Cambodia votes on Sunday in elections conceived, to the greater glory of Hun Sen, as a transfer of power

The Cambodian leader is torn between handing over command now to his son, Hun Manet, or holding out for a new term until 2028

July 22 (EUROPA PRESS) –

The Prime Minister of Cambodia, Hun Sen, appears at the polls this Sunday as the unopposed favorite to revalidate his mandate, amid international criticism of his government for ruthlessly crushing the opposition, in what could be the final episode of a long mandate where the man who has led the country intermittently for four decades begins to openly contemplate his son, General Hun Manet, as a possible successor.

Hun Manet will have no problem winning a seat in the legislative elections, in what will mean his first step in his career as future prime minister of the country after Sunday’s elections, almost certainly the last of the current president’s political career.

Hun Sen consolidated his dominance in the country in late 2017, when the country’s Supreme Court ordered the dissolution of the main opposition party, the Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP). Its leader, Kem Soja, ended up sentenced in March this year to 27 years in prison at the end of a process widely denounced by human rights groups, for “conspiring with a foreign power.”

The case against Soja stemmed from a comment he made during a public event in which he explained a possible coordinated political strategy with the United States ahead of the 2013 elections, although without mentioning an immediate overthrow of the government.

The Government then affirmed that Soja had violated article 443 of the Penal Code for “conspiring with a foreign power”, which in the end has brought the opponent the maximum sentence of 30 years in prison, discounting three from the beginning of the proceedings, in which he has been deprived of liberty.

Be that as it may, the dissolution of the CNRP ended up making it possible for Hun Sen’s formation, the Cambodian People’s Party, to achieve the “perfect victory” in the 2018 legislative elections: all 125 seats in Parliament, now at his complete mercy; a democratic wasteland despite domestic and international efforts to transition to a life in freedom after decades of horror at the hands of the fearsome Khmer Rouge.

Five years later, Hun Sen absolutely dominates the country’s political scene at 70 years of age and after a quarter of a century uninterrupted in power after a coup in 1997, although he first came to office in 1985 and since then has been at the forefront of politics, except for four years of unstable coalition that he decided to end with the uprising.

For this occasion, Hun Sen has extricated himself from another fledgling opposition party, the CNRP heir to the Candlelight Party, which won a hopeful 22 percent in last year’s local elections. In May, the Electoral Commission disqualified the formation for a bureaucratic procedure. In February, he had withdrawn the license of the Voice of Democracy radio station, one of the last independent media outlets in the country.

This will be the scenario that will one day be dominated by his son Hun Manet, 45, the head of the country’s anti-terror forces, a member of the party’s Central Committee and educated in the United Kingdom and the United States, who has been carving out his public image in recent years with a view to succession. In his closing campaign, Manet declared that Sunday’s elections will simply be “the day of victory” for the Popular Party as “the only one qualified” to lead Cambodia.

Only the deadlines remain to be known. If Hun Sen looks strong for a new term, the succession should theoretically wait until 2028. However, in recent days the president has dropped cryptic statements that point to the possibility of an immediate succession, next month at the earliest. “Hun Manet could be prime minister in a matter of days. We’ll see how people respond, but right now it depends on whether he wants to or not,” he said in an interview on China’s Phoenix TV on Thursday.

A CRUSHED OPPOSITION

In the midst of this panorama, organizations such as Human Rights Watch (HRW) and the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) have denounced a relentless persecution by the government against what remains of the opposition in the country.

The IFJ refers to a document prepared by the Cambodian Telecommunications Regulator on July 12, in which it communicated the intentions of the authorities to restrict access to the media outlets Radio Free Asia (RFA) and ‘Cambodia Daily’, as well as to the public database Kamnotra, managed by the Cambodian Center for Independent Media.

A spokesperson for the Ministry stated that the media had failed to meet operational standards defined by the ministry and had denigrated the government, and that Kamnotra was legally considered a media outlet. On July 17, RFA reported that several of its websites were blocked by some service providers.

On June 19, the chief correspondent and anchor of ‘Cambodia Daily’ claimed to have received a death threat from pro-government social media personality Pheng Vannak via Facebook for allegedly criticizing Hun Sen and his family on a news programme.

The prime minister also directly threatened the RFA’s Khmer service on June 4, calling for the removal of an anonymous reporter if the outlet wanted to restore its base of operations in the capital Phnom Penh.

For Human Rights Watch, the Cambodian government has once again opened “the season on opposition,” in the words of the organization’s deputy director for Asia, Phil Robertson, before citing the case of Tithia Sum, a member of the Candlelight Party and a US citizen, who fled Cambodia on July 5 after receiving notice of an arrest warrant for her on charges of lese majesty.

This crime carries a prison sentence of up to five years, in what the NGO considers one more episode of political persecution.

On June 16, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk, declared his deep concern about the shrinking civic space ahead of the elections.

The international official affirmed that “before the elections, there must be an open and pluralistic environment that guarantees the rights to freedom of expression and opinion, and freedom of assembly and association”, and urged the Government of Cambodia to quickly enable and protect an environment conducive to free and fair general elections.