Editorial | Articles about Cambodia | Khmer

Wednesday, September 14, 2016

Cambodia Goes After Opposition Well in Advance of Elections

By Michelle Penna | AsiaSentinel

Hun Sen continues repression tactics to stay in power

After taking a relative drubbing during 2013 elections, when the ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) won only 68 of the 123-member parliament’s seats, the government headed by Hun Sen, is now trying to silence the opposition. Fearing a worse election result, Hun Sen is determined to intimidate the opposition stay in power after community and general elections scheduled for 2017 and 2018, respectively.

A review of recent reports by Human Rights Watch makes for a grim reading. “Cambodia became engulfed in a human rights crisis after national assembly elections,” the human rights watchdog wrote about events unfolding in 2013.

The following year, the country witnessed “Killings by security forces, arrests of activists and opposition politicians, summary trials, and crackdowns on peaceful protest.” Last year, “Prime Minister Hun Sen’s government launched new assaults on human rights in Cambodia.”

The upper echelons of the Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP), the main opposition, have unsurprisingly been attacked. Last November, a court issued an arrest warrant for Sam Rainsy, the party’s president, who stands accused of defamation in a case dating back to 2008, when he claimed that Foreign Minister Hor Namhong used to run a Khmer Rouge prison.

Judges found the CNRP’s leader guilty and condemned him to two years in prison in 2011. He was forgiven by royal pardon two years later, but the lawsuit was “reactivated” in 2015 as Rainsy was traveling in South Korea. He has not returned yet, choosing self-exile in France instead.

Kem Sokha, the CNRP’s vice-president, has spent the past few months hiding inside the party’s headquarters, refusing to appear in court after being summoned in a controversial case related to prostitution. On September 9, a court convicted him in absentia for failing to show up, handing him a five-month sentence plus a fine.

Tensions reached a climax with the murder of Kem Ley, a political analyst and outspoken activist, who was gunned down in July. While there is no solid proof of responsibility, swirling rumors have it that the shooting was the icing on the cake of the ongoing crack-down.

Hardly any of this is unprecedented. Going back to the end of the Vietnamese occupation in 1989 and the creation of a formal democratic state, Cambodian politics has never been a peaceful affair. Violence marred the administration of the United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC) in the early 1990s, and tensions between the then-two Prime Ministers – Hun Sen and Prince Norodom Ranariddh – exploded in 1997, as a bloody coup d’état engulfed Phnom Penh.

In the following years, cycles of repression have been followed by political deals and rapprochements between the ruling and the opposition groups. “The current crackdown is part of a long-standing pattern of loosening and tightening that Hun Sen and the CPP have employed to great political effect since 1993,” said Sebastian Strangio, the author of Hun Sen’s Cambodia. “Throughout this period the party’s aim has remained constant: to strengthen their grip on power while maintaining just enough ‘democracy’ to keep foreign donor nations from pulling up stumps.”

But some see a difference this time around. For the first time since the putsch, the government appears truly at risk of losing out, as better educated and better informed citizens have grown increasingly resentful of the mismanagement their country is subjected to.

There is little doubt that such mismanagement is a real issue. Reports by the media and various NGOs have piled up over the years, detailing the systematic looting of the country’s riches and the injustice suffered by common people.

Interestingly, the connection between private and political interests appears to be part of the reason why the government is so reluctant to give up power, observers say, for doing so would precipitate the personal fortunes of many powerful individuals. As Sotheara Yoeurng, an analyst with Politikoffee, a political discussion forum, puts it: “If they lose, what happens to their relatives, to their cronies, to the people who are connected to them?”

He argues that a political compromise should be sought, with the opposition committing itself not to damage Hun Sen’s and his close associates’ safety as a way to ease a transition, but such a deal is nowhere in sight. Hun Sen has once again raised the specter of civil unrest should the opposition win and remove CPP loyalists from the military and the police. Meanwhile, the opposition has been keen on attacking the government as a Vietnamese puppet – a popular claim, given that anti-Vietnamese sentiments run high in the kingdom.

The resulting political polarization raises a number of questions. The first is whether repression will intensify in the coming months or the ruling and opposition parties will manage to find a deal, as it happened in 2013, when Rainsy, who at the time was also in exile, was allowed to return to contest the polls.

Another is whether the CNRP can win even if the crackdown drags on. Most of those who spoke with Asia Sentinel claim that if the elections are free and fair, the opposition stands a chance, but few are optimistic. From his base in France, Sam Rainsy is out of reach, besides being blamed by some for once again beating a hasty retreat in the face of danger. So is Kem Sokha, a man known for his ability in raising support among the Cambodian rural population, a significant chunk of which constitutes the CPP electoral base.

“I doubt a repeat of 2013 is possible because the CNRP appears to be in disarray,” says Sophal Ear, an associate professor at Occidental College in Los Angeles and author of Aid Dependence in Cambodia: How Foreign Assistance Undermines Democracy. “What’s different pre-2013 versus now is that they’ve neutralized Kem Sokha so he is out of commission, cooped-up in CNRP headquarters and unable to rally people.”

According to Cham Bunthet, another analyst with Politikoffee, even a return of the CNRP’s leader would be unlikely to make a significant difference. “If Mr. Sam Rainsy is allowed back, there will be a political deal and any deal benefits the CPP more than the opposition,” he says. “Maybe they just want to destroy the CNRP. They have taken the head away and are now breaking them into pieces.

Labels: CNRP, CPP, Election, Kem Sokha, Prime Minister Hun Sen, Sam Rainsy

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Sunday, December 29, 2013

Striking Garment Workers Join Cambodian Opposition Protests

Dissatisfied by a minimum wage increase, thousands of striking garment factory workers on Thursday joined Cambodia’s opposition supporters in mass demonstrations calling for the resignation of Prime Minister Hun Sen and a re-election.

The footwear and textile factory workers gathered for the first time with opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) faithful in Phnom Penh’s Freedom Park, where supporters have held 12 days of “nonstop” mass protests following disputed July elections they say were tainted by fraud.

The government announced earlier this week that the monthly minimum wage for garment workers would be increased from U.S. $80 to U.S. $95 starting from April next year, though unions have been demanding U.S. $160 per month beginning in 2014.

The announcement triggered waves of protests and calls for strikes supported by the CNRP, which during its campaign ahead of the July 28 election had vowed to raise wages for workers in Cambodia’s biggest export earning industry.

On Thursday, the workers gathered with CNRP supporters in the park, airing their grievances before joining a five-hour, 10-kilometer (six-mile) march through the capital.

Authorities monitored the gathering, but allowed it to proceed unhindered.

Ath Thon, president of the Coalition of Cambodian Apparel Workers' Democratic Union, told RFA’s Khmer Service that the workers would not accept the newly announced wage increase, adding that the workers’ movement “cannot be stopped” and comparing it to a “dam that has been broken.”

He demanded that the government accept the workers’ demand of U.S. $160 per month “if they want to stop the strikes.”

The Associated Press quoted CNRP leader Sam Rainsy as pledging to assist the workers during Thursday’s gathering.

“I'm aware of the difficulties facing the workers and have helped them for 20 years. Now I am ready to help them again,” he said.

“That is the difference with Hun Sen, who is sticking with factories owners.”

The protest came as roughly 300,000 workers from some 100 of Cambodia’s more than 500 garment and footwear factories went on strike Thursday to protest the wage announcement, reports said.

The Garment Manufacturers Association in Cambodia (GMAC) has recommended that its members stop operations for a week, citing fears that demonstrators might damage factories if workers do not join the strikes.

Invitation to talks

Also on Thursday, the Ministry of Labor’s Committee to Resolve Strikes invited six prominent union leaders, including Ath Thon, Free Trade Union president Chea Moni and Cambodian Confederation of Unions president Rong Chhun to talks, calling on them to end the worker unrest.

Committee secretary general Prak Chanthoeun warned that the government would take legal action against any union that provokes workers to strike.

“We intend to educate [the workers], but if [the unions] continue to provoke the workers to act out in a way that threatens security, they will face legal action,” he said.

Prak Chanthoeun said that the workers are being “exploited by the CNRP” and warned that the strikes would scare off investors, who would turn to other countries to do business.

“The strikes have impacted the workers,” he said. “If the workers continue to strike, the investors will run away and they will only be hurting themselves.”

GMAC senior official Cheath Khemara told RFA’s Khmer Service that if Cambodia’s garment factories were to immediately increase the minimum wage of the workers to U.S. $160 it would negatively impact the sustainability of investment in the industry.

"We can't simply increase wages by 100 percent or it will affect investment,” Cheath Khemara said.

“If we do that, both [the workers and the factories] will die,” he said, adding that investors would look to the Lao and Vietnamese markets for lower worker costs.

Re-election

Meanwhile on Thursday, Cambodia’s Committee for Free and Fair Elections in Cambodia (Comfrel) urged the government to hold a re-election to avoid violence that could come from a continued power struggle.

“If you politicians are mature, we must seek a compromise to avoid any violence,” Comfrel board of director committee chairman Thun Saray said during a conference in Phnom Penh held to unveil a report on irregularities in the July election.

“If there is violence, there will be bloodshed and Cambodians will lose their lives,” Thun Saray, who is also director of rights group Adhoc, told reporters.

On Sunday, in the largest demonstration since the disputed July elections, some 500,000 CNRP supporters marched through the streets of Phnom Penh calling for Hun Sen to step down and to announce new polls.

The CNRP, which has boycotted parliament saying it was robbed of victory due to poll fraud, launched daily mass protests on Dec. 15 to force a re-election after its calls for an independent election probe into irregularities were dismissed by the government.

It has vowed to keep up daily protests for three months or until there is a fresh vote.

But Hun Sen last week rejected the call for his resignation and fresh elections, saying there is no provision in the country's constitution that allows for a re-election.

Comfrel director Koul Panha said Thursday that the two parties have exhausted all options through political talks, including the possibility of a power sharing agreement and for an investigation into election irregularities.

“The best choice now is to have an election as soon as possible. That way the victor will win with dignity and the loser will be satisfied.”

Reported by RFA’s Khmer Service. Translated by Samean Yun. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.

Labels: CNRP, Election, Election 2013, Garment, Rong Chhun, Worker

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Thursday, November 28, 2013

ASEAN parliamentarians call for independent investigations into deadly shootings of protesters in Cambodia

BANGKOK — Parliamentarians from across Southeast Asia today called on the United Nations and the international community to conduct independent investigations into recent deaths in Cambodia at the hands of state security forces, including the shooting dead of a 29-year-old man at pro-democracy demonstrations in Phnom Penh in September and the killing of a labour protester earlier this month.

“The United Nations and the international community must take a stand on these blatant miscarriages of justice. It has been over two months since security forces shot dead Mao Sok Chan and injured others when they opened fire on a crowd of protesters, and the state is clearly not following through with a genuine investigation,” said Kraisak Choonhavan, ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights Vice President.

“By conducting an independent inquiry and seeking to hold the Cambodian government to account for their failure to properly investigate these deaths in line with international human rights and legal standards, we not only seek justice for the families of victims but also send a clear message that impunity for state officials will not be tolerated.”

Mao Sok Chan died after being shot in the head on September 15, 2013, at Kbal Thnal Bridge, Phnom Penh. The 29-year-old laborer was caught up in crowds after police set up roadblocks following a day of political protests in the capital when police allegedly fired indiscriminately on commuters, local residents and demonstrators. To date, there has been no credible investigation into the incident.

Also, on November 12, one person was killed and eight others injured when security forces in riot gear used tear gas, guns and sticks to break up a strike by garment workers at the Singapore-owned SL Garment Processing (Cambodia) Ltd.

Political tensions in Cambodia have risen since hotly contested national elections on 28 July. APHR calls on all parties to disavow violence and prioritize human rights and the rule of law as the country seeks to move forward from the current deadlock. As in other countries in the region, the criminal justice system, particularly when it comes to allegations against state actors, continually fails to deliver, APHR said.

“Responsibility falls on the government and arms of the justice system to ensure that all acts of political violence will not be tolerated, either by protesters or state security forces,” said Eva Kusuma Sundari, AIPMC President and Indonesian Member of Parliament.

“We all want to see Cambodia move through this difficult period peacefully. The failure of the state to properly investigate alleged acts of violence by security forces is setting a dangerous precedent and could lead to an escalation of violence during a tense political period in Cambodia.”

Similar failures of the criminal justice system are commonplace in Indonesia and elsewhere in Southeast Asia, APHR said, calling on ASEAN to step up its mandate to ensure peace and stability in the region.

“ASEAN must find a way to end violence perpetrated by state apparatuses before entering an integrated economic community,” said Ms. Sundari.

“I am deeply concerned that the common trend of state violence and impunity in ASEAN member states will only worsen if this serious problem is continually brushed under the carpet to ensure a blinkered focus on economics and trade. ASEAN must change and begin to put the basic welfare of its people first.”

The United Nations and the international community have a duty to press governments to uphold international commitments to human rights standards. In lieu of any proper investigation by the Cambodian authorities, the international community, including ASEAN institutions, must help to ensure justice for the victims of state-sponsored violence and apply pressure on the Cambodian government to meet its international responsibilities.

According to local human rights observers, there have been ten fatal shootings and eight separate incidents of non-fatal shootings by authorities using excessive force in the past 20 months. Only in one out of the 10 lethal cases has there been what human rights observers agree to be a credible investigation.

Many of the families of victims have been offered financial compensation in return for agreement to end legal proceedings against the alleged aggressors. Concerns have been raised that families have been intimidated or coerced into accepting the financial settlements. Moreover, the settlement of a civil dispute does not release prosecutors from their duty to investigate alleged crimes, APHR said.

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ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights (APHR) is a collective of lawmakers from Southeast Asia working to improve human rights responses and social justice in the region.

Labels: Election, Election 2013

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Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Crusader Rowing Upstream in Cambodia

By SETH MYDANS (The New York Times)

Incumbent Mu Sochua, 55, is already campaigning for the 2013 parliamentary election

MAK PRAING, CAMBODIA — “I’m going to get my votes!” cried Mu Sochua as she stepped into a slender rowboat, holding one side for balance. “One by one.”

She was crossing a small river here in southern Cambodia on a recent stop in her never-ending campaign for re-election to Parliament, introducing herself to rural constituents who may never have seen her face.

The most prominent woman in Cambodia’s struggling political opposition, Mu Sochua, 55, is campaigning now, three years before the next election, because she is almost entirely excluded from government-controlled newspapers and television.

“Only 35 percent of voters know who won the last election,” she said.

She has no time to lose.

Ms. Mu Sochua is a member of a new generation of women who are working their way into the political systems of countries across Asia and elsewhere, from local councils to national assemblies and cabinet positions.

A former minister of women’s affairs, she did as much as anyone to put women’s issues on the agenda of Cambodia as it emerged in the 1990s from decades of war and mass killings. But she lost her public platform in 2004 when she broke with the government, and she is now finding it as difficult to promote her ideas as it is to simply gain attention as a candidate.

She says her signal achievement, leading the way for women into thousands of government positions, has done little to advance women’s issues in a stubbornly male-dominated society.

And like dissidents and opposition figures in many countries, she has found herself with a new burden: battling for her own rights. As she has risen in prominence, the political stands she has taken have become a greater liability to her than gender bias has been.

Most recently, she has been caught in a bizarre tit-for-tat exchange of defamation suits with the country’s domineering prime minister, Hun Sen, in which, to no one’s surprise, she was the loser.

It started last April here in Kampot Province, her constituency, when Mr. Hun Sen referred to her with the phrase “cheung klang,” or “strong legs,” an insulting term for a woman in Cambodia.

She sued him for defamation; he stripped her of her parliamentary immunity and sued her back. Her suit was dismissed in the politically docile courts. In August she was convicted of defaming the prime minister and fined 16.5 million riel, or about $4,000, which she has refused to pay.

“Now I live with the uncertainty about whether I’m going to go to jail,” she said in a recent interview. “I’m not going to pay the fine. Paying the fine is saying to all Cambodian women, ‘What are you worth? A man can call you anything he wants, and there is nothing you can do.”’

This gesture is one of the few ways she has left to champion the rights of women, the central passion of her public life.

As an outspoken opponent of the prime minister, she has found, her participation taints any group, action or demonstration with the stigma of political opposition.

“My voice kills the movement,” she said. “It’s my failure. Now I am the face of the opposition, a woman’s face in opposition. Women say, ‘We believe in you. We admire you. But we can’t be with you because the movement will die.”’

During her six years as minister of women’s affairs, Ms. Mu Sochua campaigned against child abuse, marital rape, violence against women, human trafficking and the exploitation of female workers. She helped draft the country’s law against domestic violence.

In part because of her work, she said, “People are aware about gender. It’s a new Cambodian word: ‘gen-de.’ People are aware that women have rights.”

But where political empowerment of women is concerned, she said, quantity has not produced quality, and prominence has not translated into progress for a women’s agenda.

Over the years, Ms. Mu Sochua has worked with nongovernmental groups to field thousands of candidates in local elections. Largely because of her activism, there are now 27 women in a National Assembly of 123 seats.

But 21 of these are members of the governing Cambodian People’s Party — window dressing, she said — and have little impact, following the party line like their male counterparts.

“They don’t speak out,” she said. “It’s hard to talk about this — I don’t want to antagonize women — but if women suffer from our silence, we are responsible. What are we doing to make their lives better?

“This is where women can hurt women. They are in politics, but they are part of the problem by keeping silent.”

Cambodia is still a traditional society in which women are expected to behave demurely and subordinate themselves to men. Schooled in the United States, Ms. Mu Sochua said she had to keep an eye on her own Westernized ideas and behavior, to be “careful I don’t push things too far.”

The daughter of a well-to-do merchant in Phnom Penh, she was sent to study in the West at the age of 12, ending up at the University of California, Berkeley, where she earned a master’s degree in social work and thrived on the culture of outspokenness of the 1970s.

“When I hit San Francisco, I knew that that was my city,” she said. “I began to shine. I let my hair grow. I looked like a hippie.”

She met her future husband, an American, when both were assisting Cambodian refugees on the Thai border after the fall of the murderous Khmer Rouge regime in 1979. Since 1989 they have lived together in Cambodia, where he works for the United Nations. They have three grown children living in the United States and Britain.

“I have to be very, very careful about what I bring from the West, to promote women’s rights within the context of a society that is led by men,” she said. “In the Cambodian context, it’s women’s lib. It’s feminism. It’s challenging the culture, challenging the men.”

She has this in mind as she walks through the villages of her constituency, a woman with power but a woman nonetheless. “I walk into a cafe, and I have to think twice, how to be polite to the men,” she said. “I have to ask if I can enter. This is their turf. I am a woman, and I should be sitting in one of these little shops and selling things.”

And so she paused the other day at the stoop of a little cafe here in this riverside village, an open-fronted noodle shop where men sat in the midday heat on red plastic chairs.

She had succeeded in halting a sand-dredging project that was eroding riverbanks here, and she wanted the men to know that she had been working on their behalf.

“I came here to inform you that you got a result from the government,” she told the men, showing them a legal document. “I want to inform you that you have a voice. If you see something wrong, you can stand up and speak about it.”

Asked afterward what it was like to have a woman fighting his battles, Mol Sa, 37, a fisherman, said, “She speaks up for us, so I don’t think she’s any different from a man. Maybe a different lady couldn’t do it, but she can do it because she is strong and not afraid.”

Fear was a theme as Ms. Mu Sochua moved through the countryside here. At another village, where cracks were appearing in the sandy embankment, a widow named Pal Nas, 78, said the big dredging boats had scared her.

“I’m afraid that if I speak out, they will come after me,” she said. “In the Khmer Rouge time, they killed all the men. When night comes, I don’t have a man to protect me. It’s more difficult if you are a woman alone.”

Mr. Hun Sen’s party holds power throughout most of rural Cambodia, and Ms. Mu Sochua said that party agents kept an eye on her as she campaigned.

Before she boarded the little boat to cross the river, a man on a motorcycle took photographs of her and her companions with a cellphone, then drove away.

Across the river, a farmer greeted her warmly, climbing a tree to pick ripe guavas for her.

“I voted for you,” he said as he handed her the fruit. “But don’t tell anyone.”

Labels: Election, Mu Sochua, Sam Rainsy Party, SRP

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Wednesday, August 13, 2008

Election Results Adjusted for Fraud Give Fewer Seats to CPP

Sam Rainsy's letter as published in The Cambodia Daily, August 12, 2008

Election Results Adjusted for Fraud Give Fewer Seats to CPP

In "Opposition Parties Reiterate National Assembly Boycott Threat" (August 9-10, page 3), you mentioned figures about the election results adjusted by SRP for irregularities.

NEC's provisional figures published on August 9, 2008, reiterated that the CPP won 3.49 million votes and 90 seats versus 2.05 million votes and 31 seats for the combined opposition: SRP, Human Rights Party and Norodom Ranariddh Party.

''The true results of the election" that I presented -- 77 seats for the CCP, 35 for the SRP, seven for the HRP and two each for Funcinpec and the NRP -- were based on taking back from the CCP votes that were fraudulently collected after CPP commune chiefs had issued forged 1018 registration forms to its supporters. Another adjustment was made taking into account the fact that a significant portion of the electorate identified as non-CPP supporters, had been disenfranchised.

We have made our calculations based on two hypotheses.

1- Our minimum hypothesis is based on the assumption that:

a) An average of 10 forged 1018 forms were given out in the vicinity of each of the 15,254 polling stations, making a total of 152,540 forged forms and inflating the CPP votes by the same amount.

b) An average of 50 non-CPP supporters were disenfranchised at each polling station, meaning that a total of 762,700 voters nationwide were prevented from voting for non-CPP parties. Many independent observers acknowledge that up to 10 percent of the 8.1-million-strong electorate were prevented from voting.

2- Our maximum hypothesis is based on the assumption that:

a) An average of 65 forged 1018 forms were given out in the vicinity of each polling stations, making a total of 991,510 forged forms and inflating the CPP votes by the same amount (see July 29 SRP statement "What election observers did not see in a rigged election"). We now have proof that the 1018 forms were methodically and systematically issued by the CPP local authorities nationwide. This maneuver was conducted on an unprecedented scale.

b) An average of 65 non-CPP supporters were disenfranchised at each polling station, meaning that a total of 991,510 voters nationwide were prevented from voting for non-CPP parties (see the above-mentioned SRP statement). This figure is to be compared with the 2.1 million registered voters who did not or could not vote at the July 27 poll. Based on the much smaller number of people (less than one million) who did not vote at the previous national elections, we can infer that half of the above 2.1 million people wanted to vote but could not because they were disenfranchised. This led to the lowest voter turnout for a national election since the poll organized by the United Nations in 1993. The three opposition parties are now collecting petitions throughout the country from those voters who deplored the loss of their voting rights.

For each of the two hypotheses, we have revised the election results by:

a) Taking back from the CPP votes associated with forged 1018 forms.

b) Increasing, for the main non-CPP parties (SRP, HRP, NRP, Funcinpec), the number of their votes by the number of disenfranchised voters, using an allocation key that reflects the actual breakdown of non-CPP votes based on figures published by the NEC.

The minimum hypothesis shows the following results:

- CPP: 3.34 million votes; 78 seats

- SRP: 1.75 million votes; 34 seats

- HRP: 0.52 million votes; 7 seats

- NRP: 0.45 million votes; 2 seats

- Funcinpec: 0.40 million votes; 2 seats.

Total CPP + Funcinpec: 3.74 million votes; 80 seats

Total SRP + HRP + NRP: 2.72 million votes; 43 seats

The maximum hypothesis shows the following results:

- CPP: 2.50 million votes; 67 seats

- SRP: 1.87 million votes; 41 seats

- HRP: 0.56 million votes; 7 seats

- NRP: 0.48 million votes; 3 seats

- Funcinpec: 0.43 million votes; 5 seats.

Total CPP + Funcinpec: 2.93 million votes; 72 seats

Total SRP + HRP + NRP: 2.91 million votes; 51 seats

Furthermore, CPP lawmaker Cheam Yeap's statement about the "three opposition parties" having "representatives" in the National Election Committee is simply not true.

In all cases NEC members had to resign from their original parties; therefore, to say that NEC has political party members as its representatives is a mistake. In any case, no NEC members came from NRP and HRP and only two members were originally from SRP, versus five from CPP and two from Funcinpec, making a total of nine.

What's more, the representatives originally from SRP had actually protested in writing against NEC's plan to unfairly delete voters' names, but they were overruled, which is hardly surprising given they were by far in the minority.

Finally, Cheam Yeap advocated that the NEC's proceedings were observed for irregularities at all levels by international observers and party representatives. In this connection, what does this CPP official think about the assessment by the EU Election Observation Mission that the Cambodian elections of 2008 "fell short of key international standards"?

Sam Rainsy
SRP President

Labels: CPP, Election, hun sen, Sam Rainsy, Sam Rainsy Party

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LAST LEG OF ELECTION PROCESS MAKES FAÇADE OF DEMOCRACY COLLAPSE

The SRP would like to draw the attention of the international community in general and the election observers in particular to the on-going treatment of the election complaints which is an integral part of the election process that international observers are supposed to monitor. The indication is that NEC, which acts as its own judge, is now undertaking the resolution of the complaints in a secretive and rushed way in order to do away with the whole issue as quickly as possible. SRP complaints are specifically processed in this way.

I- Concerning the deletion of names from the voter lists, we already have submitted lists of thousands of citizens who have complained about the loss of their voting rights. Petitions will shortly be available containing tens of thousands of more names from all over the country.

II- Concerning the forged 1018 forms, the SRP has lodged criminal complaints at the court alongside the election complaints lodged at NEC. We have provided a number of these forged 1018 forms to NEC. But we had to blind-fold the photos to preserve the security of the bearers. We can certify that the names on the forged 1018 forms are not real names. We have already shown those forged 1018 forms with the ID cards showing real names to international observers. http://tinyurl.com/5zb97k

In all cases however, the NEC should be able to know the real ID of the bearers as they delegated the power to issue 1018 forms to all commune chiefs. Different cases are possible:

1) If the NEC says that they are not able to know the real identities of the bearers, this means that they have been voluntarily negligent by giving blind power to the CPP commune chiefs as part of a plot to inflate votes for the CPP.

2) If the NEC claims that the name of the bearers reflect their real identities, we can prove the contrary by showing the bearers' ID cards.

3) If the NEC confesses that the names of the bearers are not real names, this is obvious evidence of fraud.

We have numerous indications that the forged 1018 forms were systematically and methodically issued nation-wide in a very organized manner on a very large scale, allowing hundreds of thousands of illegitimate voters to seriously affect the results of the election:

1) We have seized a number of pre-stamped and pre-signed empty 1018 forms. http://tinyurl.com/5gtsz6

2) We have in our possession photos of one venue where the forged 1018 forms were issued in a very organized way: the voter list was on one side of the commune chief, on the other side was a whole pile of 1018 forms ready to be issued. http://tinyurl.com/5nqcx4

3) We have the recorded confession of a commune clerk who says that over 200 forged 1018 forms were issued in his commune. http://tinyurl.com/5gbkoq

4) Each person who received a forged 1018 form can testify that they were never alone: in the queue there were always four or five people ahead of them and the same number behind them receiving those forms. This shows that the recipients of the forged 1018 forms were certainly not isolated cases.

SRP Members of Parliament

Last minute news (8.30 p.m.): we have just learnt that NEC has rejected all our complaints, with no exception, regardless of all the evidence that we provided.

Labels: Election, Sam Rainsy Party

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Giving up freedoms to settle for 'peace'

Giving Up Freedoms to Settle for 'Peace'

By A. Gaffar Peang-Meth, Ph.D. (Pacific Daily News)

Whether one perceives Cambodia's recent elections as a glass half full or a glass half empty depends on one's personal political socialization.

Some would see the elections as successful, as the level of violence associated with this exercise of franchise was less than it has been in the past. Those who were victims of the violence that did occur could be expected to have a different view.

Human Rights Watch Asia director Brad Adams warned against "the trap of using lower standards" for judging Cambodia's elections.

The Mekong Times' Ly Menghour's Aug. 4 article refers to photos depicting a finger-wagging Hun Sen apparently scolding opposition leader Sam Rainsy at a departure ceremony for King Father Norodom Sihanouk and his family on Aug. 1, as their "first public exchange of words" since the elections."

The Times says Sen called "demonic" a joint letter by the Sam Rainsy Party, the Human Rights Party, and the Norodom Ranariddh Party protesting election results; and reports Sen's warning to Rainsy that the SRP's "26 seats" won in the elections "will be divided among other (political parties)" should the SRP boycott the Sept. 24 swearing-in ceremony of the elected parliamentarians. The Times says the smiling Rainsy responded: "My party represents the votes of two million."

In his Aug. 5 letter to the editor, Rainsy declares, "the new Assembly cannot even validly convene without participation from the opposition."

Published reports state the head of the royalist FUNCINPEC party, Keo Puth Reasmey, and his wife, Princess Norodom Arunrasmey, a prime minister candidate, have been told by Sen to resign from the party.

On July 28, the Voice of America broadcast a four-party call to Cambodians and the world "not to recognize the results of the July 27, 2008, elections." Prince Sisowath Sirirath signed for FUNCINPEC.

But an Aug. 2 article by Menghour reports FUNCINPEC's reversal of opinion, as it announced after a closed meeting that it may be "not satisfied with the (election's) outcome," but it "(will) not make a complaint against the election results."

Beyond Sen and Cambodia's elections is the fundamental issue that divides peoples and nations: economic development versus rights and freedom of men.

A political animal, man seeks freedom and justice. Without justice, some men will not stop struggling, undermining a durable peace.

When I was still teaching, I attended a lunch in Washington, D.C., with two good friends: One, a political appointee, touted the policies of human rights and freedom of the United States; the other, a ranking Asian diplomat, defended his country's policy of order and security as a prerequisite to economic development.

What I injected into the discussion was my view -- summarized in "Individual freedom in stable society" in the Sept. 10, 1997, edition of the Jakarta Post, and "The world must have balance for survival," in the Sept. 7, 1997, issue of the Pacific Sunday News. Both referenced Somalia, Bosnia, Myanmar and Cambodia, where "repressive" regimes used terror against their people while the West, notably the United States, did not intervene, and how the Association of South-East Asian Nations embraced "non-interference."

I believed then and now that economic development and human rights and freedom are not mutually exclusive.

I didn't think my two friends finished their meal satisfied.

I find the July 29 Christian Science Monitor's David Montero's "In Cambodia vote, stability wins" sums up the Cambodian elections well: "Prime Minister Hun Sen, who has ruled for 23 years, won another five-year term Sunday. His party has overseen several prosperous years; critics say it stifles democracy."

Sen is credited for Cambodia's economic growth of more than 10 per cent a year since 2000. The CEO of private-equity fund Leopard Capital that will inject $500 million into Cambodia's economy, cheered Sen's election as a "best-case scenario" for big investors. I doubt if Cambodian victims of land grabbing agree.

British economist Christopher Windsor, who called Cambodians "brainless" for handing the elections to Sen, reminded that even if Cambodians make "twice more" than they did before, the goods and services are "three times more expensive," and the 10 percent growth rate that is "distributed among rich CPP members" means that "all Cambodians" are hurt.

The head of the Cambodian League for the Promotion and Defense of Human Rights, Galabru, spoke of the CPP's "mirage of economic stability" as the poor are being evicted from their homes and their land at an alarming rate: "You have a GDP increase, but look at the gap between rich and poor. More than 40 percent (of Cambodia's total population of 14 million) live below the standard income."

Political analyst Sedera Kim told Montero that in Asia, "you don't care about the content of democracy. You care about economic performance first." Galabru begged to differ: "Democracy anywhere, in Europe, in North America, in Asia, must be the same. This is a universal principle," she argued.

Ironically, no Cambodian is in a better position than Sen himself to redress the imbalance of values and principles, and stability and order. But he is the man who said he would stay in power until he's 90, and would not leave power even if he would not win the elections.

A balance between economic growth and human rights must be established in Cambodia, where the people have too long suffered. Unfortunately, economic growth that does not lift the poorest of boats only diminishes the horizon for the millions who are left in the shallows.

A. Gaffar Peang-Meth, Ph.D., is retired from the University of Guam, where he taught political science for 13 years. Write him at peangmeth@yahoo.com.

Labels: CPP, Election, Funcinpec, Prince Ranariddh, Sam Rainsy

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Royalist Parties U-Turn and Accept Cambodia Poll Results

PHNOM PENH (AFP) — Cambodia's royalist parties said Tuesday they would accept the results of last month's election, despite their previous claims that Prime Minister Hun Sen's ruling party had rigged the polls.

The royalist Funcinpec party and its offshoot the Norodom Ranariddh Party (NRP) joined opposition leader Sam Rainsy late last month to complain that thousands of people were left off voter lists in the July 27 election.

Hun Sen's Cambodian People's Party (CPP) claimed victory as early results showed they won nearly 60 percent of the vote, and in separate statements released Tuesday the royalists said they would accept that outcome.

"NRP considers that the election ... was transparent, free, fair and in accordance with democratic process in Cambodia," the party headed by former Funcinpec leader Prince Norodom Ranariddh said.

His old outfit, meanwhile, said: "Although there are some technical irregularities, Funcinpec party publicly supports and accepts the temporary results of the election."

Their apparent u-turn comes after Hun Sen said last week he would include Funcinpec in the new government. He also said another party with two seats in parliament -- and apparent reference to the NRP -- had approached him.

Early results released by the National Election Committee (NEC) show the CPP winning 58.1 percent of the vote, compared with 21.9 percent for its nearest rival, the Sam Rainsy Party.

Hun Sen's CPP has said it captured at least 90 of the 123 parliament seats up for grabs. Funcinpec and the NRP are believed to have won only two seats each.

The final NEC tally will be announced in September, ahead of the forming of a new government.

International monitors have said the election was flawed and did not meet key standards, despite a more peaceful campaign and improvements in the electoral process compared to past polls here.

Sam Rainsy has estimated that one million registered voters were cut from the rolls and has demanded a re-vote.

Labels: CPP, Election, Prince Ranariddh

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Saturday, August 02, 2008

Cambodia's Free Press Under Fire

MANAGING DEMOCRACY

Cambodia's Free Press Under Fire

By Sophal Ear and John A. Hall
Published: July 27, 2008 (International Herald Tribune)

On the evening of July 11, Khim Sambor, a Cambodian journalist, was shot to death in public by two unidentified men on a motorbike. He was a member of an increasingly endangered species in Cambodia: a journalist for one of only two opposition newspapers still permitted to operate by Prime Minister Hun Sen's government.

Although Cambodia held nominally democratic national elections on Sunday, this is clearly a country in which the Fourth Estate - the free press - is in serious and perhaps terminal jeopardy.

Just a month prior to Sambor's murder, the military police arrested his editor, Dam Sith, after his newspaper reported on allegations about the current foreign minister's role during the Khmer Rouge regime. Although Sith was released after a week in jail and the foreign minister dropped his lawsuit against the editor, he still faces criminal charges of defamation and disinformation under Cambodia's penal code.

Sith's arrest came only days after the Ministry of Information ordered the closing of a provincial radio station, Angkor Ratha FM105.25, shortly after it leased air time to four political parties, none of which happened to include the governing Cambodian People's Party, or CPP.

According to the Cambodian Human Rights Action Committee, a coalition of 21 local human rights organizations, Khim Sambor's murder was related to his journalism. The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists has analyzed his most recent articles and found that they dealt with allegations of government corruption, internal rifts inside the governing CPP, and questions about the distribution of benefits from recent Chinese investment in Cambodia.

Sambor is at least the 12th journalist to have been killed since 1992, when the United Nations landed in Cambodia to undertake what was then its largest and most expensive peacekeeping operation, the United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia. The UN ran Cambodia's first national election after a decade of Vietnamese occupation and the Killing Fields. Although a royalist party won that ballot, Hun Sen refused to relinquish power and forced a power-sharing agreement that created an unstable dual prime ministership. He ousted his rival prime minister in a coup in July 1997. Elections in 2003 saw the creation of the world's largest cabinet, with more than 300 ministers, secretaries of state, and undersecretaries, far outnumbering members of parliament and senators, combined.

To be fair, a decade and a half after the UN authority arrived, this election season has shaped up to be Cambodia's least deadly for politicians. The police commissioner of Phnom Penh noted that the number of murders have decreased in comparison to the previous election campaign in July 2003.

With the election on Sunday, Cambodia has entered a new phase of managed democracy: Mostly gone are the brazen assassinations of non-governing party candidates, people like Om Radsady, a former royalist member of Parliament who was killed five months shy of the 2003 ballot by two gunmen in Phnom Penh. Radsady allegedly floated the provocative idea of asking the prime minister to answer questions before the National Assembly concerning anti-Thai riots that had resulted in the burning of the Thai Embassy and the destruction of Thai businesses in January 2003.

While it is no mystery that the CPP will win the current elections in Putin-like fashion, what the governing party needs - more than the veneer of electoral legitimacy - is accountability. The real challenge is not just elections for their own sake - Cambodia has proven that a country can have a series of less and less violent elections that result in the same outcome, in which the governing party consolidates power - but the creation and preservation of checks and balances within single-party rule. These are virtually nonexistent in Cambodia. The judiciary is captured and both the National Assembly and Senate are powerless against an executive that rules by edict.

Cambodians know all too well the Chinese adage: "Kill the chicken to scare the monkey."

Now, the Fourth Estate is under fire. All of the country's television stations are pro-government, while the number of independent radio stations has dwindled to two. Speaking truth to power has never been more difficult than at times like these. Supporting a free press in Cambodia has never been more critical.

Sophal Ear is an assistant professor in the Department of National Security Affairs at the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, California. John A. Hall is an associate professor at Chapman University School of Law, Orange, California. The views expressed are those of the authors alone.

Labels: Election, Journalism, journalist

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Friday, August 01, 2008

Richard Marles Witnesses Cambodian Democracy

INTERNATIONAL WATCH: Corio MP Richard Marles led an Australian delegation observing the recent Cambodian election.

Richard Marles Witnesses Cambodian Democracy

Danny Lannen
August 1st, 2008

MEMBER for Corio Richard Marles has returned from observing Cambodian general elections confident democracy is moving forward.

Mr Marles said troubling issues remained in the country 15 years on from its first elections but people's pride in the democratic process was clear.

"It's fair to say Cambodia still has a way to go to becoming a fully democratic country," Mr Marles said.

"But having said that, from an optimistic point of view and Australia's point of view, which is important given its investment in the country, they're making progress."

Mr Marles led an Australian delegation including MPs Mark Coulton, Nola Marino and Senator Rachel Siewert.

They were part of a 17,000-strong team of local and international people who monitored the election, won by Prime Minister Hun Sen with a sweeping majority.

International observers said the election process fell short of international standards.

Mr Marles said the Australian Government had pointed to areas of concern.

A journalist who wrote a scathing comment about Hun Sen was murdered a few days later along with his son and, in a separate incident, a newspaper editor was jailed for comment.

"I guess the extent of the use or support of the public service for the ruling party was also a concern, and they are concerns Australia has raised with the Cambodian Government," Mr Marles said.

He said he found the visit emotionally moving as the group spent time at Cambodia's killing fields and noted that trials of Khmer Rouge leaders were still under way.

Labels: Cambodia Business, Cambodia Democracy, Election

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Cambodia’s Election Stability, Sort of

Jul 31st 2008 | PHNOM PENH (The Economist)

WHETHER Cambodia’s general election on July 27th was a success or a travesty depends on what you compare it with. A team of European Union observers said it fell well below international democratic standards. Tens of thousands of opposition supporters were excluded from the electoral register. There was widespread impersonation of voters, plus the usual vote-buying and glaring pro-government bias by broadcasters.

However, the election was also the least violent since the United Nations-sponsored one in 1993 that marked the end of decades of civil war. The victory of the Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) and its leader, Hun Sen, means Cambodia is set for a further five years of corrupt and inept government but also, probably, of continued stability and rising prosperity.

Preliminary results suggest the CPP won around 90 seats (up from 73) in the 123-seat national assembly. The main opposition leader, Sam Rainsy, believes his party won around 27, up from 24 last time. The big losers were Cambodia’s once-powerful royalists. Divided and in disarray, the main royalist party, Funcinpec, shrank from 26 to perhaps just two seats; a splinter named after the exiled Prince Norodom Ranariddh did no better.

Though the Sam Rainsy Party (SRP) wants the world to refuse to recognise the outcome, diplomats in Phnom Penh, the capital, believe the CPP has genuinely gained popularity thanks to Cambodia’s strong growth—10.3% last year, producing a boom in fancy office blocks and rural land prices. Mr Hun Sen also won some votes from his tough stance in an armed confrontation with Thailand over a patch of land near the ancient Preah Vihear temple, which a UN committee recently put on its “world heritage” list. The EU’s observers said that given the scale of the ruling party’s victory electoral fiddles seemed unlikely to have altered the outcome.

Cambodia’s election Stability, sort of

Jul 31st 2008 | PHNOM PENH

Until fairly recently Mr Hun Sen’s critics had a tendency to die violent deaths. As he has felt surer of his position, politics has become more peaceful. Patronage and pilfering are rife and the justice system almost non-existent. But foreign donors fill many of the gaps—in particular, building lots of roads and other infrastructure. Roderick Brazier of the Asia Foundation, a think-tank, says the devolution of money and powers to local communes seems to be improving ordinary people’s lives, and the appearance of a few capable technocrats in central government may help more.

Tired and angry after the election, Mr Sam Rainsy remains defiant. The collapse of the royalist movement, he says, means that now, “we are the only serious alternative. It makes the political game clearer.” He argues that the SRP, hitherto an urban party, is gaining support in the countryside. But if he were to present a serious challenge, would Mr Hun Sen revert to his old brutal ways?

Labels: Election, hun sen, Sam Rainsy Party

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Thursday, July 31, 2008

Asia's Next Tiger?

Cambodia’s ruling party won re-election in an imperfectly democratic ballot July 27. Corrupt, impoverished, with high population growth and poor infrastructure, the country might seem a basket-case. Yet with Vietnamese backing and nearly 10 per cent annual economic growth since 2000, it may be turning into another Asian Tiger.

Cambodia is neither very democratic nor very well run. Its leader Hun Sen was backed by Vietnam when it overthrew the Khmer Rouge in 1979, and he has been prime minister since 1985. Cambodia ranks at number 162 on Transparency International’s 2007 Corruption Perceptions Index, well below the threshold at which normal business becomes difficult. For example, a sale of land to foreign investors in 2007 seems to have benefited mostly the ruling elite.

Like its neighbour Vietnam, Cambodia is suffering an imported inflation problem due to rising food and fuel costs. The government’s solution has been to cease reporting the country’s consumer price index “to avert the possibility of disorder and turmoil".

Nevertheless, there are signs of progress. Cambodia has enjoyed economic growth of more than 10 per cent a year since 2000, led by its main export industry, garments. Its annual population growth has declined from 2.3 per cent in 2000 to 1.8 per cent, facilitating rapid economic growth by reducing the strains that high population growth places on education and infrastructure.

Cambodia’s public sector absorbs only 12 per cent of gross domestic product, its budget and payments are close to balance, and it expects to open a stock exchange in 2009.

Foreign investment is the key, as it has been in Vietnam, where it totalled 65 per cent of GDP in the first half of 2008. Cambodia permits 100 per cent foreign ownership in most sectors, and foreign investment is expected to double in 2008 from $US2.7 billion in 2007 (30 per cent of GDP), with China and South Korea the leading investors. Corruption and a lack of public sector transparency stand in the way. But with rapid growth in Vietnam, greater prosperity in Thailand, its other neighbour, and the US market open to its exports, Cambodia could be set to become an 'Asian tiger' in its own right.

For further commentary visit www.breakingviews.com

Labels: Economic, Economic Success, Election, hun sen

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Cambodia's Ruling Party Forms Coalition, But Says Royals Are Out

Jul 30, 2008, 18:10 GMT

Asia-Pacific News

Phnom Penh - Cambodia's ruling Cambodian People's Party (CPP) has ordered the leader of its coalition partner, the royalist Funcinpec Party, to stand down, but will retain the coalition structure, government spokesman Khieu Kanharith said Wednesday.

He said the CPP would form a coalition after Sunday's landslide victory, which sees the CPP take at least 90 of 123 seats - 64 more than it's nearest rival, the Sam Rainsy Party (SRP).

Funcinpec plummeted from 26 seats to just two on latest preliminary estimates, but despite the CPP dominance, axing a coalition which has existed since the first democratic elections in 1993 would potentially cause deep political instability.

'Opposition figures who want to join the government have to do so Wednesday or lose out, and we know many do,' Kanharith said. 'The CPP also orders that current Funcinpec leader Keo Puth Rasmei and his wife Princess Arun Rasmei resign and Nek Bhun Chhay take over.'

Bhun Chhay, an army general with the reputation of being a military bulldog, a love of former king Norodom Sihanouk but no royal blood, will be the first non-royal leader of Funcinpec.

After UN-organized elections in 1993, current Prime Minister Hun Sen forced the victorious Funcinpec into forming a coalition with him, but the UN then dictated that half the police force and army should be Funcinpec, as well as numerous government positions.

The CPP retains that coalition to avoid instability, and because it says it is incompatible with the opposition SRP, which snared at least 26 seats at Sunday's polls and is the second most popular party in the country. Funcinpec was expected to comply.

Labels: Election, hun sen, Royals, Sam Rainsy Party

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Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Flawed System Sullies Cambodia's Election

By Lao Mong Hay
Column: Rule by Fear

Hong Kong, China (UPI Asia Online) — Cambodia held a general election on Sunday, and while the National Election Committee was still gathering the election returns, Prime Minister Hun Sen’s ruling Cambodian People’s Party already announced it had won 91 out of 123 seats, 18 seats more than in the last election and way ahead of its nearest rival, the Sam Rainsy Party, which had secured 26 seats.

The Sam Rainsy Party and three other parties that also won seats, according to the same announcement, quickly joined forces on Monday to denounce the results, charging that they had been “manipulated and rigged” by the ruling party. They cited “illegal and fraudulent practices” relating to “deletion of countless legitimate voters' names and artificial increase” in votes for the ruling party due to “illegitimate voters.”

The ruling party’s victory and the denouncement of it by the four non-ruling parties have come as no surprise. In fact this victory had been widely predicted even months before the polls. Some have cited the economic growth achieved over recent years by the ruling party and the electorate’s unity behind it in the face of Thailand’s recent encroachment on Cambodia as the main factors contributing to the win.

In fact, the ruling party’s victory should be attributed to the system of government it put in place when it was a full-fledged communist party in the 1980s. To this system was added a democratic veneer in 1993 when the country theoretically embraced parliamentary democracy, but it has remained basically intact and in firm control. The ruling party has utilized this system to get itself re-elected over and over since its defeat in the U.N.-organized election in 1993.

The ruling party has controlled all the state apparatus – including the National Election Committee, the judiciary, security forces, civil service and educational institutions – since the communist days. It has manned all important posts with its members, so that the state apparatus and the party apparatus are but one.

Such fusion can be seen in the proximity of the offices of the party, police stations and administrative offices, whose respective buildings are located next to one another in many provinces, districts and communities. Almost all village chiefs and heads of groups in villages are also members of the ruling party. All party cadres from top to bottom enjoy high social status, impunity and material benefits gained through illicit means.

Several months before the election, the ruling party was able to successfully tempt with such privileges thousands of members of the opposition parties, including some senior members of the opposition Sam Rainsy Party, to defect to it. The ruling party has proved very successful in enrolling members, so much so that just before this election one of its senior members claimed that his party had nearly 5 million members, and this out of just over 8 million voters in the country.

Through this extensive apparatus, the ruling party has been able to maintain firm control of the population. Members of each household must be registered in a police-issued family book and a residence book, and grassroots party officials must know each household and its members’ activities. Local party cadres who are also local officials can mobilize and induce the population to support the ruling party. They can also deny rival parties and even civil society organizations access to the population without prior permission. They can prevent, using force if need be, public meetings and training seminars organized by those parties and civil society organizations.

The ruling party has had a virtual monopoly and control of all the media, especially radio and television, on which the overwhelming majority of people depend for news and other information. It has been making use of this media year in year out, while its rival parties are deprived of it. Some press with limited circulation is freer, but the majority of newspapers are run by members or supporters of the ruling party, and it is rare that commercial companies dare put advertisements in newspapers known to be affiliated to any rival party.

The ruling party has been able to secure overwhelming resources for elections when it is in command of state resources and has a lot of support from private companies that seek favors for their business. Thanks to all these resources it has been able to buy votes though building social projects and giving hand-outs during election campaigns, and to fund other election expenses.

The ruling party has enjoyed all these privileges since there is no anti-corruption mechanism in place to take action against it. Furthermore, the National Election Committee also placed under its control has imposed no limit on donations to political parties and their expenses in elections campaigns. Nor has it verified and made transparent the accounts of all political parties. This system only favors the ruling party.

Last but not least, the police and courts of law which the ruling party also controls have acted more promptly and more diligently in criminal cases in which members of the ruling party are victims and members of opposition parties are suspected offenders than vice versa. Some months prior to the election, they showed only apathy toward reported threats and intimidation of activists of non-ruling parties, destruction of their signboards, and even the killing of some of them.

The system of government and social control which the ruling party has put in place and firmly controls leaves little room for free and fair competition among political parties, or for free choice among the electorate. This largely contributed to the outcome of the election, if it had not already determined it prior to the polling day. It also contributed to producing the irregularities which the four parties have used to claim that that election was manipulated and rigged by the ruling party.

(Lao Mong Hay is a senior researcher at the Asian Human Rights Commission in Hong Kong. He was previously director of the Khmer Institute of Democracy in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, and a visiting professor at the University of Toronto in 2003. In 1997, he received an award from Human Rights Watch and the Nansen Medal in 2000 from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.)

Labels: CPP, Election, hun sen, Sam Rainsy Party

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CAMBODIA: Polls Were Fair - EU Observers

By Andrew Nette

PHNOM PENH, Jul 30 (IPS) - An attempt by Cambodia’s four main opposition parties to reject the result of national elections, in which the ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) was returned in a landslide, has met with little support from local and international organisations monitoring the poll.

In a short statement released earlier this week, the four political parties called "on the public opinion and the international community not to recognise the results of the July 27, 2008 elections which were manipulated and rigged by the ruling CPP.''

Opposition parties argue the extent of CPP’s win reflects a campaign of intimidation, vote buying and dirty tricks orchestrated by the ruling party in the lead-up to the election.

They maintain CPP’s vote was further inflated on polling day by the deletion of many legitimate names from the voting list and the issuing of fraudulent ‘1018’ forms by local authorities controlled by CPP.

These forms are official documentation that voters lacking proper identification can submit to be able to vote. It is illegal under Cambodian election law for them to be handed out on polling day.

However, opposition calls of foul play have received little support from local and international election monitors, including a 130-member European Union election observation mission, in Cambodia since mid-June.

"I would say that on the basis of the provisional results published so far, CPP very clearly has a large majority and therefore any irregularities would have to be of a very large scale to invalidate the result," Martin Callanan, chief observer for the EU mission told the media in Phnom Penh on Tuesday.

"While it is fair to say we have some evidence of irregularities these are not of such significant scale," he said.

Although an official seat count has yet to be released, Cambodia’s main poll monitor, the Committee for Free and Fair Elections (COMFREL), has estimated CPP won approximately 57 percent in the weekend’s vote, giving it roughly 90 seats in the 123-member National Assembly.

This is broadly in sync with CPP’s own projections released to the media earlier this week.

In is also in line with the expectations of local and international commentators who were predicting the ruling party would win big in last Sunday’s election.

According to COMFREL, the next largest party, the Sam Rainsy Party (SRP), secured 21 percent of the vote. The Norodom Ranarridh Party, Funcinpec and the Human Rights Party hovered under five percent each.

While describing the general atmosphere in the lead-up to the poll as an improvement on previous national elections, Callanan stressed it still "fell short of a number of key international standards for democratic elections.’’

Despite improvements in transparency, he said the EU mission noted a lack of confidence in the impartiality of election administration among stakeholders, and that all aspects of the election process are dominated by the ruling CPP.

Within hours of the close of polls on Sunday, opposition parties had raised what they believed where serious concerns about the validity of the process.

Approximately 200 disgruntled voters who found themselves struck off the voter list had gathered throughout the day in the compound of the SRP headquarters in Phnom Penh.

A SRP spokesperson said these irregularities including large numbers of people being deleted from the voter list and forged 1018 forms issued to pro-ruling party voters not on the voter roll, many of whom she said were "foreigners, not Cambodian nationals.’’

Speaking to IPS on election night, SRP’s leader Sam Rainsy claimed that the names of at least 200,000 eligible voters had been deleted from the rolls in Phnom Penh alone.

SRP has since handed out fliers on the streets of the capital claiming nearly a million people across the country were disenfranchised in Sunday’s vote although no hard evidence has been proffered to support this claim.

"I am aware of the comments of the opposition parties rejecting the results but I would encourage the parties to first use the complaint process established by NEC," Callanan said Tuesday.

Officials at the National Election Committee (NEC), the body responsible for overseeing the country’s elections, have said the deadline for complaints about the voter list had long passed and no action would be taken on the matter.

It is unclear what tactics the four opposition parties will now adopt to push their cause, although SRP has called a rally in Phnom Penh Wednesday to protest the result.

"The number of names removed on the weekend was no surprise to us because this is what we found in our audit," said Puthea Hang, Executive Director of Neutral and Impartial Committee for Free and Fair Elections in Cambodia (NICFEC).

NICFEC is one of several organisations involved in a June 2008 audit of the voter list, which found approximately 590,000 names had been incorrectly removed from list or 0.7 percent of the total electoral roll.

"Every vote is important," said Tom Andrews, a senior advisor to the National Democratic Institute, which worked with NICFEC on the audit and on training observers placed in 378 of the country’s 1,245 polling stations.

"But we need to base our conclusion on the evidence we have seen in the audit and our observers did not show what has been suggested by the opposition,’’ Andrews said. "It showed that people had been taken from the list but that the number was small and there was no clear pattern."

NGOs maintain they alerted NEC months ago about these mistaken deletions but the election body refused to restore the names.

"It is regretful that NEC did not take the opportunity to reinstate those names when they had the chance," said Callanan.

While Callanan agreed the issuing of 1018 forms on polling day was "in clear contravention of the election law," EU observers had only "found a relatively small number of examples" of these being issued.

Most groups monitoring the poll agree the elections were an improvement on the last poll in 2003.

All groups welcomed the decrease in violence compared to previous polls.

There is also general agreement that the technical aspects of the country’s electoral process, including the ballot and counting, are steadily improving.

"NEC proved its ability to organise technically good elections with the planning and execution of the recruitment and training of election staff and other important electoral activities being timely and well conducted," the EU mission said in its preliminary statement released Tuesday.

These improvements aside, monitoring groups say a long list of problems stand in the way of genuinely fair elections.

Many of these have less to do with what happens on polling day or even in the official four-week campaign, than they are the result of decades of instability and the dominant role played by CPP in the country’s political life since 1979, when neighbouring Vietnamese installed them after overthrowing the Khmer Rouge.

CPP almost completely dominates the electronic media, particularly TV, by far the most important source of information for Cambodians.

The EU statement said this situation is "to the detriment of the other parties to a degree which was not consistent with international standards of free and fair access to the media," the EU statement said.

On Jul. 10, NEC issued a warning to 13 television stations for broadcasting biased coverage of the elections. Ten of these were dominated by pro-CPP coverage, according to NEC.

"Not only do people have a right to vote but they have a right to an informed choice," said Andrews. "CPP domination of the media makes this very difficult."

The 2003 campaign also saw a widespread increase in the use of state resources by CPP during the campaign period, including the use of government vehicles and campaigning by government and military staff.

Other problems included widespread vote buying and the interference of village chiefs, the overwhelming majority of which are pro-CPP, in NEC’s voter education activities.

"I say take it as a whole, before the election and after balloting," said Andrews. "I think this (election) was a step forward on the longer road to a more vibrant and healthy democracy. But there are several steps more that need to be taken."

(END/2008)

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EU Criticises Cambodia Election

A gardener works on the landscape in the front of the Cambodian People's Party (CPP) headquarters in Phnom Penh. Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen took nearly 60 percent of the vote in weekend polls, election officials said, but the opposition rejected his win and demanded a new balloting. (AFP/Pornchai Kittiwongsakul)

EU Criticises Cambodia Election

Monitors from the European Union Say Cambodia's Recent General Election Fell Short of International Standards.

By Guy Delauney
Tuesday, 29 July 2008 (BBC News, Phnom Penh)

They said the governing party dominated the media and the National Election Committee (NEC), and tens of thousands of people were disenfranchised.

But they also praised the smooth running of what was described as a "technically good" election.

The EU observers were among 17,000 local and international monitors who observed the election.

While their findings were a mixed bag, there was certainly more criticism than praise.

The key issue was impartiality and the role of the governing Cambodian People's Party (CPP).

Large majority

The EU team said the CPP had made "consistent and widespread" use of state resources for its own campaigning efforts.

The party dominated media coverage to an unacceptable degree, and the presence of officials connected to the CPP on the NEC compromised that institution's independence.

The monitors said the NEC had disenfranchised 50,000 registered voters by allowing their names to be removed from the electoral roll.

But the EU's chief observer, Martin Callanan, said that had not affected the result of the election.

"Under the provisional results that have been published, the CPP clearly has a very large majority," he said.

"Therefore any irregularities which were proved would have to be on a very large scale in order to invalidate that result.''

The opposition parties beg to differ.

Four of them have rejected the provisional results, which give the CPP an overall majority.

They claim that hundreds of thousands of their supporters were unable to vote and that similar numbers of ineligible people were allowed to cast ballots.

Labels: CPP, Election, hun sen, Sam Rainsy Party

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Quest for freedom and justice has no end

Quest For Freedom And Justice Has No End

July 30, 2008 (Pacific Daily News)
By A. Gaffar Peang-Meth

Nobody likes to be criticized, especially when criticism touches on national pride. Yet, it has been said, justified criticism provides room for improvement; unjustified criticism speaks volumes about its author's values and worth.

I am reminded that my recent columns on Cambodia "rattled" many, even though anyone can read much of a similar nature on the Internet. My former students of politics would recall my lectures on how existing freedoms, if not cherished and defended, are hard to regain. They should remember a Chinese proverb I often quoted, "Great souls have wills. Feeble ones have only wishes," and Edmund Burke's words, "All that is needed for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing," as I encouraged action.

I am not writing in this space to sell a political or ideological point of view, although I have my own political and ideological preferences and have expressed them. My intent is to share ideas and provoke thought, for that's how knowledge grows. If ideas and thoughts lead to positive action for society, that's not a bad thing.

Cambodia's July 27 national elections have ended. Some have applauded the outcome; others see the outcome in dark terms.

Eric Pape's "The Rule of Murderers and Thieves," in the July 23 Newsweek Web exclusive should give readers pause; Chhan D. Touch's July 24 "Why you should not vote CPP," (Premier Hun Sen's ruling Cambodian People's Party) on the Internet outlined three "simple reasons ... a Vietnamese puppet: personal gain, fear, and ignorance."

At the same time, the Thai-Cambodian conflict, which put two armies at a standoff over the ownership of the ancient Temple of Preah Vihear, awarded to Cambodia by the World Court in 1962, clouded the emotionally charged Cambodian election. Interestingly, the Singapore Straits Times reported, Singapore foreign minister George Yeo told a news conference after the Association of South-East Asian Nations' annual security meeting, "It was not a problem, even a few weeks ago. It suddenly became a problem." This, in itself, is a topic worth dissecting.

Like it or not, the flawed Cambodian elections put "elected" leaders in government to lead the country. While Albert Einstein's words should be remembered, "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result," we know that in most nation-states in the world the common goals of government are to maintain the country's independence and sovereignty (including Preah Vihear and Koh Tral for Cambodia); security (the order and the security for citizens); and economic and social well-being of all citizens (the promotion of individual and general welfare). How to get the newly elected leaders to achieve these goals?

Last week, I quoted Burma's dissident leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who advised those feeling "hopeless and despairing: 'Don't just sit there. Do something.'"

"Change does not roll in on wheels of inevitability," civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. declared. Change "comes through continuous struggle. And so we must strengthen our back and work for our freedom," he told African-Americans. "A man can't ride you unless your back is bent." African-Americans' fight for change continues today.

There is a Khmer proverb that says, "Live with cow, sleep like cow; Live with parrot, fly like parrot." Such is the power and influence of the socialization that shapes and molds man's behavior, a process that begins at birth and ends only in death.

Being human, we all think. As with most things, however, it is the quality of the thought that matters. I have written about the Foundation of Critical Thinking that posits, "all thinking is not of the same quality," and the "quality of our life and that of what we produce, make, or build depends precisely on the quality of our thought," and "the quality of everything we do is determined by the quality of our thinking."

"To think through," the Foundation advises, we need to "ask essential questions" on "what is necessary, relevant, and indispensable to a matter at hand."

"A mind with no questions is a mind that is not intellectually alive," asserts the Foundation.

I also wrote about Tim Hurson's book, "Think Better," that posits, "Every brain, regardless of its intelligence quotient (IQ) or creative quotient (CQ), can be taught to think better; to understand more clearly, think more creatively, and plan more effectively." Thus, people can learn.

Hurson advises: even when an answer "seem(s) so clear, so obvious, so right," -- as there are Cambodians who think Premier Sen and the CPP's corruption and repressive rule destroy Cambodia -- we should not settle on these answers but "keep asking new questions ... resist the urge to answer, the urge to know ... (because those) who 'know' ... don't need to learn because they already have the answers.

This brings me back to Suu Kyi's call on people to develop a "questing mind" that not only questions but also seeks answers.

The quest for freedom and justice has no end.

A. Gaffar Peang-Meth, Ph.D., is retired from the University of Guam, where he taught political science for 13 years.

Labels: Election, hun sen

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Tuesday, July 29, 2008

EU monitor says Cambodian election biased in favor of ruling party

EU Monitor Says Cambodian Election Biased in Favor of Ruling Party

2008-07-29 (PR-Inside)

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) - The European Union on Tuesday said last weekend's national elections in Cambodia failed to meet international standards because of biases in favor of the country's ruling party.

The criticism came the day after Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen's ruling party claimed it had won a landslide victory in parliamentary elections. The results were expected to usher in a new term for the premier who has ruled the country for 23 years.

Martin Callanan, the head of an EU election monitoring team, said all aspects of organizing Sunday's polls were «dominated by the Cambodian People's Party,» which allow «accusations of lack of impartiality to be made,» he said.

Callanan said there was bias during the election campaigns, citing «a widespread use of state resources,» including the use of government-registered vehicles by ruling party officials.
He also said the party dominated the media coverage «which was not consistent with international standard on free and equal access to the media.

But Callanan declined to characterize the election as unfair despite allegations of widespread vote rigging from smaller parties, including the main opposition Sam Rainsy Party. They have called on the international community to reject the results.

Tep Nitha, the election committee's secretary-general, declined to comment on the issue.
in a joint statement Monday, four small parties including Sam Rainsy, said Hun Sen's party won through «illegal and fraudulent practices.» They cited the National Election Committee's alleged removal of tens of thousands of legitimate voters from electoral lists to prevent them from casting ballots for other parties.

They also accused the electoral body of acting as «a tool for the CPP to organize a sham election and present a facade of democracy.

Khieu Kanharith, the spokesman of the ruling party, dismissed the allegations of fraud.
Callanan said his team will release its final findings on the election in October.

The CPP has claimed a landslide victory with up to 91 seats in the 123-seat National Assembly, which is the lower house of Parliament. Official results are expected in a few days.

Hun Sen has been at the center of Cambodian politics since 1985, when he became the world's youngest prime minister at age 33. He has held or shared the top job ever since, bullying and outfoxing his opponents to stay in power.

Sunday's voting was the fourth parliamentary election since the United Nations brokered a peace deal for the country in 1991, a process meant to end decades of civil unrest that included the 1975-79 genocidal reign of the Khmer Rouge.

Labels: Election, hun sen, Sam Rainsy

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Cambodia's Poll 'Did Not Meet Key International Standards'

Cambodian women stand in line to vote outside a polling station in Kampong Cham province north of Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Sunday, July 27, 2008. Longtime Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen is widely expected to extend his 23-year tenure with a victory in Sunday's parliamentary elections, buoyed by a surge of nationalism amid a tense border dispute with neighboring Thailand. (AP Photo/Sakchai Lalit)

Cambodia's Poll 'Did Not Meet Key International Standards'

PHNOM PENH (AFP) — Despite improvements in electoral processes, Cambodia's recent election was flawed and did not meet key standards, international monitors said Tuesday.

Prime Minister Hun Sen's ruling Cambodian People's Party (CPP) won 59.6 percent of the vote in Sunday's election, compared with nearly 21 percent for the nearest rival, the opposition Sam Rainsy Party, according to a partial count by Cambodian electoral authorities.

But the poll was marred by the CPP's domination of media coverage, the improper deletion of people from registration lists so they could not vote, and other irregularities, said a preliminary report by 130 European Union election monitors.

"While the campaign was generally conducted in a more peaceful and open environment compared to previous elections, the 2008 National Assembly Elections have fallen short of a number of key international standards for democratic elections," said Martin Callanan, who led the EU observers.

"Ultimately, it's up to the Cambodian people to accept or reject the results," Callanan said, adding that the EU would issue a more detailed report with recommendations in October.

The Asian Network For Free Elections (ANFREL) called for an investigation and "a serious penalty" for manipulation of the vote.

"The election was maybe free, but not fair at all," said Somsri Hananuntasuk, head of ANFREL's election monitoring mission to Cambodia.

The main problem was people being deleted from voter lists, while there also needed to be limits on campaign financing and the ruling party's control of media, she said.

The EU calculated that 50,000 voters were left off rolls, but Callanan said that would not have greatly affected the election since early results show a large majority for the CPP.

"Any irregularities that were proved would clearly have to be on a very large scale in order to invalidate that result," he said.

However, the four minority parties rejected the outcome, accusing the CPP of fiddling with the voter rolls to ensure their victory.

Opposition leader Sam Rainsy estimated that one million out of 8.1 million registered voters had been cut from the rolls. He said his party members observed 50 to 100 people at each of the country's 15,000 polling stations had been unable to vote.

"The large-scale irregularities here can change the result of the election. I'm disappointed that such a so-called expert could make such a mistake," Sam Rainsy told AFP Tuesday outside the EU's press conference.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights noted lower violence from previous elections but said in a Tuesday statement it had observed "threats, intimidation and inducements directed against political activists" to get them to change parties.

The CPP has claimed victory, saying it captured at least 90 of the 123 seats in parliament, giving them more than a two-thirds majority.

Local rights groups have expressed concern that if the CPP did secure a majority there would be fewer checks and balances in the country's fledgling democracy.

At 55, Hun Sen has ruled Cambodia for 23 years and has vowed to remain in power until he is 90. He had been widely tipped to win amid a booming economy and nationalist sentiment sparked by a border feud with Thailand.

Labels: Election, hun sen, Sam Rainsy

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Article Titles

» Australia joins UN condemnation of Cambodia but re...
» ICC widens remit to include environmental destruct...
» Cambodia Goes After Opposition Well in Advance of ...
» The Most Powerful American In Cambodia: The Unlike...
» “WE DON’T CARE, WE’RE STILL IN POWER.”
» Kem Ley’s murder puts Cambodia politics, economy a...
» Hun Sen Bodyguards Had Hand in Beating of Oppositi...
» Cambodia - Fractured politics and a culture of mon...
» Cambodia PM starts to 'like' Facebook as opponents...
» How Cambodian nationalism is driving border disput...

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