Cambodia’s Crooked Election and the Tragedy of Its Postwar Period

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen greets supporters at a campaign event, Phnom Penh, July 7, 2018 (AP photo by Heng Sinith). 

Joshua Kurlantzick Friday, Aug. 10, 2018

WPR

"As Hun Sen tightens his grip, the outside world seems unsure of how to respond."

Prime Minister Hun Sen and his Cambodian People’s Party now utterly dominate Cambodia, after the CPP won control of the entire lower house of parliament in elections late last month. The regime had, of course, ensured in advance that the CPP would sweep the vote, the culmination of Hun Sen’s increasingly brazen repression. There were few if any impartial observers on election day. 

With Cambodia’s political regression all but complete, what is left for the remnants of the opposition? How will key international donors and foreign countries respond, and what’s next for Hun Sen himself?

The Cambodia National Rescue Party, or CNRP, which was officially dissolved by the country’s top court last November, and other opposition forces can expect more efforts to throttle them. Although Cambodia still maintains a more vibrant civil society and media than, say, Laos, Hun Sen will likely keep up his crackdown, while adapting his party for an eventual shift at the top, a hard task in a country he has ruled for three decades. He could use the post-election period to push forward his transition plans, which likely involve positioning his son, Hun Manet, to eventually succeed him. Hun Sen will surely try to detain more CNRP members if they return to Cambodia from exile, and shutter some of the more outspoken Cambodian civil society groups that still remain active in the country. 

The opposition has few good options. Before the election, it seemed there was some possibility that Hun Sen, as he has in the past, might try and cool tensions after the vote, perhaps by co-opting some opposition figures, such as one of the CNRP leaders, Sam Rainsy. 

But that seems unlikely now. Hun Sen has little need to take such steps, having instead decimated the CNRP. Opposition leaders have said that they will continue lobbying for outside pressure on the regime, while using the networks they still have in the country to influence younger Cambodians. Yet that will be a struggle for the CNRP, whose top members are either abroad or in jail.

The opposition’s reach will be further limited if Hun Sen curtails access to social media and the internet, the main sources of information for younger urbanites, as the CPP controls the mainstream media. Cambodia’s neighbors, like Vietnam and China, have set an example, imposing harsh new restrictions on the internet in recent years and reducing already limited freedom of expression. Hun Sen and his party have also become more effective at online propaganda, using Facebook in particular to boost his image among Cambodians—many of whom have never known another political leader—and to stifle real debate.

To win over at least some of the younger opposition supporters who would have backed the CNRP if it had been allowed to run in July, Hun Sen could turn on the state taps. As David Hutt has noted, the CPP has already indicated it will try to hijack many of the populist policies that made the CNRP’s platform popular, such as government assistance for pregnant women and other social welfare programs. It is an attempt to wipe out both CNRP leaders and the party’s ideas at the same time. Hun Sen can look next door to Thailand, where the junta has tried this tactic with some success, refashioning some of the populist policies of the elected government it ousted. 

Democracy advocates in Cambodia face grim prospects and cannot rely on the outside world. Although many leading democracies condemned last month’s ballot, and have imposed some new punishments on senior Cambodian leaders, they have held off on taking more drastic steps. The Trump administration, for instance, said it was “profoundly disappointed” in Cambodia’s “flawed” election. Before the vote, the House of Representatives passed legislation that would impose financial sanctions on a number of top CPP members and Cambodian military leaders. 

The U.S. already reduced its assistance to Cambodia earlier this year, but China has repeatedly responded to Western donors’ aid cuts or threats with new assistance of its own, cushioning Hun Sen. Beijing, of course, quickly praised the Cambodian election, after sending a team of Chinese observers. China will continue to offer loans and grants to Cambodia, which has become a virtual client state. About 70 percent of Cambodia’s external debt is owed to China, as Asia Times has reported. 

The House legislation has not yet passed the U.S. Senate, where it has powerful advocates, such as Texas Sen. Ted Cruz. But the biggest stumbling block to a tougher U.S. approach to Cambodia may be Trump, even though the White House has said it may consider “additional steps” against Cambodia and senior U.S. officials have cautioned Cambodia about its rights crackdown. Trump has hardly been a beacon of human rights advocacy, in Southeast Asia or elsewhere.

Washington could consider taking tougher measures, such as revoking Cambodia’s access to U.S. markets through the Generalized Scheme of Preferences, which gives Cambodian exports various trade preferences. But such a move could play into Hun Sen’s hands, since he could portray it as a harsh tactic that punishes poor Cambodians. 

Although the European Union might consider such broad measures too, like ending Cambodia’s preferential trade scheme with the EU, Hun Sen could take a similar line with Brussels, accusing it of punishing poor Cambodians, many of whom depend on the country’s export-driven garment industry. The EU already announced before the vote that it was reassessing preferential trade access for Cambodia, given Hun Sen’s rights violations. 

Ending the trade preferences would be a potentially powerful signal, as Europe and the United States are the main destinations for Cambodian garment exports. But for that reason, it would indeed hurt many Cambodians. That’s why some Cambodian opposition politicians have been reluctant to endorse such a step, despite the downward political spiral. 

Within Asia, Japan has said little of substance about the election. The chief Cabinet secretary, Yoshihide Suga, offered only a weak statement that he could not comment on it since “we did not send monitors to observe.” Tokyo is desperate to maintain influence in Southeast Asia, where it is in a struggle for power with Beijing. Japanese companies are expanding their investments in Cambodia, and Japan and China apparently have developed a rivalry over the important port of Sihanoukville. Most of Cambodia’s immediate neighbors, themselves autocracies or hybrid regimes, have either said nothing or congratulated Hun Sen, while Australia has refrained from condemning the vote. 

As Hun Sen tightens his grip, and the outside world seems unsure of how to respond, the tragedy of Cambodia’s post-civil war period becomes even clearer. The best time to push Cambodia toward democracy, and stop Hun Sen from consolidating his power, would have been in the 1990s, when democratic donors had greater sway, Hun Sen had less power—and was only co-prime minister for a time—and China was a smaller factor in Cambodian politics. Even earlier this decade, after the CNRP nearly triumphed in the surprise 2013 elections, prompting renewed repression from Hun Sen, major democratic donors, like Japan, the United States and Europe, could have stepped in and tried to apply more pressure on Phnom Penh.

It may be too late now. Hun Sen is even stronger, and he has China backing him up. The CPP might not actually be more popular than it was five years ago, but Hun Sen has Cambodia in a vise.

Joshua Kurlantzick is senior fellow for Southeast Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations.