by Joshua Kurlantzick
September 1, 2015
'The culture of dialogue appears, already, to be history'
An
excellent article in this month’s Foreign Affairs, by Stephanie Giry,
outlines the strategies Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen has used to
stay in power. Now the longest-serving nonroyal ruler in Asia and the
seventh-longest serving nonroyal ruler in the world, Hun Sen remains the
ultimate survivor. He is a man who was one of the youngest foreign
ministers in the world in the period after 1979, when he served in the
government installed in Phnom Penh after Vietnam invaded and removed the
Khmer Rouge. He was a former military man who made a gradual transition
from the unschooled, rugged but naturally savvy former fighter from
that time to a suave and charming head of government. For three decades,
according to human rights groups, Hun Sen has used a combination of
populist charm, control of the media through relations with media
tycoons, outright intimidation, and relatively effective management of
the economy to stay in power. Cambodia holds elections, but the deck
tends to be stacked heavily against the opposition, with TV networks,
the election commission, and other critical actors historically favoring
the ruling party.
In
2013, after his party, the Cambodian People’s Party (CPP), suffered a
shock setback in national elections, nearly losing control of parliament
to the opposition, Hun Sen appeared more conciliatory toward the
opposition. Despite its virtual control of all broadcast media, Hun Sen
and the CPP now faced a major challenge from young, urban Cambodians who
could organize through social media and the Internet, and did not have
the loyalty to the CPP that their parents and grandparents displayed.
For many of these young Cambodians, Hun Sen’s basic promise of a rough
kind of stability, after the destruction of the Khmer Rouge era, was not
enough to vote for the CPP. In the wake of the opposition’s strong
election showing, Hun Sen and opposition leader Sam Rainsy embraced each
other and agreed to foster a “culture of dialogue” that, in Cambodia’s
often-brutal politics, had been lacking in the past. Hun Sen allowed the
opposition to get a license to run its own television station;
terrestrial broadcast media had been dominated by stations that were
pro-Hun Sen and pro-CPP, according to multiple human rights groups. The
opposition halted its boycott of parliament and the two sides agreed to
create a new election commission, which supposedly would be more
impartial than its predecessor in overseeing the next national elections
in 2018. Last year, some Cambodian observers speculated that Hun Sen
would soon retire, and would not stand for prime minister in the 2018
elections.
The
culture of dialogue appears, already, to be history. Although Rainsy
has not returned to openly bashing Hun Sen, the opposition and the
government are doing battle, Cambodia-style, once again. In July,
authorities jailed eleven opposition activists on charges of
“insurrection” that could net them as much as twenty years in jail. In
August, the government charged an opposition senator with treason for
supposedly posting a diplomatic document related to the Vietnam-Cambodia
border online. The government this year is debating or has passed new
legislation that might neuter unions and nongovernmental organizations
as well, by reducing the number of union members needed to dissolve a
union and by allowing the state to potentially prosecute nonprofits on
vague charges of undermining national security, national unity, peace,
and Cambodian culture. Despite a new boycott of parliament by the
opposition, the government passed the new law on nonprofits this summer.
The law also may restrict international NGOs, some of which have had
contentious relations with Hun Sen in the past. Under the new
legislation, international NGOs and domestic NGOs both must register
with the government, even if they are only conducting short-term
projects in Cambodia.
Hun
Sen, meanwhile, appears to be actually consolidating his hold over the
CPP, taking on the post of party president after his close ally Chea
Sim, the former party president, died earlier this year. In April, Hun
Sen announced that he would be running for election in 2018 and said
that a civil war could be averted only if he was re-elected prime
minister. The armed forces, too, appear to be demonstrating that they
will back Hun Sen to the hilt. In late July, Radio Free Asia’s Cambodia
service reported:
Cambodia’s armed forces belong to the country’s ruling party and must
prevent a ‘color revolution’ from overtaking the Southeast Asian nation,
a four-star general said.
Many
parts of the armed forces, in fact, operate almost like private
militias, according to a recent article in The Diplomat; they are funded
by major Cambodian businesspeople, many of whom have close links with
the CPP. Little hope left, indeed, for the culture of dialogue in Phnom
Penh.
-Council on Foreign Relations
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