San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
One-sided vote could put critical economic sector at risk of decline
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — Along a busy highway in western Phnom Penh, Sam Han is among hundreds of garment factory workers scurrying past signs urging them to support Prime Minister Hun Sen’s party.
The 44-year-old plans to head to her hometown near the Vietnamese border to vote in Sunday’s election, even though there’s not much of a choice. While she avoids saying who she’ll pick, similar to many other laborers who shy away from discussing politics, Sam Han said she’s disappointed the main opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party was disbanded last year.
“There should be an opposition party,” she said. “I would be very happy if they came back.”
Cambodia’s election is all but a done deal: With the main opposition politicians on the sidelines and urging a boycott, Hun Sen is set to extend his more-than-three-decade run in power. The real test for Asia’s longest serving strongman is making the vote look credible enough to prevent wage earners such as Sam Han from protesting — and ensure both the European Union and the U.S. don’t remove duty-free access for the garment industry.
Two decades ago, the U.S. and its allies could use financial leverage over aid-dependent Cambodia to nurture a democracy forged after Pol Pot’s genocide wiped out about a fifth of the population. But in recent years China has become the biggest spender, providing the government billions of dollars in loans and public and private infrastructure projects.
That has emboldened Hun Sen to get tough on his political opponents while urging the U.S. to withdraw all aid. Yet that bravado now risks doing damage to the crucial garment sector, Cambodia’s largest formal employer. It accounts for about a third of the economy and supports about 15 percent of the nation’s 16 million people.
The EU this month sent a delegation to Cambodia to re-evaluate its duty-free agreement, with trade commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom citing a “serious decline in the area of political and electoral rights.” The U.S., which imposed sanctions last month on the chief of Hun Sen’s personal bodyguard unit over human rights abuses dating back to 1997, may eventually follow suit.
“Hun Sen doesn’t care about democracy, but Cambodia’s bottom line is still a big deal,” said Michael Kugelman, deputy director of the Wilson Center’s Asia Program in Washington. “So if you can try to leverage efforts to push back against the recent trend, then this is really one of the only tools that they can use.” Hun Sen has pursued a months-long charm offensive at factories in a bid to spur high turnout among mostly female garment workers, who were instrumental in 2013 protests that emerged after the election. Most controversially, he’s proposed boosting the minimum wage to $250 per month by 2023 — a nearly 50 percent jump.
While that may help him get past Sunday’s election without protests, the wage rise risks pushing companies that make clothes for brands such as Gap Inc. to lower-cost destinations such as Bangladesh. The Garment Manufacturers Association in Cambodia said more than 100 factories have closed in the past few years as costs have risen.