Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
private companies. Whole families came, from grandmothers to nursing babies carried by their
mothers. Most carried picnic baskets in anticipation of a long wait.
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The CPP expected an easy victory. Bantering with reporters after casting his vote in Kam-
pong Cham, Hun Sen said his party had “done everything for the purpose and survival of
the people” and was “very confident” of winning the election.
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But when the votes were counted, it turned out that Funcinpec had won. The party
clinched 45.5 percent of the vote, followed by the CPP's 38.2 percent, and Son Sann's
BLDP, which won 3.8 percent. The remainder of the vote went to a raft of small anti-CPP
parties. In the 120-seat constituent assembly, Funcinpec won 58 seats, the CPP won 51,
and 10 went to the BLDP, with the final one clinched by Molinaka, a royalist offshoot.
UNTAC officials praised the conduct of the poll. Akashi declared the election “free and
advantages—its strong networks of political control and its liberal use of violence—the
CPP had failed to engineer victory. Its defeat represented a massive miscalculation of the
desires of the Cambodian people. Taking advantage of the UN's secret ballot, they rejec-
ted the CPP and clung to what many saw as the one constant in an era of upheaval and
suffering—a symbol of peace, tradition, and the hazily remembered golden age of the
prewar years.
They voted for Sihanouk.
The CPP reacted to its defeat with complaints and threats. Even as the votes were being
counted, senior officials complained about electoral irregularities. On June 10 Hun Sen
launched a stinging criticism of the UN, accusing it and foreign nations of rigging the
polls in Funcinpec's favor. In response to the UN's “massive fraud,” he announced that
the six provinces east of the Mekong River had seceded and declared an “autonomous
zone.” The secession, he said, was launched by CPP “dissidents” including the pugna-
cious National Security Minister Sin Song, an ex-DK cadre who joined Hun Sen in Vi-
etnam in 1977, and Prince Norodom Chakrapong, a rebellious son of Sihanouk who had
joined the CPP in 1991.
Throughout the secession zone the CPP unleashed its A-Team attack squads, which
destroyed UNTAC offices and party branches and beat up opposition activists. Hun Sen
claimed no hand in the creation of the “Samdech Eav Autonomous Zone”—cynically
named after a popular honorific for Sihanouk—but offered to help “resolve” the situation.
Five days later, he had convinced the secessionists to step down. After witnessing the
CPP's show of strength, Prince Ranariddh agreed to share power with Hun Sen in an in-
terim government pending the drafting of a new constitution. Both would serve as co-
prime ministers, with Sihanouk as head of state.
