Recent changes in parliament will make it difficult for Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen to harp on the usual excuses to avoid cracking down on widespread corruption (Photo CPP).By Marwaan Macan-Markar
BANGKOK , Mar 7 (IPS) - He may have received a vote of confidence from the international donor community, but recent changes in parliament will make it difficult for Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen to harp on the usual excuses to avoid cracking down on widespread corruption.
From Mar. 2, Hun Sen's Cambodia People's Party (CPP) can stay in power with a simple majority in the 123-member National Assembly. The law that was approved by legislators, last Thursday, brought to an end a 13-year-old clause requiring governments to have a two-thirds majority in the lower-house to form a new administration.
''It increases the responsibility of the CPP and Prime Minister Hun Sen to show that they are prepared to be more accountable and establish a culture of good governance,'' said Koul Pan Ha, executive director of the Committee for Free and Fair Elections (COMFREL), a Phnom Penh-based non-governmental organisation.
''They cannot use the old excuses of having problems over power-sharing and making bargains to maintain their coalition,'' he added during a telephone interview. ''The government will be judged on its new power and the problem of corruption, which is very serious.''
The CPP has 73 seats in the assembly but depended on the royalist FUNCINPEC party, which has 26 members in the legislature, to form a government, since the minimum number of seats for a new administration was 86. It was a clause in Cambodia's 1993 constitution that plagued the country with political bickering and unstable coalitions. The Sam Rainsy Party, which has 24 seats and sits in the opposition, initiated this slice of political reform.
For Hun Sen, this new lease of political life as Cambodia's longest-serving premier, since a 1991 peace accord brought to an end decades of conflict, coincided with further good news, last week. The international donor community pledged, during a two-day meeting, Mar.2-3, to give 600 million US dollars in aid for the year ahead, a figure substantially higher than the 513 million dollars that Phnom Penh had requested.
Yet, the consultative group (CG), which includes the World Bank and the governments of Japan and the United States, spelled out three major conditions as part of this aid package. It wants a comprehensive anti-corruption law, across the board judicial reform and efforts to control the destruction of the country's natural resources.
''The aid package was a show of confidence that the group was impressed with some of the achievements of the government,'' Charles McDermid, managing editor of the 'Phonm Penh Post,' an English-language fortnightly, told IPS. ''But the money comes with conditions, with the stress placed on reforms to address corruption.''
Ian Porter, a World Bank representative at the meeting, shed light on what the CG had in mind regarding these anti-graft measures. Cambodia's new anti-corruption watchdog must be ''independent, empowered and effective,'' he was quoted by news reports as having said.
That corruption in Cambodia -- it is ranked 131 out of 158 countries on Transparency International's 2005 corruption index -- is a concern of the local community was also reflected on the eve of this donor meeting. A coalition of 18 NGOs, united under the banner of the Cambodian Human Rights Action Committee, released a statement calling for an ‘anti-corruption commission' that is governed by international standards.
Land grabbing, illegal logging and kickbacks have been some of the troubling realities that have gained notoriety over the past 15 years. The poor in this South-east Asian country of 13.3 million have suffered unduly as a result, according to research conducted by the Centre for Social Development, an independent think-tank in Phnom Penh. Corruption has come in the way of better health care, education and rural administrative services for these vulnerable millions.
In late 2004, a report released by the U.S. Agency for International Development charged that close to 500 million dollars are lost annually to corruption in Cambodia each year.
Some 35 percent of Cambodians live in abject poverty, the World Bank said in a report released ahead of the donor meeting. It was a figure, the report pointed out, that showed an improvement from what it was 10 years ago, when nearly 47 percent of the country's population was living below the poverty line of 1,826 riel (0.44 U.S. cents) per day.
Pressure on the Hun Sen government to tackle corruption has been increasing over the past decade, since aid money started flowing in to help rebuild war-ravaged Cambodia. International assistance contributes to nearly half of the country's national budget.
During the seventh CG meeting in December 2004, international donors pledged 504 million dollars in aid but demanded reforms to tackle corruption. And Cambodian finance minister Keat Chhon assured the donors at that time that the new funds, down from the 643 million dollars pledged at the previous aid meeting, would be used ''in a transparent and accountable manner.''
But the subsequent record suggested otherwise, stated five regional and international human rights groups, who wrote a letter ahead of last week's donor meeting calling on the donor community to press for new benchmarks.
''The failure of the government to live up to its promises and the recent repressive acts raise questions about whether the Cambodian government is an effective development partner,'' stated the letter released by this alliance that included the global rights lobby Human Rights Watch. ''Widespread land seizures by officials and powerful families have been accompanied by human rights abuses, including the shooting to death of five villagers ... in March last year.'' (END/2006)
BANGKOK , Mar 7 (IPS) - He may have received a vote of confidence from the international donor community, but recent changes in parliament will make it difficult for Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen to harp on the usual excuses to avoid cracking down on widespread corruption.
From Mar. 2, Hun Sen's Cambodia People's Party (CPP) can stay in power with a simple majority in the 123-member National Assembly. The law that was approved by legislators, last Thursday, brought to an end a 13-year-old clause requiring governments to have a two-thirds majority in the lower-house to form a new administration.
''It increases the responsibility of the CPP and Prime Minister Hun Sen to show that they are prepared to be more accountable and establish a culture of good governance,'' said Koul Pan Ha, executive director of the Committee for Free and Fair Elections (COMFREL), a Phnom Penh-based non-governmental organisation.
''They cannot use the old excuses of having problems over power-sharing and making bargains to maintain their coalition,'' he added during a telephone interview. ''The government will be judged on its new power and the problem of corruption, which is very serious.''
The CPP has 73 seats in the assembly but depended on the royalist FUNCINPEC party, which has 26 members in the legislature, to form a government, since the minimum number of seats for a new administration was 86. It was a clause in Cambodia's 1993 constitution that plagued the country with political bickering and unstable coalitions. The Sam Rainsy Party, which has 24 seats and sits in the opposition, initiated this slice of political reform.
For Hun Sen, this new lease of political life as Cambodia's longest-serving premier, since a 1991 peace accord brought to an end decades of conflict, coincided with further good news, last week. The international donor community pledged, during a two-day meeting, Mar.2-3, to give 600 million US dollars in aid for the year ahead, a figure substantially higher than the 513 million dollars that Phnom Penh had requested.
Yet, the consultative group (CG), which includes the World Bank and the governments of Japan and the United States, spelled out three major conditions as part of this aid package. It wants a comprehensive anti-corruption law, across the board judicial reform and efforts to control the destruction of the country's natural resources.
''The aid package was a show of confidence that the group was impressed with some of the achievements of the government,'' Charles McDermid, managing editor of the 'Phonm Penh Post,' an English-language fortnightly, told IPS. ''But the money comes with conditions, with the stress placed on reforms to address corruption.''
Ian Porter, a World Bank representative at the meeting, shed light on what the CG had in mind regarding these anti-graft measures. Cambodia's new anti-corruption watchdog must be ''independent, empowered and effective,'' he was quoted by news reports as having said.
That corruption in Cambodia -- it is ranked 131 out of 158 countries on Transparency International's 2005 corruption index -- is a concern of the local community was also reflected on the eve of this donor meeting. A coalition of 18 NGOs, united under the banner of the Cambodian Human Rights Action Committee, released a statement calling for an ‘anti-corruption commission' that is governed by international standards.
Land grabbing, illegal logging and kickbacks have been some of the troubling realities that have gained notoriety over the past 15 years. The poor in this South-east Asian country of 13.3 million have suffered unduly as a result, according to research conducted by the Centre for Social Development, an independent think-tank in Phnom Penh. Corruption has come in the way of better health care, education and rural administrative services for these vulnerable millions.
In late 2004, a report released by the U.S. Agency for International Development charged that close to 500 million dollars are lost annually to corruption in Cambodia each year.
Some 35 percent of Cambodians live in abject poverty, the World Bank said in a report released ahead of the donor meeting. It was a figure, the report pointed out, that showed an improvement from what it was 10 years ago, when nearly 47 percent of the country's population was living below the poverty line of 1,826 riel (0.44 U.S. cents) per day.
Pressure on the Hun Sen government to tackle corruption has been increasing over the past decade, since aid money started flowing in to help rebuild war-ravaged Cambodia. International assistance contributes to nearly half of the country's national budget.
During the seventh CG meeting in December 2004, international donors pledged 504 million dollars in aid but demanded reforms to tackle corruption. And Cambodian finance minister Keat Chhon assured the donors at that time that the new funds, down from the 643 million dollars pledged at the previous aid meeting, would be used ''in a transparent and accountable manner.''
But the subsequent record suggested otherwise, stated five regional and international human rights groups, who wrote a letter ahead of last week's donor meeting calling on the donor community to press for new benchmarks.
''The failure of the government to live up to its promises and the recent repressive acts raise questions about whether the Cambodian government is an effective development partner,'' stated the letter released by this alliance that included the global rights lobby Human Rights Watch. ''Widespread land seizures by officials and powerful families have been accompanied by human rights abuses, including the shooting to death of five villagers ... in March last year.'' (END/2006)
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