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the issue of which leader should enjoy prominence in the new party. Could they work to-
gether?
All these concerns were swept away in the weeks leading up to the election. As a sop
to international opinion, Hun Sen requested a royal pardon for Rainsy, allowing him to
return and contest the election. It was a major miscalculation. When Rainsy landed in
Phnom Penh on the humid morning of July 19, after nearly four years abroad, he re-
ceived a hero's welcome. News of his return had spread quickly by phone, Facebook,
and word of mouth. Tens of thousands of people poured into the streets, which were so
crowded that it took five hours for Rainsy's motorcade to travel the ten kilometers from
the airport into the center of town. Hordes of party supporters streamed past on motor-
bikes and trouped along the roadside in the heat, snapping photos with iPads and holding
up homemade signs with the CNRP's rising sun logo. Excited crowds chanted “Change!
Change! Change!” while people crowded onto balconies to see Rainsy's slow, triumphant
march back into Cambodian politics.
When they reached Freedom Park, Rainsy and Sokha strode out onto a stage overlook-
ing a crowd of tens of thousands, a sea of blue and yellow spread out under rolling storm
clouds. Party anthems blared from stacks of amplifiers and people danced joyfully. After
four years on the political margins, Rainsy had returned to center stage. In an electric half-
hour speech, the first of the frenzied campaign to come, he promised increased wages,
the cancellation of economic land concessions, and an end to Vietnamese encroachments.
“Today, we are writing a new page of Cambodian history,” he told the crowd. As the wind
swirled and the first drops of rain fell, Rainsy raised a fist high and carried the crowd to a
peak of excitement. “Long live Cambodia! Our nation will live for eternity!”
The crowd responded with a roar. And the heavens opened.
The election was the youngest in Cambodia's history. In 2013 around 3.5 million of
the 9.5 million registered voters were aged between 18 and 30 years, and 1.5 million
of them—more than 15 percent—were voting for the first time. Shifting demographics
meant that the CPP's old political formula—liberation from the Khmer Rouge plus sta-
bility plus basic economic development—had lost much of its potency. After 20 years,
its time-honored system of rewards and controls was breaking down. A large majority of
the Cambodian population now had no memory of the Khmer Rouge, and were no longer
willing to accept Pol Pot's nightmare as a benchmark.
First-time voters, born since the UNTAC mission, had grown up in a different country
than the one their parents had known. Hun Sen's reign had transformed Cambodian so-
ciety. Land grabs and indebtedness had disrupted the traditional rural economy and up-
rooted tens of thousands from the land. As rural migrants flooded to the cities, they joined
a growing urban working class of garment and construction workers, escaping the smoth-
ering influence of CPP village chiefs and commune authorities. The CNRP cleverly tar-
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