New Govt: Who is Really in Control?

by Nate Thayer 

Friday, 19 November 1993, Phnom Penh Post

Nate Thayer

The three adopted Samdachs ['Princes'] sitting in front row. Sar Kheng is in the back row, between his brother-in-law and King Father's favourite adopted son! [School of Vice]

 

“Diplomats say that Sar Kheng and Chea Sim remain more suspicious of a powerful monarchy than Hun Sen.”

“While analysts agree that the elections bestowed a vital legitimacy of popular support on FUNCINPEC which forced the CPP to bow partly to popular will, the fundamental means of how power is achieved, protected and maintained, remains constant to that in modern Cambodian political culture- rife with united front alliances, partnerships of convenience, backroom powerplays, and the promise of conflict at the first show of weakness.”

When scores of opposition party figures were systematically gunned down during the elections, the U.N. accused the ruling Cambodian People's Party of controlling the death squads. And when the CPP lost the election, their leaders mounted an armed secession of the eastern half of the country refusing to hand over power.

The glow of the elections has long faded, the U.N/ has gone, the transition period over, and, with muted pomp, a new government was formed earlier this month.

But many analysts say that when the smoke clears and the rhetoric subsides, those in real power in Cambodia may remain the same CPP leaders who lost the U.N. organized elections.

Despite the U.N. leaders self-congratulatory applause of UNTAC as a "model" for the future missions, the election results have become only one of the influences that will decide the new government.

The entrenched old methods of power politics - intimidation, the threat of violence, factional power bases, and the control of armed forces, security apparatus, and the loyalty of rank and file bureaucracy - will remain the dominant forces determining who comes out in control of the new government in coming months.

FUNCINPEC has emerged with the key portfolios of the Prime Minister's office, Foreign Affairs and Finance, while the CPP has the 2nd Prime Ministership, key positions in the Council of Ministers, Commerce, Agriculture, and the head of the National Assembly.

On paper the two parties share the leadership of the Interior and Defense Ministries. The Buddhist Liberal Democratic Party(BLDP) has been given the Information portfolio in a compromise between the two larger parties.

But analysts say that in itself, the leadership of these ministries represent only the veneer of power and control. They say the traditions of organizing power in Cambodia are rooted in control of the armed forces, interior and security apparatus, state bureaucracy and, importantly, the provincial political structures which control police, armed forces, tax collection, and civil service.

These areas remain under the control of the CPP faction and respond to political loyalty before central authority, analysts say.

FUNCINPEC officials say that such an analysis is premature since they only just assumed office, and that they did not have the authority during the transitional government to make serious efforts to take control of the ministries they were awarded.

"The Royal government has been only two weeks in operation," Economics and Finance Minister Sam Rainsy told the Post on Nov. 15. "This is still a transitional period," he said, but claimed that efforts to gain control of the government would be a priority of his party.

"We will introduce FUNCINPEC cadre to all levels of ministries," he said, arguing that many CPP cadre actually voted for his party.

"The CPP knows they are fighting a rear-guard action [to keep loyalty]. They know the trend is not for the CPP. The trend is for democracy. The development of the country means political transparency and that is against the CPP interests," he added.

Others were more pessimistic. "They [FUNCINPEC] control their offices, their cars, but they do not control the bureaucracy," said one official close to Sihanouk.

"The official titles are just theater - a cinema," said another source close to Sihanouk.

"Inside the roots of the CPP are too deep, mainly the Sar Kheng/Chea Sim people. The administrative structure has been maintained, the military status quo and the administrative status quo. Not 100 percent but 90 percent. Only 10 percent will be fulfilled by FUNCINPEC," he said.

Observers point to the Foreign Ministry as an example of the difficulties FUNCINPEC has faced in assuming real control of the ministries they have been awarded. FUNCINPEC sources say that only two of their officials have been appointed to the ministry since they assumed control more than three months ago - the Foreign Minister Prince Norodom Sirivuddh and an Assistant Secretary of State.

Rainsy admitted that having the central government gain control of the provincial apparatus, where 80 percent of the population reside, will be difficult.

He cited "defacto autonomy of the provinces [ that] we have had neither the time nor the political means to bring the provinces under central control, otherwise there would have been chaos".

Rainsy said, "central authority has very little knowledge - not even to speak of control - but knowledge of the provinces."

Cambodia's provinces, under the communist style system, are controlled by a governor, who's real authority come from his position as head of the all-powerful provincial Party apparatus.

He traditionally controls provincial armed forces, the police and security services, the bureaucracy, and revenue collection. He reports to the party, not the state.

In the provinces, the CPP structure remains wholly intact, giving enormous national power to people such as Sar Kheng.

Sar Kheng, some diplomats and analysts say, is emerging as one of the single most powerful personalities in the new government.

Made one of two vice Prime Ministers, Sar Kheng also maintains his position as Minister of Interior. But it is his role in the CPP party structure that has given him the influence that he wields.

His biography mirrors many who remain powerful in the new Royal government. Sar Kheng was born Jan. 15, 1951, in Prey Veng province to a father active in the revolutionary Issarak movement.

He joined the revolution on the day of the Lon Nol coup in 1970 (according to his official biography, although it is believed he was active prior to this) and steadily rose up the Khmer Rouge ranks.

He survived purges of his superiors in 1976, working in propaganda organs in the northeast and east under the Khmer Rouge and joined the resistance against Pol Pot's leadership in May 1978.

After the Vietnamese invasion he served as secretary to then party head Pen Sovann, before Sovann himself was purged and arrested by the Vietnamese in 1982.

During the Vietnamese occupation, Sar Kheng steadily rose through the ranks, serving in key organizational party posts, elected to the central committee in 1984, the politburo in 1988, and in 1990 was given one of the most powerful positions in a communist structure, that of president of the party's commission for organization. He is the brother in law of party chairman Chea Sim.

As head of party organization, Sar Kheng controlled virtually all appointments to party posts, which under the Leninist structure supersedes in importance government or state positions. This includes provincial governor ships and scores of other key positions of influence in state organs and ministries.

When the Paris Peace Accords required the CPP to remove direct party control over the components of government, Sar Kheng assumed his new position of minister of interior. This is a rough equivalent of the party's organization portfolio, because of it's supremacy over the nationwide bureaucracy. Much of the new government's civil servants - at least indirectly - owe him their jobs from when the Party was in charge of approving appointments.

With Chea Sim in charge of the National Assembly (a post he retains from the 1980s when Cambodia was a one-party state) and Sar Kheng in charge of the Interior Ministry, their faction wields enormous power with the security services, the legislative body and the provincial authorities.

The intellectuals within the CPP are largely allied with Hun Sen, who controls the other faction within the CPP. In the cabinet line-up of the new Royal government, all except a handful of senior CPP officials are Hun Sen loyalists, observers say.

As a result, Sar Kheng has begun to attract and recruit a number of intellectuals to policy positions in the Interior Ministry.

A number of senior officials of the Liberal Democratic Party (formerly the armed wing of the republican Khmer People's National Liberation Front) are expected to hold positions with Sar Kheng.

Analysts say that after a poor showing in the elections, the LDP leaders need patrons to protect them, and the Sar Kheng Chea Sim faction - largely controlled by former peasant revolutionaries - need intellectuals to give them legitimacy and help them adjust to a more complicated political terrain of diplomacy.

The KPNLF attracted a number of savvy, bright, educated technocrats to their guerrilla movement in the 1980s. The former chief of cabinet for the Liberal Democratic Party, Ok Serei Sopheak, has been recruited as chief of Staff at Sar Kheng's Interior Ministry.

Like many from the LDP, he is widely respected as a bright, knowledgeable politician and administrator by diplomats and others - exactly what the CPP faction lacks.

But analysts say the alliance is a logical one as well. Many KPNLF intellectuals remain deeply suspicious, as do the CPP, of a powerful monarchy and Royalist control over political decision.

"It is a coincidence of interests," says one senior KPNLF official. Another said it offers a healthy "checks and balance" to the rise of Royalist influence. Diplomats say that Sar Kheng and Chea Sim remain more suspicious of a powerful monarchy than Hun Sen.

As an indication of the rising star of Sar Kheng, the Post has learned he has been invited to officially visit the United States in coming weeks. Sponsored by the United States Information Service, the trip is designed to expose foreign leaders to the mechanisms of democracy and political pluralism, and will include an itinerary largely designed by Sar Kheng himself. Sources say that one of the purposes of the trip is to wean him away from the influence of Vietnam, his patron during the last 14 years.

Diplomats say that it appears Hun Sen and his faction are declining in influence, with much of the role they played in the old government - of a moderate face acceptable to the West - having been co-opted by FUNCINPEC in the new government.

"Hun Sen knows that the Chea Sim group and FUNCINPEC want to eliminate him. He is weak, but still has real power," said one senior official of the new government. Added a diplomat:"Don't underestimate him."

Some point to the conflict over the appointment of Son Soubert to the vice president of the National Assembly as demonstrating that Hun Sen still maintains influence. While Chea Sim supported the appointment and Hun Sen opposed it, Chea Sim could only deliver 11 CPP votes on the first attempt. It was only after Sihanouk intervened that Soubert was approved, according to sources close to the debate.

During the elections many of the hard-line party operatives (mostly loyal to Chea Sim and Sar Kheng) were replaced on the ballot by CPP United Front technocrats and moderates (mostly loyal to Hun Sen) to give the CPP a more gentle reform image to the electorate.

As a result, the CPP assembly representatives are disproportionately composed of Hun Sen loyalists.

The only people who appear to be happy about all this potential for conflict within the ranks of the new government is the Party of Democratic Kampuchea - the Khmer Rouge.

Khmer Rouge sources say that despite the widely-held belief that they are terminally ill as a political force in Cambodia, they remain confident that the new government will collapse under the pressure of internal conflicts. They predict an increase in corruption and say a declining economic state in the rural areas will undermine popular support for the new government after an initial political "honeymoon" of several months.

Their mood is "confident" and their strategy is to maintain control over their forces, encourage instability in the countryside, exploit discontent among FUNCINPEC cadre, and wait for an opportunity to seek a greater role in a future administration.

Sources say that King Sihanouk keeps direct contact with the Khmer Rouge and remains convinced they should be brought into some power-sharing role for the sake of long-term stability.

Sources point to Sihanouk's recent decision to appoint Khmer Rouge senior diplomats to his personal cabinet in Beijing as an indication of his sentiment towards the group.

While it is much too early to predict which political trends will prevail, it is increasingly clear that the elections served only as a moderate influence in the struggle for political power in recent months and that much of the real conflict lies ahead.

While analysts agree that the elections bestowed a vital legitimacy of popular support on FUNCINPEC which forced the CPP to bow partly to popular will, the fundamental means of how power is achieved, protected and maintained, remains constant to that in modern Cambodian political culture- rife with united front alliances, partnerships of convenience, backroom powerplays, and the promise of conflict at the first show of weakness.