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CAMBODIA'S ELECTION RESULTS HAVE LEFT THE COUNTRY ON A KNIFE EDGE
By Nathan Thompson
August 03 ,2013
Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen hanging out with EU President Herman Van Rompuy, who looks thrilled to be there. (Photo via)
Cambodian
Prime Minister Hun Sen is losing his grip on power. After holding his
position for 28 years, his party – the Cambodian People's Party (CPP) –
are facing their first ever loss in an election. Since coming to power,
the Hun Sen and the CPP have used violence to keep their heels dug
firmly in at the head of the political spectrum, and with a 6,000-strong private army it's no surprise that, thus far, they've managed to do a good job of doing so.
But
with better education and an increase in internet access, the country's
youth are ready for change. The opposition party – the Cambodian
National Rescue Party (CNRP), led by Sam Rainsy – claimed they had been victorious in last week's vote. But then so did the CPP.
Cambodia hasn't had a non-violent transition of power since the 1960s,
and the fall-out from the latest election results isn't likely to break
that tradition.
Many
went to vote last Sunday, only to be told when they arrived that they
had in fact already voted, or that their names weren't on the electoral
register. Later that day, monks and other men who had been denied a voterioted at a polling station in Phnom Penh.
Two police pick-ups were flipped over, their petrol tanks ripped open
and set alight, sending flames and smoke pouring out into the evening
sky.
Yin Kim Sien, the National Election Committee (NEC) staff member present, had locked herself inside the polling station.
The mob chanted, “Justice!” and “We want to vote!” Dissatisfied with
the reception they were getting, they turned their rage on a man they
believed to be ethnic Vietnamese. He knelt, his hands in the sampeah
gesture [a traditional Cambodian greeting and way of showing respect],
as a man punched him in the side of the head. When the riot died down,
the injured man was taken to hospital and Yim Kim Sien escaped
unharmed.
That evening, the CPP announced the results of the election. They claimed they had won 68 seats against CNRP’s 55. It was a significant loss of 22 seats for the CPP. The CNRP immediately pointed out massive irregularities in the voting. Transparency International Cambodia agreed. On their website, they stated,
“In 60 percent of polling stations, citizens with proper identification
were unable to find their names on this list,” adding that, “voters
showed up to discover they had been voted for already”. The CNRP called
for an independent body to investigate voting irregularities.
On
Wednesday I met Mu Sochua, a CNRP member of parliament, at her party
headquarters in Phnom Penh. Outside on the balcony, party leader Sam
Rainsy led a crowd in chants calling for Hun Sen to step down. Mu Sochua
ate an apple, her greying hair tied up in a tight bun.
“Today,
we are collecting signatures from everyone denied the chance to vote as
proof that fraud happened,” she told me. "We will present this to the
NEC as evidence.” She continued: “We hope to instigate a full
re-election depending on the scope of the irregularities.” Outside, Sam
Rainsy declared, “No one can buy us, no one can break us, no one can
intimidate us.”
“They
have a policy to ethnically cleanse the Vietnamese,” said CPP
spokesman, Phay Siphan, in response. “They [the CNRP] use an old
rhetoric of corruption and anti-Vietnamese sentiments. And the CNRP list
is a fabrication; they have no evidence to support their claims.”
Siphan continued: “Sam Rainsy called for Hun Sen to step down, but
that’s not fair because it’s the people’s choice, not the choice of
politicians. And the popular vote has shown that the people favour the
CPP.”
Back
in the provinces, the bullying and bribery continued. I live in a
Cambodian village, where I work for a small NGO in my spare time. I
returned home after the elections and found Supon, the village teacher,
waiting for me. He wore a white cap and polo shirt emblazoned with the
logo of the Cambodian People’s Party (CPP). He put down the election
pamphlet he was flicking through and ushered me inside.
“You
know the opposition party – the CNRP?” he asked. “I was spotted
marching for the opposition party and now,” – he paused, his face grey
with fear – “the CPP… they want to arrest me."
"But
you haven’t done anything,” I said. “It doesn’t matter,” he replied,
“they make up the charges.” He hung his head: "Because I work with you,
it's not safe for you to be here – they could say you are a spy and
arrest you.”
Pring,
a young man from my village, told me, "The village chief called my
father to a meeting. Everyone had to swear before the village ancestors
that they would vote for CPP. If they swear, they get paid 10,000 Riel
(£1.60).” That might not seem like a lot, but the average annual wage
for a rural Cambodian is approximately£90.
Despite
threats, Pring estimates that about 50 percent of the people in the
village voted for CNRP, including him, his mother and his sister. “Now
the village chief is very angry with us,” he told me. “He doesn’t want
other people to have communication with us because we voted for another
party, so we lost the clients who buy our rice.”
Yesterday,
the CNRP urged its supporters to be patient and await further
instructions. The NEC has begun to release the final vote counts and
early signs show that the CPP won by a mere 250,000 votes in a country of 40 million. But given all the allegations of cheating, it’s not looking good for Hun Sen. He has now agreed to participate in an investigation, although whether the UN or any other international observers will be involved is unclear.
The
story is far from over. But for now I’m glad to say that my friend
Supon avoided jail, most likely because he's related to the local CPP
chief. “I think there will be further demonstrations,” he told me on the
phone. “People will protest the results of the election and I am afraid
the government will use guns.”
Follow Nathan on Twitter: @NathanWrites
7 comments:
what ever happen don't be intimidated we khmer must swim against this current to freedom.
If Hun Sen uses his private army to crush the Khmer people, you can be sure that this illegal act will cause the army to split and turn the guns on you know who...
Then the end of him is near.
Nothing to lose to fear. If you don t fight Cambodia and all Khmers in Cambodia will be the minorities and death by the youn aggressors or like the three million Khmers in the darkness time , so don t let that repeat . Stand up enough is enough. Five hundred years or more that youn have plan to kill us khmer,why not only right to live in our ancestor land WE DO Not have it.
Phay Siphan, in response. “They [the CNRP] use an old rhetoric of corruption and anti-Vietnamese sentiments".
That mean the CPP and Phay Siphan is pro Corrruptions and Pro Vietnamees illegal immigrant. The CNRP is not again Vietnamese whom became Cambodian Citizen. What the CNRP and the voters cannot accepts is the fact that those "illegal Vietnamese" have the right to vote while the CNRP supporters and electorate the majority faced obstacle and lost of opportunity to put their vote across to change, and completed with NEC helping CPP to cheats it way and fabricate all sort of illegal documents and allowing the CPP to vote multiple times. If you reduced say every 1xCPP Vote 3 time into 1to1 ration that mean they would only receive 30 seats max....
They the CPP is still sending police and army to arrest innocent voters and supports of CNRP, where NOW they the CPP DO NOT HAVE THE RIGHT TO CONTROL the Army or Police as the winner is the CNRP.
As even if they the CPP want to form a government they are still illegal at it require 120 MP to open the 1st session it will be against the constitution article 76
rticle 76:
The National Assembly consists of at least 120 members.
The deputies shall be elected by a free, universal, equal, direct and secret ballot.
The deputies may be re-elected.
Khmer citizens able to stand for election shall be the Khmer citizens of either sex who have the right to vote, at least 25 years of age, and who have Khmer nationality at birth.
Preparation for the election, procedure and electoral process shall be determined by an Electoral Law.
So CPP should be careful not to cheat the voters as they are aware of this..and attempt to rewords or twisted that content of the constitution is illegal and any attempts to form a government without CNRP the government is illegal.
CNRP is the winner CPP and Hun Sen should accepted it and not BE THE SOAR LOOSER AS IT WAS BACK IN 1993. This is the coward and a cheat Hun Sen and CPP we already saw your dirty and cheating approached.
To all Cambodian stay united until Hun Sen accept that he lost this election. If he did he and his families may have a future in Cambodia.
Nathan Thompson also writes for
http://www.khmer440.com/k/ the pro-government website. In this article though the author is very balanced. Someone needs to put a sock in that stuttering Phay Siphan once and for all for saying that the CNRP is like the Khmer Rouge regime in its dealing with the ethnic Vietnamese minority. CNRP does not ever have such a policy against anyone. At the website above, they even created threat of Vietnamese Pogrom and sh*t. Notice how the author included an incident involving a man "BELIEVED" to be a Vietnam who got beaten up by one of the men. Does the author want to show that the victim was harmed by the CNRP supporters? CNRP is always against the mistreatment of anybody because the CNRP members have victimized repeated by the CPP repeatedly many times already. At the website above, they have their own voting contest among themselves and they all voted for Hun Sen, while they label Sam Rainsy as the candle man and caricaturize him as the Fe-Fi-Fo-Fum Giant. CNRP still have many foreign enemies around. Not that they matter but they can be a nuisance.
Mr. Sam Rainsy broke Cambodian heart and soul by falling into Hun Sen tricks.
Mr. Sam Rainsy and CNRP should be more aggressive like the first day until he win an election. But now he is look like a little chicken.
Cambodian is gone under Hun Sen regime. We cannot trust anyone any more. It is very sad to all Cambodian.
Hi Nathan, thanks for the well written article. I enjoyed reading it, but the population fo Cambodia is 14-15 millions, not 40 million.
Thanks.
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