Cambodia after Sihanouk: Dancing off the stage?

Government estimated about 1,000,000 (one million) gathered in central Phnom Penh to watch the arrival of ex-King Sihanouk's body from China.

Politics and the monarchy after the death of ex-King Norodom Sihanouk 

Oct 20th 2012 |  

The Economist

PHNOM PENH 

SINCE his coronation in 2004 Cambodia’s king, Norodom Sihamoni, has enjoyed a quiet life, sticking to his constitutional role as a monarch who reigns but does not rule. He opens festivals and oversees Buddhist ceremonies, serving as a spiritual crutch for his people.

Always in the background, however, was his father, Norodom Sihanouk, who died in Beijing on October 15th at the age of 89 (see article). Sihanouk abdicated to make way for the 13th of his 14 known children from seven marriages. He tapped Sihamoni, once a ballet dancer and teacher, largely out of concern for his wife, Monique. The ageing king was acutely aware that his last wife, 14 years his junior, would outlive him. Her fondness for Sihamoni tipped the balance.

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Related topics

• Hun Sen
• Cambodia
• Monarchies
• Government and politics

Sihanouk continued to be revered right up to his death. Images of Sihamoni in shops and offices throughout Cambodia invariably portray the king with his parents. In contrast to his unobtrusive son, Sihanouk was an intensely political animal, unafraid to meddle in domestic or regional politics when he thought it was needed—often with tragic consequences. It was an unconventional role, especially compared with other contemporary monarchs. But then as the person who had won Cambodia’s independence from the French in 1953, Sihanouk was confident of his special place in his country’s history.

His relationship with the long-serving prime minister, the authoritarian Hun Sen, was particularly prickly. On the one hand in 1993 Sihanouk bestowed upon Mr Hun Sen the title Samdech, which has royal connotations. Speculation has persisted ever since that Mr Hun Sen sees himself and his family as enjoying a similar destiny to that of the monarchy: idolised by many Cambodians, especially in the countryside, as semi-divine. On the other hand Sihanouk refused to be intimidated by the prime minister, and often complained that the ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) had turned his country into a nation of beggars, dependent on foreign donors for handouts. He routinely published his thoughts, usually in French and latterly online, and fancied himself as a political counterweight to a government he regarded as overbearing.

Now that Sihanouk has gone, however, the reluctance of 59-year-old King Sihamoni to enter the political fray might begin to cost the monarchy dear. For the country’s “children”, as Sihanouk used to call his countrymen, are being subjected to an unprecedented social upheaval about which Sihamoni has so far had little to say. Traditional Cambodian patterns of village life are fast disappearing, and often for the worst reasons. The government has forcibly evicted hundreds of thousands from their land in order to sell it off, often to foreign speculators. This “land grab” policy has enriched the well-connected in government and their business friends, but is widely condemned both at home and abroad.

Over the past year environmentalists, journalists and ordinary villagers protesting against the government’s policies have been jailed, shot at and, in some cases, killed amid confrontations with the police and the army. A crackdown on dissent, particularly in the Khmer-language press, has been harsh. The political opposition has been relentlessly hounded and bullied, although its own divisions have also detracted from its effectiveness.

Will King Sihamoni now develop a political voice of his own and speak out for a beleaguered peasantry? If he succeeds at this then he may become a king revered in his own right. As it happens though, he is unmarried and without heir. The possibility remains that the centuries-old Cambodian monarchy may turn into an irrelevance—or even come to an end.