Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
EPILOGUE
A Cambodian Spring?
On July 28, 2013, the people of Cambodia went to the polls and voiced their desire for
change. Almost no one saw it coming. The CPP, hubristic and overconfident, reeled as
its share of National Assembly seats was slashed from 90 to just 68—its worst electoral
performance since 1998. The remaining 55 seats were won by the resurgent Cambodia
National Rescue Party (CNRP), which had deftly capitalized on the simmering discontent
with Hun Sen's rule.
The outcome was all the more remarkable for the fact that it was achieved in the face
of widespread electoral “irregularities.” One NGO audit conducted before the election al-
leged that 9 percent of voter names were missing from the national rolls, and one in ten
belonged to “ghost voters” who appeared not to exist. On election day, thousands of op-
position voters arrived at polling stations only to find someone else had already cast a vote
in their name. In Phnom Penh tensions over voter lists erupted into a small riot in which
a mob burned two police trucks while chanting slogans against the government and “the
Vietnamese.”
By nightfall, as the provisional results were announced, an uneasy calm had fallen over
Phnom Penh. Police were deployed throughout the city and the roads closed around Hun
Sen's mansion near the Independence Monument. Expecting the worst, people flocked to
withdraw cash from ATMs. How would Hun Sen react? According to the results, his party
had lost 22 seats. If this was what the CPP-dominated National Election Committee was
willing to admit, people thought, what was the real number?
It was the perfect political storm. When the CNRP was formed in mid-2012, questions
remained about how prepared it would be for the upcoming national poll. Sam Rainsy was
the party president, but remained in self-exile after the trumped-up jail terms stemming
from his Vietnamese border stunt in late 2009, flitting between foreign capitals in a bid to
get Cambodia's, and his own, travails back on the international agenda. There were also
concerns about his relationship with the CNRP's popular vice-president Kem Sokha, the
former head of the Human Rights Party. Past merger plans had repeatedly foundered on
