Analysis: A hard road to democracy

Monday, 11 July 2011
Mu Sochua
Letter to The Phnom Penh Post

More than 1,400 opposition members were arrested at the weekend in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Is this a sign of an Asian storm coming?

Prime Minister Francois Fillon of France granted an exclusive interview to The Phnom Penh Post on the eve of his two-day visit to Cambodia last month.

Fillon was totally correct to remind Cambodia that democratic institutions must benefit everyone. They are essential pillars of democracy.

The challenge of building these institutions begins with the political will of leaders who have been chosen by their people to lead.

Most important of all, the true challenge is the commitment to an inclusive system of governance and mechanisms that allows voices to be heard and differences of opinion to be brought to the attention of those in charge.

Hun Sen threatens to lift Sam Rainsy's immunity

Sam Rainsy speaks at a recent press conference in Phnom Penh. (Photo by: HENG CHIVOAN)

Wednesday, 25 February 2009
Written by Meas Sokchea
The Phnom Penh Post

"But the law states that everyone has the right to appeal" - Heang Rithy

In remarks at the National Institute of Education, he urges Sam Rainsy to pay a fine levied by the country's election body.

PRIME Minister Hun Sen on Tuesday warned opposition leader Sam Rainsy that he could be stripped of his parliamentary immunity unless he paid a fine levied by the country's election body.

Sam Rainsy was fined 10 million riel (US$2,400) by the National Election Committee (NEC) for making derogatory remarks about Cambodian People's Party (CPP) leaders during last year's general election. That decision has been upheld by the Constitutional Council and by the Phnom Penh Municipal Court.

Lifting Sam Rainsy's immunity would require a two-thirds vote in the National Assembly, a potentially easy task for Hun Sen's CPP, which holds 90 of 123 parliamentary seats.

"Clearly, it will not be difficult to lobby two-thirds of the votes to lift [your] immunity," Hun Sen said during remarks at the National Institute of Education. "If you are concerned, then you should pay the money and your immunity won't be lifted."

Sam Rainsy told the Post Tuesday that he would pay the fine provided it was upheld by higher courts. He said the Constitutional Council and NEC could only rule on election-related issues and could not rule on a penal case.

Sam Rainsy said Hun Sen's threat to use the National Assembly to enforce the fine pointed to a lack of checks and balances in the Kingdom.

The president of the Cambodian National Research Organisation, Heang Rithy, said Sam Rainsy is legally entitled to appeal to higher courts.

Had the NEC not put the case before the Municipal Court to validate the fine, Heang Rithy said, the Constitutional Council's decision would have been final.

"But the law states that everyone has the right to appeal," Heang Rithy said.

National Assembly Off Balance: Analysts

By Reporters, VOA Khmer
Original reports from Phnom Penh
10 October 2008

Click here to listen to the Khmer audio program by Chun Sakada
Click here to listen to the Khmer audio program by Pin Sisovann

Cambodian politicians should write a law for power-sharing formulas to replace negotiations that do not reflect democratic principals, analysts said recently, following a structuring of the National Assembly that puts vast control of all committees with the ruling party.

The Cambodian People's Party will head all nine of the National Assembly committees, leaving little room for opposition and dissent, especially in the Steering Committee, which is comprised of committee heads and determines the legislative agenda.

On Friday the opposition Sam Rainsy and Human Rights parties refused to join any of the committees, leaving 63 of 65 committee seats to the CPP, with only one seat each for Funcinpec and the Norodom Ranariddh Party.

The new National Assembly makes it harder for checks and balances, lawmakers said.

Politicians should share power in the National Assembly in proportion to their seats, said Thun Saray, president of the rights group Adhoc. Opposition lawmakers should be given important roles in committees to ensure a system of checks and balances in the legislative branch, he said.

The practice of power-sharing through negotiation should be stopped, he said.

"The critical problem is that there is no such law that clearly states this," he said. "It depends on political compromise, and they share power. But when no compromise is reached, the political party with the majority voice grabs all the power."

The negotiation of National Assembly power-sharing is "a constant disease in our country," he said, adding a Khmer expression that means, "He who laughs last, laughs best."

Without a law, he said, parties can collude to eliminate lawmaking roles for their opponents, leading to continual problems in the future.

Further complicating the problem this year was a boycott of the National Assembly's first session, following national elections that saw a sweeping CPP win, 90 of 123 parliamentary seats.

The Sam Rainsy and Human Rights parties both stayed away from an initial National Assembly session, failing to propose candidates for committee heads and handing them to the ruling party.

National Assembly President Heng Samrin told VOA Khmer in an interview that the CPP had not sought to keep the opposition out of committee leadership, but the actions of the opposition parties had meant CPP dominance by default.

"In fact, they boycotted and denied the election results," he said. "They didn't go to the Assembly meeting, so how could we give them positions."

The Sam Rainsy Party's 26 lawmakers and the Human Rights Party's three can still seek positions in all nine committees, he said, adding that CPP lawmakers were often critical of government policies in the same way the opposition is.

"We didn't deny you," he said of the opposition. "There are positions as members of the commissions. The Assembly is democratic only when you are president or chairmen? You have rights to inquire, to question, in the Assembly too. If you won't, it's up to you."

SRP lawmaker Yim Sovann, who in the previous National Assembly was the head of the committee on interior and defense, said the whole National Assembly, not only the opposition, needed to have goodwill in order to protect checks and balances.

Previous National Assemblies saw the Steering Committee move important legislation away from opposition-led and into CPP-headed committees, he said.

"The permanent committee was overwhelmed by the CPP and often diverted proposed bills that were supposed to be reviewed by the Interior Committee over the Legislative and Justice Committee," he said. "This was politically motivated, because my committee would have amended it to a better bill, if it came through my committee."

The law on elections and the National Election Committee, for example, was proposed by the Ministry of Interior and should have been reviewed by his committee, Yim Sovann said. Instead, it was moved through the Legislative and Justice Committee.

Still, he said, with the opposition at the helm of two committees, "we controlled checks and balances to some degree."

In the present National Assembly, "there is no chance for democracy," he said.

CPP lawmaker Chiem Yeap said the previous National Assembly had reasons for moving the election bill through other committees, at the discretion of the Steering Committee.

The CPP-dominated National Assembly was able to preserve checks and balances because it is multi-party, he said.

Yim Sovann may have disapproved of the bill's review, Chiem Yeap said, "but the minority respects the majority in a democracy."

CPP set to take most NA posts

Monday, 25 August 2008
Written by Vong Sokheng and Cheang Sokha
The Phnom Penh Post

Ruling party dominance under fire for lacking checks, balances

FOLLOWING its landslide victory in last month's national election, the ruling Cambodian People's Party will dominate the new National Assembly, with CPP members poised to occupy the posts of Assembly president and deputy president, as well as the chairmanships of each of the Assembly's nine commissions.

Party spokesman and Ministry of Information Khieu Kanharith told reporters Sunday that the Assembly reshuffle would reflect the CPP's dominance at the polls.

"If [the opposition parties] get support then they can hold the positions of chairman and deputy chairman of the Assembly's commissions," Khieu Kanharith said, adding that the new Assembly would avoid the political deadlock that paralysed government following the 2003 election.

"This year, we were elected in one package, which has avoided political deadlocks. Therefore, we should follow with this political formula in order to maintain political stability," he said.

However, he said that strong opposition parties, civil society and a free press would play an important role in strengthening Cambodia's democracy.

In the outgoing Assembly, the CPP heads five commissions, while Funcinpec chairs two posts and the Sam Rainsy Party another two. But preliminary poll results showed a strong swing to the CPP, which won 58 percent of the vote over the SRP (21.9 percent) and the Human Rights Party (6.6 percent).

Khieu Kanharith's comments came amid criticism that few checks and balances will exist in the new Assembly once the CPP occupies most of its key positions.

Kek Galabru, president of rights group Licadho, said the CPP majority needed to be offset by a robust opposition presence in parliament.

"In order to strengthen democracy and good governance, the leadership structure should be formed to achieve the appropriate checks and balances between the ruling parties and the opposition," she said at a press conference last week.

'No Checks and Balances' Now: Monitor

By Chun Sakada, VOA Khmer
Original report from Phnom Penh
28 July 2008

Click here to listen to the Khmer audio program

A wide margin of victory for the Cambodian People's Party could mean the erosion of legislative measures of influence between parties in the National Assembly, an independent election monitor warned Monday.

"The CPP controls every state institution, including the police, army, civil administration and courts," Thun Saray, chief of the board of directors for the Committee for Free and Fair Elections, told reporters. "The reason why we are concerned is that there are [now] no checks and balances in the National Assembly."

The ruling party claimed to have won enough seats Sunday to form a government and pass important legislation, including constitutional amendments, on its own.

The overwhelming majority of seats could mean the country will be ruled by "the mood and feelings of our leader," said Thun Saray, who is also the director of the rights group Adhoc. "How can we continue to protect the poor victims of human rights violations?"

A single-party government ruled by the CPP was reason for worry, he said, "and we will need to discuss more among us how to work in this new condition and new environment."

The CPP would need 82 seats for a two-thirds majority in the National Assembly, eliminating the ability of other parties to block certain legislation or boycott quorums without help from individual CPP members.

The National Election Committee received 30 complaints total related to "quick" vote counting that could lead to inaccuracies, NEC Chairman Im Sousdey said Monday. "These complaints are normal, but we will resolve all the complaints at the level of NEC."

Hun Sen rivals reject his election win in Cambodia

PHNOM PENH (AFP) — Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen took nearly 60 percent of the vote in weekend polls, election officials said Monday, but the opposition rejected his win and demanded a new balloting.

The ruling Cambodian People's Party (CPP) won 59.6 percent of the vote in Sunday's election, compared with nearly 21 percent for the nearest rival, the main opposition Sam Rainsy Party, electoral authorities said.

The National Election Committee said turnout was 74.5 percent, but it did not say how many parliamentary seats each party had won.

The CPP claimed it would scoop 90 of the 123 seats in parliament, with Sam Rainsy and three other small parties dividing the rest.

"This is a new victory for the CPP and for CPP's policies for the past five years," party spokesman Khieu Kanharith told AFP.

The four minority parties rejected the outcome, accusing the CPP of fiddling with the voter rolls to ensure their victory.

"We call on the international community not to recognise the results because there were a lot of irregularities," longtime government critic Kem Sokha, leader of the upstart Human Rights Party, told reporters.

Kem Sokha said the four parties would consider forming a coalition party to challenge the CPP.

"We have decided to join forces to struggle with the Cambodian people to demand a re-run of the election in Cambodia," said main opposition leader Sam Rainsy.

The royalist Funcinpec and Norodom Ranariddh Party also signed a statement accusing the government of rigging the rolls.

"The main illegal and fraudulent practises are related to the deletion of countless voters' names and an artificial increase in the CPP votes," the statement said.

Local observers have confirmed that some voters were turned away from polling stations after their names disappeared from the rolls, but they cast doubt on whether the problem was as widespread as the opposition claims.

Still, the Comfrel group of election observers said they could not pronounce the vote free and fair until the claims were investigated.

"It is too early to say this was a free and fair election. We need to have more information, especially on the voter's lists which is a very big problem," Comfrel official Thun Saray told reporters.

He also lamented the drop in voter turnout, which had reached 83 percent in the last general election in 2003.

Thun Saray blamed the fall on a lack of confidence in the political parties, problems with the voter rolls, and rising fuel costs that made transportation too costly for voters to return to their hometowns to cast ballots.

He also warned that if the CPP's large victory is confirmed, the result could undermine Cambodia's fledgling democracy.

"There will be no more checks and balances in the national assembly," he said. "That is our big challenge."

At 55, Hun Sen has ruled Cambodia for 23 years. He has vowed to remain in power until he is 90, relentlessly undercutting his political rivals and resorting to street violence to put down political challenges.

Hun Sen had been widely tipped to win due to a booming economy that has helped improve the quality of life in one of the world's poorest nations, and due to nationalist sentiment sparked by a border feud with Thailand.

He was so confident of victory that his government on Monday launched a new round of border talks with Thailand, even before his re-election has been confirmed.