Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
vincial towns, the CPP in white, the SRP in blue, the Funcinpecists in swarming royal
yellow. Political songs blared from pick-up trucks that rolled down boulevards and dusty
backstreets. The Human Rights Party (HRP), formed by Kem Sokha in 2007 after he left
the Cambodian Center for Human Rights, was represented by a green disk on a gold field.
Lon Nol's son Lon Rith even flew in from Fullerton, California, to take his chances at the
head of a resuscitated Khmer Republican Party, working out of a tumbledown townhouse
where the old Marshal gazed down from mildewed walls.
On election day, July 27, Cambodians trooped out to
wats
, schools, and other polling
stations to cast their votes. On the surface the process was peaceful and orderly. But, as
ever, the process was a mirage. Standing under grey skies in a Kampot schoolyard, Van
Dara, a local SRP candidate, complained to me about subtle pressures exerted by the CPP
officials at the village level: “In 80 percent of polling stations, the commune chief was
hanging around. The presence of local authorities is like a threat to the local people.” Oth-
er monitors recorded small but significant numbers of voters whose names were missing
from electoral lists. Most were opposition supporters.
Before the election, journalists and other political observers had speculated about a
surge in support for Sam Rainsy's party. But as evening fell, and results began coming
in from the provinces, everything pointed to Hun Sen. The official count gave the CPP
58.1 percent of the vote—its largest victory yet. This translated into 90 seats in the Na-
tional Assembly, compared to the SRP's 26. Not all of this was due to electoral manip-
ulation. Many voters were genuinely happy with the stability and development brought
by CPP rule. Then, just three weeks before the election, Hun Sen claimed a diplomatic
victory when Preah Vihear, a graceful eleventh-century Angkorian temple perched on a
cliff along the Thai border, was inscribed on UNESCO's World Heritage list. The long-
awaited listing, made over the objection of Thai nationalists who claimed sovereignty
over the temple and its surrounding territory, prompted an outpouring of national pride
which Hun Sen rode triumphantly to the polls. The image of the temple featured promin-
ently in the CPP's election campaign.
Prince Ranariddh, meanwhile, had reached the end of the line. Fifteen years after lead-
ing the royalists to a stunning electoral victory, his new party won just two seats. Fun-
cinpec won another two. In October Sihanouk's
dauphin
received a royal amnesty and
returned to Cambodia. Speaking to journalists gathered around a dinner table at a Phnom
Penh hotel, Ranariddh announced his retirement from politics and said he now wanted
Sen had extracted another quid pro quo: the prince's exit from the political arena.
With Ranariddh off the scene, Sam Rainsy was now ambiguously placed. His party had
just made its largest electoral gain to date, but most of the old royalist vote had gone to
Hun Sen. The SRP's constituency remained overwhelmingly urban; it had failed to make
