Hun Sen and the Opposition's New Deployed Strategies

King Sihamoni and the CPP entourage

Tear Banh the longest serving defense minister with his officers

By ខែ្មរវឌ្ឍនកម្ម

www.khmerwathanak.blogspot.com

As the CPP and the CNRP prepared for their final push to end a prolonged post-election crisis, Hun Sen has deployed his new strategy by using the King and the constitution as the final shields to legitimize his new created government without any input from the opposition. Hun Sen has publicly called for the armed forces to protect the King and the constitution later echoed by Tear Banh, the longest serving defense minister in the country. Meanwhile, the CNRP has renewed a call for another mass protest including the people congress and petitions to the UN to intervene into the election dispute. These are the new strategies that both parties are deploying before any final possible agreement can be reached.

To defense his dictatorial power with all means, Hun Sen, who is a knave, has even used a mathematics theorem as his strategy to protect his power in such a vulnerable situation. As the majority of the people have shown their discontents to his long dictatorial rule and even demanded him to step down, Hun Sen has nothing to defense himself from this popular demand besides using violent forces to suppress the innocent people. Mathematically, in a theorem of Geometry if a line parallels to the first of the two paralleled lines, it also parallels to the second line. Based on this theory, Hun Sen forced the King to approve his new government, and any one or group oppose his government  means they also oppose the King. Then when they oppose the King, they oppose the constitution so they are subjected to be punished by all necessary means including violent forces. This evil strategy was reiterated by Tear Banh that he would use the armed forces to protect the King and the constitution. Literally, in such a scenario, the armed forces will protect Hun Sen directly under a banner of protecting the King and the constitution while the people have nothing to do with the King and constitution but to demand Hun Sen to relinquished his undeserved power. The opposition should take this Hun Sen's latest strategy in to their account before making any unpredictable move, but if the opposition just choose to protest as usual, Tear Banh absolutely has no excuse to use the armed forces against the peaceful protest. Any move by the armies against the peaceful protest will grossly violate the constitution that Tear Banh himself has declared to protect with all cost.

For the opposition, their appeal for new mass protest along with the people congress and the petitions for help from the UN are their rightful volition and the alternative strategies that the party is searching for in order to create leverages for the future negotiation with the CPP. Remember that it took more than three years of taut negotiations among the four Khmer Rival Factions before the Paris Peace Accord was signed in 1991. During that negotiation period, each party had to search all its effective strategies based on the leverages that it had possessed. For instance, the Vietnamese backed Communist regime led by Hun Sen had tons of leverages in negotiation, for it had controlled 90 percent of the people and the territory in the country including the larger size of its armed forces.  In contrast, the Tripartite Government under King Sihanouk's leadership possessed less leverages even it occupied the seat at the UN and overwhelmingly recognized by the international community because it controlled far less territory and smaller armed forces than the Communist regime. Now the Hun Sen's regime has controlled everything in the country from police, army, court system, even the Royal institution, but it cannot controlled the people who have endured and witnessed his iron fist rule over 30 years. The CNRP's leverage solely relies on the people power, so should the CNRP listen to the supporters for what strategy the party use in solving the current crisis with the CPP? Can the party continue to negotiate with the CPP to create a balance of power in the parliament or to boycott the parliament until the CPP yields to create an independent inquiry on the election fraud? The answer to these question will be solely based on the collective decision of the whole party's members.

Nonetheless, the CPP has strongly nixed the key demand of the opposition, and the ruling party is merely interested to talk with opposition on creating the power mechanism in the parliament. But the CPP's power offer to the opposition in the National Assembly is not adequate for the check and balance of power in the new government. Without a check and balance of power, there is no way that the opposition can overhaul the government reform effectively. But the creation of the check and balance of power system is still the best formula for ending the current crisis when the CNRP has made a painful concession by postponing its key demand of independent inquiry for now in order to move the negotiation forward if the CPP agree to create a balance of power in the new National Assembly. To call for more protest and petitions to the UN and all the signatory countries in the Paris Peace Accord is a good strategy for the CNRP to gain more leverage for the party to bargain its minimum demand for the balance of power in the new legislature. To boycott the parliament until the CPP agree to form an independent inquiry for election irregularities is a rightful demand for the people and the party but not the best strategy for the current situation and very risky for the party for being left out. Without parliamentarian immunity and power, the opposition will be paralyzed; they cannot serve and protect the people's interest as they used to do. And finally, Hun Sen will use his NEC to replace the opposition members based on the current NEC's law. If the opposition members fail to claim their seats in the parliament, the NEC will call their reserved candidates to replace them, and if the reserved candidates still fail to show up, the NEC will send a final notice to the CNRP to get or to lose it. In such a circumstance, Hun Sen will use his old trick to buy CNRP's reserved members to claim those vacant seats that lead to the opposition's political nightmare in the future if any reserved candidate fails against Hun Sen's temptation. We expect the opposition are well aware of this procedure as the members of the legislature.

The new deployed strategies of the two parties will help to push the two sides closer to an acceptable solution in the future negotiation if they are willing to make a little more concession. The Hun Sen's appeal of the armed forces to protect the King and the constitution is tantamount to protect himself based on a mathematical theory. Now Hun Sen can link anyone or group opposed him as opposing the King and the constitution because he was approved by the King to be the next prime minister, and the King's authority is guaranteed by the constitution, so he can call for the armed forces to protected them. Yet, no matter how smart Hun Sen tries to hide himself under a shelter of the King and the constitution, when the time is right he will be judged by the people's court. For the opposition, there is not much leverage left for them to maneuver against the adamant CPP in the current atmosphere, but it is a smart move to utilize all their available strategies first before capitulating with them at the end. No matter what the future outcome of negotiation will be, the opposition must maintain their at least 55 seats as the power base to protect and serve the people in the future. If they choose to stay out of the parliament, they will have no power to protect the people and the country. Over the past 20 years, we have seen the opposition MPs helping and protecting the people at wherever there was a problem, from border encroachment by Vietnam, land grabbing and forceful evictions by the regime, the worker demonstrations, and other numerous activities that involving protecting right and finding justice for the people even placing their lives at risk. In the coming term, we expect to see the opposition's activities more visible and more effective than before, for they hold their solid voices in the National Assembly at the first time since the first election supervised by the UN in 1993.