a persistent months-long campaign by the government to suggest that the opposition had tried to topple the government with the aid of the United States, which came under constant fire from the premier.
All of this rested on a 2013 video of Kem Sokha in Australia claiming that he had received US assistance to plan his political trajectory.
Within hours of the video hitting Fresh News on September 2, around 100 security personnel surrounded former CNRP President Kem Sokha’s residence, arresting him and taking him to a Tbong Khmum prison to face charges of “treason”.
The alleged US involvement in this government fuelled conspiracy has lead to a worsening of bilateral relations, with the Kingdom’s geopolitical swing towards China strongly cemented. The superpower has pulled back funding for the 2018 national elections, a move mirrored by the European Union, with both trading partners threatening further repercussions.
The aftermath of Sokha’s arrest and dissolution of the party has left former CNRP members scrambling overseas for fear of reprisals, hundreds defecting to the CPP under duress and others now living under the yoke of heightened surveillance.
A local affair
Prior to its untimely demise, the Cambodia National Rescue Party made history by wrenching more than 400 communes from the ruling Cambodian People’s Party in June’s local elections.
Though the CPP managed to hang on to 70 percent of commune chief positions, the CNRP’s gains were the largest ever by an opposition party since local elections began in 2008. The gains were such that as the noose tightened on the CNRP, some observers suggested their performance at the local level had precipitated the crackdown on the party.
Buoyed by a 2012 merger and better-than-expected results in 2013 national elections, the CNRP’s newly minted president, Kem Sokha, set out in May with a lofty objective: winning 60 percent of the vote share. At the time the CPP had an iron grip on commune councils, controlling 97 percent of the country’s commune chiefs.
As the opposition’s campaign ramped up, Prime Minister Hun Sen and other CPP officials deployed violent rhetoric, warning of a return to civil war and even threatening that he wouldn’t hesitate to “eliminate 100 or 200” CNRP supporters if they protested the election results.
In an unusual move, the premier, who had stayed away from active campaigning for years, hit the trail in a massive rally that snaked around Phnom Penh on the final day of campaigning. The ruling party spent an estimated $576,000 on airtime to have the rally broadcast live across eight TV networks.
Come election day on June 4, election monitors and observers found only minor electoral violations marring an otherwise smooth voting process, though they pointed to the violent rhetoric as a troubling issue. On June 26, the National Election Committee announced that the CNRP had won a respectable 44 percent of the vote, enough to take 489 commune chief positions and 5,007 council seats to the CPP’s 1,156 and 6,503, respectively.
The minor Khmer National United Party – led by Nhek Bun Chhay, who was arrested shortly after the election – won one commune in Banteay Meanchey province.
Scorched earth tactics
The government’s scorched earth tactics were not reserved just for the Cambodia National Rescue Party. Local and international NGOs and media organisations also felt the brunt of the CPP’s efforts to quell dissent ahead of the 2018 national elections.
The Cambodia Daily, a fiercely independent newspaper, was slapped with an “astronomical” $6.3 million tax bill in early August by the Tax Department. A monthlong back and forth between the two sides proceeded to play out in the media, culminating in Prime Minister Hun Sen issuing an ultimatum – pay up or leave.
The Daily decided to shutter the newspaper on September 4, but not before splashing Kem Sokha’s midnight arrest across the front page of its final edition with the headline Descent into outright dictatorship.
Around the same time, the US-funded National Democratic Institute was abruptly shuttered and its staffers given seven days to leave the country, allegedly for not registering with the government under the controversial NGO Law. However, the shutdown followed multiple, anonymous articles on government mouthpiece Fresh News alleging the group was pushing US foreign policy by aiding in anti-government mass movements across the world.
Like the Daily, more than a dozen radio stations were shut down for selling airtime to Radio Free Asia, Voice of America, Voice of Democ- racy and the CNRP. US-funded RFA and VOA were also warned about tax payments and licensing issues, with the former saying it was unviable to continue its in-country operations. It continues to report on the Kingdom from Washington, DC.
In November, two former RFA reporters, Oun Chhin and Yeang Sothearin, were charged with “espionage” for allegedly setting up a radio production studio to send news reports to RFA. The pair and RFA have denied the accusation. If convicted, they could face up to 15 years in prison. Earlier in the year, Australian filmmaker James Ricketson was also arrested and slapped with espionage charges after flying a drone at an opposition campaign rally.
Local NGOs, meanwhile, found themselves under increased scrutiny. In an October letter, the Interior Ministry instructed provincial officials to report any activities carried out by grassroots organisations, and authorised them to stop any planned events if they affected “public order and national security”.
More recently, the Cambodian Center for Human Rights was in the premier’s crosshairs for its links to the CNRP’s Kem Sokha, who founded the NGO, and for allegedly serving foreign inter- ests. But in a surprising turn, the NGO was allowed to continue its operations in Cambodia following a Ministry of Interior investigation into the matter.
‘Fake news’ and Fresh News
The meteoric rise of online media source Fresh News continued in 2017, with observers and analysts increasingly seeing the outlet as a propaganda machine for the ruling party.
Once described by government spokesman Phay Siphan as “a space for the government to share the news”, Fresh News has enjoyed unparalleled access to government officials and documents.
Though it continues to maintain its independence, experts say Fresh News exhibits classic characteristics of authoritarian, state-controlled media.
Anonymous op-eds slamming the opposition party became another hallmark of the news source, with the outlet leading a campaign against opposition leader Kem Sokha, repeatedly accusing him of treason based on convoluted and unsubstantiated conspiracy theories and purported “leaks”. The articles, many of which were republished verbatim from anonymous Facebook pages, alleged the involvement of everyone from freelance journalists, to