Cambodian elections a choice between strongman or boycott
BANGKOK — Cambodians voting in the general election on Sunday will have a nominal choice of 20 parties, but in reality, only two serious options: extend Prime Minister Hun Sen’s 33 years in power or not vote at all.
The key factor virtually ensuring a walkover by Hun Sen’s party is the elimination of any credible opposition, accomplished last November when the Supreme Court declared the Cambodian National Rescue Party complicit in trying to overthrow the government in a plot encouraged by the U.S. The far-fetched allegation appears unsupported by any evidence.
The court ordered the party dissolved, also banning its leaders from holding office for five years and expelling its members from the elected positions they held. One party leader already was in exile and the other in jail awaiting trial on the treason charge.
Along with fracturing the political opposition, Hun Sen’s government silenced critical voices in the media, shutting down about 30 radio stations and gutting two English-language newspapers. A law was passed putting burdensome restrictions on the country’s vibrant civil society organizations.
With control of the legislature and the bureaucracy, as well as influence over the judiciary, there are no checks and balances on Hun Sen’s administration.
“Cambodia’s election is a sham process that is designed to prolong Hun Sen’s authoritarian rule and will plunge the country into further misery and repression,” said Debbie Stothard, secretary-general of the Parisbased International Federation for Human Rights.
The leaders of the now defunct opposition party, most of whom have fled into exile to avoid arbitrary arrest, have called for a boycott of the polls.
“Going to vote on 29 July 2018 means that you play the dirty game of a group of traitors led by Hun Sen who is killing democracy and selling off our country,” Sam Rainsy, the popular, self-exiled former leader of the CNRP, wrote on his Facebook page this month. “Boycotting that fake and dangerous election means that we uphold our ideals by remaining loyal to our people and determined to rescue to our Motherland.”
Ironically, a practice to fight vote fraud — dipping a finger in indelible ink to prevent multiple voting — makes Cambodians who fail to cast their ballots highprofile targets for any officials seeking to spot and punish opposition supporters.
The “Clean Finger” campaign promoted by the opposition is a form of political mobilization, said Mu Sochua, a former lawmaker and CNRP vice-president.
According to her, not voting, not dipping one’s finger in indelible ink, is a political gesture: “This little finger that I have, that each of you have, is a symbol of what we stand for, what you want, democracy, freedom, liberty, justice.”
Officials, claiming advocacy of the boycott is illegal, have made several arrests, but the opposition has effectively used social media to publicize its call.
Nineteen small parties registered to challenge Hun Sen’s Cambodian People’s Party, but almost all are serving as windowdressing to give the illusion of democratic choice.
Hun Sen has always ruled with a carefully modulated amount of repression, swinging between violence and reconciliation, but the slide into more serious authoritarian rule was triggered by the last general election in 2013, when the opposition CNRP won 55 seats in the National Assembly — a gain of 26 seats, while Hun Sen’s party lost 22. The race was close enough for the opposition to claim that it would have won except for manipulation of the voter registration process.
In local elections last year, the CNRP showed a similar dramatic upward trend.
The results were alarming for Hun Sen, who at 65 insists he will serve two more five-year terms.
Hun Sen can take credit for helping put an end to the longrunning threat of the Khmer Rouge, the radical communist group whose 1975-79 genocidal rule left almost two million dead. A Khmer Rouge officer himself, Hun Sen defected to neighbouring Vietnam, with whose army he returned to help oust his former comrades. He became prime minister in a Hanoi-backed regime, and continued to battle Khmer Rouge guerrillas into the 1990s.
More recently, he has presided over a period of impressive economic growth.
But with economic growth came corruption, land-grabbing and cronyism.
Demographics also appear to work against Hun Sen’s party. A younger generation, without firsthand acquaintance of their country’s history of war and instability, are less likely to pay heed to his warnings.