Sam Rainsy's return jolts Cambodian election to life, even if strongman Hun Sen expected to win
WAToday | 19 July 2013
In 2009 he helped villages uproot posts demarcating the border between the two countries and accused Mr Hun Sen's government of allowing Vietnam to encroach on Cambodia's land.The stunt outraged authorities in Vietnam, which invaded the country in 1978, but was applauded by his supporters and many Cambodians who fear Vietnamese encroachment.
Cambodian opposition leader Sam Rainsy Photo: AP
PHNOM PENH: Cambodia's newly pardoned opposition leader Sam
Rainsy returned from exile to a rapturous welcome in Phnom Penh on
Friday, reinvigorating an election campaign that strongman prime
minister Hun Sen was set to win in a landslide.
"I missed you all...let's go forward together," Mr Rainsy,
64, said as his ecstatic supporters pushed to greet him at the gates of
the city's airport.
Rainsy's exclusion from the election would call into question the legitimacy of Cambodia's democratic process
Tens of thousands of supporters waving party flags lined the
road for kilometres from the airport in a strong show of support for the
French-educated former banker who fled the country almost four years
ago to escape criminal charges he says were politically motivated.
Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen gestures after
casting his ballot in local elections at Ta Khmau town, in Kandal
province, some 15 kilometers south of Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Photo: AP
"This is a special day for Cambodia...we need Sam Rainsy to take the fight to Hun Sen," said supporter Path Phalla, 42.
Mr Hun Sen requested the pardon which was granted last week
by King Norodom Sihamoni after United States lawmakers threatened to cut
more than US$70 million in annual US aid if the elections were unfair.
Cambodian opposition leader of the Cambodia National
Rescue Party Sam Rainsy (centre right) and Kem Sokha (centre left) Vice
president of the CNRP greet their supporters along a street in Phnom
Penh. Photo: AFP
The US State Department had also warned that Mr Rainsy's
exclusion from the election would call into question the legitimacy of
Cambodia's democratic process.
But senior government officials in Phnom Penh denied the
decision was due to international pressure, saying it was Mr Hun Sen's
commitment towards national unification and fair and democratic
elections.
Throughout his almost 28 year rule of the country the wily 61
year-old Mr Hen Sen has often brutally crushed his political opponents
but made conciliatory gestures towards them at the last minute.
Mr Rainsy had declared he was returning from exile to
campaign for his party before the election even if he was to be arrested
and jailed, setting the stage for a showdown with Mr Hun Sen, the man
he accuses of masterminding a 1997 grenade attack at an opposition rally
in Phnom Penh.
During his three decade-long political career Mr Rainsy has
survived assassination attempts, criminal convictions and defamation
lawsuits.
But the former finance minister who was expelled from the
royalist Funcinpec party in 1995 for not toeing the party line has his
share of critics who accuse him of being autocratic and fuelling
distrust of neighbouring Vietnam to boost his political support.
In 2009 he helped villages uproot posts demarcating the
border between the two countries and accused Mr Hun Sen's government of
allowing Vietnam to encroach on Cambodia's land.
The stunt outraged authorities in Vietnam, which invaded the
country in 1978, but was applauded by his supporters and many Cambodians
who fear Vietnamese encroachment.
Mr Rainsy, who is often sharp-tongued in his rhetoric, spent
his teenage years in France and made a career in the financial world
before returning to Cambodia as it struggled to recover from the
devastation of the Khmer Rouge's genocidal rule in the late 1970s.
He fled Cambodia for exile in France in late 2009 shortly
before he was sentenced in absentia to two years in prison for moving
Vietnamese border markers, seven years for spreading false information
about the border with Vietnam and two years for defaming Foreign
Minister Hor Namhong by associating him with the Khmer Rouge.
Since then his Sam Rainsy Party has merged with the Human
Rights Party to forge the Cambodian National Rescue Party that holds a
combined 29 seas in the 123-seat national parliament.
While Mr Rainsy will be free to campaign it seems unlikely
last minute efforts by his lawyers to allow him to contest a seat will
succeed.
The deadline for registration of candidates has closed and Mr
Rainsy's name was removed from the electoral register before he
received his pardon.
Analysts say Mr Rainsy's party is likely to win more seats in
parliament, perhaps enough to remove Mr Hun Sen's two-thirds majority
that enables his party to change the constitution.
Many of the Cambodia's younger voters are disenchanted by
land grabbing, corruption and a culture of impunity for the politically
well connected.
In a country which has more mobile telephones than people,
social media has emerged to be influential in politics, particularly
because the media is controlled by the government.
But Mr Hun Sen's hold on power appears unassailable.
He won the last two elections by a landslide amid allegations of fraud and election irregularities.
In May Mr Hun Sen, one of the Asia's long-serving leaders,
said he intended staying in power for another decade until he is 74.
Since taking power in January 1985, the one-time Khmer Rouge cadre has
been allowed to consolidate his Cambodian People's Party (CPP) rule so
that he controls almost all levers of power including the police,
military, courts and bureaucracy. Independent political analyst Chea
Vannath said while voters, especially those from poor rural areas, may
admire Mr Rainsy they find it hard to identify with him given his
background.
"Rainsy had better opportunities to pursue his education
while Hun Sen stopped studying to join the liberation movement in the
1970s," she said.
5 comments:
FINALLY, HOME SWEET HOME!!!
យើងខ្ញុំ សុំសួរថា ប្រសិនបើគណបក្សសង្រ្គោះជាតិ
មានវាសនានឹងទទួលជោគជ័យលើគណបក្សប្រជា
ជន តើ អាចនឹងមានសង្រ្គាមកើតឡើងទេ?ជាពិសេស
សង្រ្គាមស៊ីវិល!
This Old Toad Needs To Go. We Really Need Vision for Cambodia
3:01 AM,
You are a stupid Youn.
Mother fucker!
8:09AM, Yeah, he's so ugly just like a toad - if he doesn't force or threaten or pay the women he'd have no mate!
Oh, bun rany is a female toad - equally ugly.
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