Cambodian opposition chief says upcoming elections unfair, fight for democracy just beginning

Cambodian opposition chief says upcoming elections unfair, fight for democracy just beginning

(Heng Sinith/ Associated Press ) - Oppositin leader Sam Rainsy, president of Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP), speaks as he meets the International Cambodian’ election observers and the media at his main party headquarters in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Saturday, July 27, 2013, ahead of the July 28 election. Voters in Cambodia go to the polls Sunday to take part in what has become a familiar ritual — theelection of Prime Minister Hun Sen, who has been in the job for 28 years and says he hopes to rule for at least another decad

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Associated Press | 27 July 2013

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — Cambodia’s opposition leader has virtually acknowledged that his party will lose Sunday’s general election, saying the polls are unfair but vowing that his “fight for real democracy” will go on.

Cambodia National Rescue Party leader Sam Rainsy told reporters Saturday that any gains his party makes against longtime Prime Minister Hun Sen’s Cambodian People’s Party would be significant, and would set the stage for a long fight for fair elections.

Rainsy’s party and nonpartisan groups charge that the ruling party uses the machinery of government and security forces in an unfair manner to reward or pressure voters. They also say that voter registration procedures were badly flawed, possibly leaving more than 1 million people disenfranchised.

The CPP and the government-appointed National Election Committee insist the election process is fair.

“We are going backward in term of election fairness,” Sam Rainsy told election observers Saturday.
Hun Sen’s party holds 90 of the 123 seats in the outgoing National Assembly. Although eight parties are running, the CNRP and CPP are the only serious contenders.

Opposition parties had held 29 seats in the assembly, but were kicked out of the body shortly before election campaigning began on the technical grounds that they had registered to run in the name of the new CNRP, formed by a merger of the two existing opposition parties under whose banners they had won their seats.

Despite the poor prospects for change, the campaign has generated great excitement, especially among young people in Phnom Penh, the capital. Large crowds of supporters of the two main parties have staged spirited rallies that ended Friday, with Saturday being an officially decreed “quiet” day with no campaigning allowed.

Rainsy’s supporters were galvanized when he returned from self-imposed exile on July 19 after archrival Hun Sen arranged to pardon him for convictions that would have put him in prison for 11 years. Rainsy had called the convictions politically inspired.

Hun Sen has been in power for 28 years and says he has no intention of stepping down soon. His authoritarian rule has given him a stranglehold over the state bureaucracy that makes challenges to his authority difficult to mount.

Rainsy told reporters that he knew the election was unfair, but that his party was taking part “to show the Cambodian people that we are with them.”

“And in spite of this uphill battle, any gain we will make will be very, very significant, and it will give us a basis to contest further, to go further,” he said. “Tomorrow the election is not the end of our fight, it will be the beginning of the fight for real democracy, for truly free and fair elections.”

Hun Sen is running on a record of having restored peace and stability after decades of war and unrest, and promoting economic growth. The opposition decries corruption and injustice, especially reflected in widespread land-grabbing that see influential companies and businessmen develop property from which thousands of people have been evicted.

In a last-minute hitch, the independent Committee for Free and Fair Elections said Saturday that the ink with which voters were supposed to stain their fingers to prevent them from voting twice was not indelible as claimed.

Kem Sokha, deputy leader of Rainsy’s party, said it was disappointed by the development and urged its campaign workers to be vigilant to spot anyone who tried to vote twice.
There are 9.7 million registered voters in a population of almost 15 million. Just over half the electorate is under 30 years old.

Although Hun Sen has garnered ever more power, the election campaign has not been marked by the kind of violence, including killings, that plagued past polls.