Michael Sullivan, Cambodia Votes: Democracy, Authority, and International Support for Elections, 1993–2013. Copenhagen: NIAS Press [Governance in Asia series 5], 2016, xviii + 341 pp. ISBN 9788776941864, price: GPB 60.00 (hardcover), 9788776941, GBP 18.99 (paperback).
Michael Sullivan has written an exceptional chronicle of Cambodia’s modern electoral history, one that will serve as a reference for future scholars of Cambodia who may wish to study what democracy looked like, despite all its limitations, when it still existed in the country. (Full disclosure: I am a Trustee of the Center for Khmer Studies in Siem Reap where Michael Sullivan served as an Executive Director several years prior to my joining the Board.)
Systematically going from the UNTAC election of 1993 to the 2013 election, Sullivan details the inner workings of what Prime Minister Hun Sen and the ruling Cambodian People’s Party have done to ruthlessly amass power by hook and by crook. His Introduction has a good summary of the chapters that follow and provides a roadmap for what to expect. The chapters provide a lot of information—even I had trouble keeping-up with the details. (Thankfully, it was easy enough for this reader to remind myself of the events and to see them chronicled so richly and reconciled with my own understanding of the situation when they unfolded.)
From the very beginning, Sullivan makes clear that he ‘seeks to understand and explain the impact the 1993 UNTACelections had on the subsequent development of electoral politics in Cambodia up to and including polls in 2013’ (p. 2). He argues that ‘Beginning with UNTAC in 1993, the book argues that internationally supported elections have been the central site in a struggle between opposing political and civil forces for access to and control of the Cambodian state’ (p. 2),
There were two reasons for this. ‘Firstly, the Cambodian experience is unique in the fields of political transitions and electoral studies. International involvement and control of the transitional elections process was unparalleled in the early 1990s. Continued international technical and financial assistance for electoral development and engagement after UNTACis a key variable in understanding the ensuing struggle for control over the processes and outcomes of elections. Furthermore, new social and political forces that emerged from the UNTAC operation became significant players in the evolution of electoral politics’ (p. 2).
Secondly, ‘the Cambodian experience provides new insights into the inconsistencies and contradictions inherent in international support for multi-party democratic elections in conflict prone states. At the same time, the Cambodia case demonstrates that elections do hold out possibilities for meaningful social and political change despite manipulation and constraints placed upon them by authoritarian tendencies within the state apparatus.’ (p. 2)
The UNTAC period turns out to be a defining moment for Cambodian elections that goes well beyond 1992–1993, and would continue to impact Cambodia for a quarter century. ‘The question remained,’ ponders Sullivan, ‘what was the best way to handle UNTAC and the opposition parties?’ (p. 42). He posits that the biggest challenge to the CPP was the opening of new sources of information; what we might today in the age of Trump call “alternative facts”, instead of state propaganda. That information warfare continues to this day with a final assault on the Cambodia Daily, culminating in its closure on September 4, 2017, from a bogus $ 6.3 million tax bill, the banishment of Radio Free Asia and the National Democratic Institute. If one considers the CPP game plan, it has been and continues to be the elimination of all voices contrary to its own.
And what is old is once again new: Sullivan notes on page 93 that election monitoring of the past was characterized as suspect activity. Today this problem is simply repackaged when the “Situation Room”, a similar election monitoring meeting of like-minded NGOs, was characterized as a threat by Prime Minister Hun Sen.
Cambodian election observers declared Russia’s presidential elections to be “free, fair and transparent” in a statement released on Monday.
Officials from the Senate, National Assembly and National Election Committee travelled to Moscow on Sunday and visited a number of precinct-level election commissions on election day.
In its statement, the delegation concluded the election was “in accordance with democratic principles”.
The results of Russia’s election, won in a landslide by President Vladimir Putin, were largely seen as a foregone conclusion. One of the country’s most prominent opposition activists was barred from the ballot and reports of people being ordered to vote by their employers were widespread.
In an email, Astrid Noren-Nilsson, an expert on Cambodian politics at Lund University, said the visit was part of Cambodia’s pivot to Russia and China.
While China offers military and economic support, Russia offers “moral support and legitimacy”, including election monitors, which Russia pledged to send in November, she said.
Senate election this Sunday, February 25, 2018: The Senate election this Sunday without participation of the 5062 voters of the CNRP is the election of communist single-party state.
Sunday’s election for 58 members of the 62-strong Senate will see 123 members of parliament and 11,572 commune councilors vote at 33 polling stations across Cambodia. Two Senate members each are appointed by the king and the National Assembly. But rights groups and opposition politicians say the Senate vote is a farce that shows Hun Sen, who faces a national election in July, is not committed to multi-party democracy. – Reuters
At the present, Cambodia is at a risky transition by current grip of power either moving towards one party state of communist style such as China, Vietnam and Lao, or towards junta such as Thailand and Burma, or towards terrorism states such as Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan. The Senate election on this February 25, 2018 is a farce as the key opposition party CNRP has not been participated when the state has marginalized 2062 voters the right to vote or representing about 23 Senate seats. It has enabled the violation over the national Constitution, over the political stance of neutrality of Cambodia’s international relations, and pushing Cambodia into the jaw of China inevitably – Discern of the Analysis on Senate Election 2018
After a series of crackdowns by the Cambodian government on independent media, civil society organizations, and a main opposition party in late 2017, Western countries swiftly responded by imposing visa restrictions on Cambodia’s high-ranking officials and terminating development aid. However, Japan, as a treaty ally of the US and a democratic country sharing the values of freedom and human rights, has neither terminated its Official Development Aid (ODA) to Cambodia, nor cut its technical and financial assistance for the National Committee for Election (NEC).
Speaking to the Voice of America on Dec. 22, 2017, Japan’s Ambassador to Cambodia Hidehisa Horinouchi argued that assuring the opportunity for the people of Cambodia to express their political will and strengthening the credibility of the election process were Japan’s motivations to keep assisting the NEC. But Japan’s decision to remain engaged with a troublesome NEC goes beyond transparency of the election to a long-term strategic end to shape Cambodian politics amid growing competition with China for influence.
Cambodia has become an important destination for Japan’s investment, given its supply of low-cost labor, the potential for stable economic growth (averaging 7 percent for the last two decades), and the increased purchasing power of Cambodian people. The growing significance of bilateral diplomatic relations was evident when Prime Minister Abe Shinzo and Prime Minister Hun Sen upgraded diplomatic relations to a “strategic partnership” in 2013. Since then, the number of Japanese companies investing in Cambodia has rapidly increased. According to the Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO), there were just 19 Japanese companies in Cambodia in 2010. By 2015, the number had jumped to 250, making Japan the third largest foreign investor in the country.
Cambodia’s geography plays a crucial role in Japanese thinking: physical infrastructure in Cambodia links Japan’s industrial bases in Thailand and Vietnam. Japan’s East-West Economic Corridor (EWEC), which was initiated in 1998 and became operational in late 2006, relies not only on human and financial capital and industrial bases in newly industrialized countries, such as Thailand, Vietnam, and Malaysia, but also on connections of physical infrastructure in mainland Southeast Asian countries. Although Cambodia was not included in the EWEC at the beginning, political instability and natural disasters in Thailand during the past decade elevated the role of Cambodia in minimizing trade and investment risks and increasing resilience of the supply chain. Massive floods in Thailand in 2011 taught Japan a bitter lesson. According to the World Bank, estimated losses were no less than $4 billion, of which Japan’s investment, particularly in the automobile industries, accounted for a considerable share.
Over-reliance on Thailand is proving to be a dangerous strategy. Oizumi Keichiro, an economist at the Japan Research Institute, notes that “80 percent of investment approvals granted to Japanese business by the Thailand Board of Investment (BOI) relate to investments in Bangkok and the eight surrounding provinces” and all of them are prone to annual flooding. To cope with this growing challenge, the Thailand-Plus-One business model was initiated in 2013 not only to minimize investment risks, but also to increase Japanese competitiveness in both the regional and global supply chain. In this model, Japanese companies are advised to move labor-intensive production to one of Thailand’s neighboring countries such as Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar, while Thailand plays a role as hub of Japan’s investment and production clustering. In this strategy, Japan depends on Cambodia to supply low-cost labor and facilitate its supply chain through the country’s road network and scores of Special Economic Zones (SEZs), which were largely developed and funded by Japan’s ODA and Japanese firms.
The Thailand-Plus-One strategy facilitates Japan’s EWEC and offers Cambodia great economic opportunities. Japan can expand its economic power to slow China’s growing influence in Cambodia. Although trade volume between Japan and Cambodia is far smaller than that between China and Cambodia, Japan can at least prevent China from dominating and monopolizing the Cambodian market as it did in Myanmar. Japan is optimistic that the economic opportunities facilitate stronger and deeper engagement to shape Cambodia’s politics.
Direct engagement with the NEC is strategically important for Japan’s foreign policy. Japan’s ODA wins the hearts of Cambodian people, but not those of Cambodian politicians from the ruling party. Its ODA is vital for Cambodia’s development, but less effective to challenge China’s growing influence in Cambodia. Helping the NEC, a national institution with a notorious history of alleged fraud and election manipulation, is a strategy of choice for Japan to remain a key player to engage, monitor, and if necessary put Cambodia’s election on the path of democracy.
Michael Sullivan has written an exceptional chronicle of Cambodia’s modern electoral history, one that will serve as a reference for future scholars of Cambodia who may wish to study what democracy looked like, despite all its limitations, when it still existed in the country. (Full disclosure: I am a Trustee of the Center for Khmer Studies in Siem Reap where Michael Sullivan served as an Executive Director several years prior to my joining the Board.)
