By Helen Jarvis
Three months after the July 26 elections, a new Cambodian government is yet to be formed. Despite participating in the National Assembly swearing-in ceremony on September 24, the majority of elected opposition members are now attempting to garner international support to overturn the elections and repeat the deconstruction of Cambodia's political system that they strove for in the 1980s, culminating in the United Nations intervention 1991-93.
The elections indicated that no one political tendency has clear majority support. The largest share of votes (41.42%) was gained by the Cambodian People's Party (CPP), led by Hun Sen. The opposition vote was split between FUNCINPEC, led by Prince Norodom Ranariddh, (31.7%) and the Sam Rainsy Party (14.27%).
The electoral law stipulated proportional representation and, under the formula adopted by the National Electoral Commission on May 29, those votes translated into 64 seats for CPP, 43 for FUNCINPEC and 15 for SRP.
Under the 1993 constitution, a two-thirds majority of National Assembly members is needed to vote confidence in a government, so the opposition has so far prevented the CPP from forming the next government.
The opposition is demanding a summit meeting held outside the country — FUNCINPEC wants it in Beijing and Sam Rainsy wants it in Tokyo.
Hun Sen has replied, "A meeting outside the country to discuss Khmer problems ... is an attempt to destroy Khmer sovereignty and to divide the nation. All meetings related to Khmer problems must be held in the kingdom of Cambodia. We must not internationalise Khmer problems."
Since the election, the country has been wracked by continual political and even physical fighting. A series of international and national observer groups (with more than 400 and 15,000 observers respectively) declared the elections to have been carried out credibly, although some noted human rights violations and intimidation during the campaign.
Nevertheless, the two opposition parties rejected the results, claiming fraud and also demanding a recount using a different formula, which would result in the CPP losing five seats (and its majority).
A series of opposition rallies and sit-ins outside the National Assembly building raised the political pressure.
Although initially Hun Sen announced that he would do nothing to obstruct the protest, following a grenade attack on his house and a series of racist incidents (involving the murder of several local Vietnamese and the destruction of a monument to Cambodian-Vietnamese friendship in overthrowing Pol Pot) the sit-in was routed. Scenes of demonstrators, including women and Buddhist monks, being beaten by security forces were shown on national and international television.
A sullen calm was restored to Phnom Penh, but in the days following, more than 20 corpses were found on the outskirts of the city. Few have yet been identified, some were dressed in monks' robes, some had their hands tied, and all had been brutally slain.
On September 24, on the day of the formal swearing-in of new MPs in Siem Reap, near Angkor, a rocket-propelled grenade just missed Hun Sen's car and ploughed into a house, killing a young boy and injuring several other people. Two other grenades fortunately did not detonate, or the carnage would have been much greater.
Immediately following the ceremony, the majority of the opposition MPs flew straight from Siem Reap to Bangkok to conduct their international campaign against Hun Sen.
Both Ranariddh and Sam Rainsy seem intent on calling in their international allies. Rainsy had earlier even called for the United States to bomb Hun Sen's house!
While this may not be a likely development at this moment, there are enough examples from elsewhere in the world to show that the "terrorist" label can indeed result in such actions, and Sam Rainsy's call for support has not gone unheeded.
On October 2, the International Relations Committee of the US House of Representatives voted to ask the US government and its "like-minded allies" to arrest Hun Sen and bring him to face charges of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity in an international court.
The current political crisis follows the 1997 breakdown in the coalition government between the CPP and FUNCINPEC (earlier including both Ranariddh and Rainsy), which resulted in Cambodia being refused its seat in the United Nations General Assembly and being denied aid and investment from various quarters.
The opposition clearly was gambling on winning the elections, and had they formed some kind of electoral pact, they might have attained a plurality of votes.
But the CPP has retained strong support (actually increasing its vote from 38% in 1993). Now the opposition have lost the election, they are seeking to call in their international supporters to force Hun Sen from office, just as they did in the late 1980s after losing the military battle, which they fought in alliance with the Khmer Rouge.