CAMBODIA NEEDS POLITICAL WILL, NOT FUNDS, FOR DEMOCRACY

Opinion as published in The Cambodia Daily, October 1, 2012
By Sam Rainsy

The National Election Committee (NEC) is seeking funding from international donors to help fund next year’s elections.

Asking for funds is, of course, easier than carrying out institutional reform.

As a government-controlled body, the NEC has access to as much money as it needs to conduct elections. Bangladesh, with a population ten times the size of Cambodia, has been able to run elections cheaper.

The problem is not money: Sending a check to the NEC would be no more effective in contributing to democracy than a donation to the Khmer Rouge Tribunal (KRT) would be in bringing the perpetrators of genocide to justice. As a result of its partisan composition and leadership, the NEC is nothing more than a political tool for the ruling party to perpetuate its grip on the country.

Because of government interference, the KRT is a show that exists only to run down the clock and so ensure that government officials who used to be members of the Khmer Rouge never have to answer for their actions.

The real problem is that neither judiciary nor electoral administration are independent functions in Cambodia. Both are mere appendages to a system of authoritarian and corrupt government.

If writing checks was the answer, the problem would have been long solved. Cambodia has been a huge recipient of foreign aid for more than two decades, yet has yet to establish a respectable justice system and to hold elections that meet international standards.

Political will is a harder currency. The NEC always asks for financial and other support from the international community but it never pays heed to any recommendations to address major flaws in Cambodia’s electoral system, notably recommendations from the European Union in 2008 and those from the United Nations in 2012.

Under such circumstances no international support whatsoever should be provided until the required reform is effectively implemented. Otherwise, any financial or technical support would be presented by the government as endorsement of what is actually manipulated elections leading to a distortion of the popular will.

Sending international observers to the upcoming elections scheduled for July 2013 would not be useful either since there in no point in observing a foregone conclusion – another landslide victory for the ruling party – unfold.

The Cambodian government will only carry out the necessary electoral reform if the international community starves it of legitimacy indispensable to conduct business as usual.

Reformed electoral machinery, as recently recommended by the U.N. Special Rapporteur Surya Subedi, can allow Cambodia, finally, the opportunity to put back on track the democratisation process and to achieve self-determination as enshrined in the 1991 Paris Agreements.

[Sam Rainsy is the leader of his self-named Sam Rainsy Party and president of the newly formed National Rescue Party. He is currently in exile in Paris].