Cambodian democracy
April 4th, 2007 by Wil Robinson
The CIA Factbook lists the Kingdom of Cambodia as a “multiparty democracy under a constitutional monarchy.”
Yet “free elections” in the country on April 1 have led to yet another landslide victory for the Cambodian People’s Party - 98 percent of the vote.
This is the same party that has held power since the Khmer Rouge was ousted by Vietnam in 1979.
It’s also virtually the same party of the infamous Pol Pot himself, initiator of the revolution responsible for more than 1.5 million deaths in the late 1970s, and who still wielded influence in Cambodian politics from Khmer Rouge bases on the border with Thailand until the 1990s.
Locals don’t even refer to the CPP by their name, instead calling them the “Red” party. That ought to be one not-so-subtle hint.
But using the CIA’s convoluted logic, this 30-year, one-party rule is considered to be a “democracy.”
Cambodia is one of the poorest countries in Asia. Using United Nations demographic data, the per capita GDP ranks at the bottom of all the countries of Asia, only slightly higher than Bangladesh and Laos.
Most Cambodians live in rural areas, many surviving in poverty that makes the slums of Tijuana, Mexico look like middle-class suburbia. Those in the cities (just 15 percent of the population lives in urban areas) don’t fare much better, subject to extreme pollution and serious diseases, as well as insufficient housing. Subsistence farming keeps food on the table - at least enough to survive - but the average life expectancy for a Cambodian is just 59 years.
Given these circumstances, I was surprised to see such strong support for the CPP in the last days before the election, on a road outside of Siem Reap, the town in northwest Cambodia that hosts the temples of Angkor Wat.
Truck after truck - most large commercial cargo trucks - passed by in a parade, each one packed with thirty or forty flag-waving Cambodian patriots in the back. The motorcade of trucks was escorted by dozens of small old motorcycles, most carrying two or more people with traditional red and white Khmer scarves pulled up over their faces to keep from inhaling the heavy dust and exhaust.
Every member of the demonstration - which probably numbered in the thousands - had matching white T-shirts and hats with the CPP logo printed boldly on the front. Large speakers or megaphones were mounted on the front of the trucks and blared loud music, inducing some in the back of trucks to dance and sing as the large vehicles lumbered down the rugged dirt road.
These parades (there were more than one) took place in the hot noontime hours during the last two days before the election - 100+ degree heat and extreme humidity. I wondered what the CPP had done over the last 30 years to deserve such loyalty from their constituency.
One man, a local tuk-tuk driver, had a simple answer.
He explained that the party had ultimate control, and that the few elite at the top kept getting richer, while the rest of Cambodians struggled to get by. Corruption was rampant in the political arena, and little was done to help average citizens. He guessed few people in the trucks really understood who they were supporting, much less why. These people had other more important things to worry about - caring for their families, finding work, perhaps just surviving day to day.
But the costs of the parade were financed through the top members of the CPP, with the poverty-stricken patriots enticed by promises for a free lunch, free T-shirt and hat, and the excitement of a day different from their mundane routine. Government money paid for the trucks’ fuel, the lunches, the hats and shirts, and the drivers who toured the loaded trucks around town demonstrating the “popularity” of the CPP.
I wondered what else that government money could have been used for. Surely there were other ways to improve the lives of average citizens besides giving them a shirt and hat. There were projects to be finished, roads to be built, rivers that needed bridges, health centers that were short of funds; an entire country needed an infrastructure upon which to build their lives.
But these necessities took a back seat to the politics of one-party rule.
It’s likely similar in other countries that are struggling to pull themselves out of poverty. There are the corrupt governments of many African nations, where post-colonial despots still cling to power by using the financial reserves of the state. Leaders like Mugabe in Zimbabwe, who skillfully make it appear that they enjoy the widespread popularity by exploiting the very people they profess to serve, silencing any group that dares to protest.
However, exploitation of the people to serve the needs of the elite in self-titled “democracies” isn’t limited to the developing world.
The formula works the same in every country: If you have money, you have power, in which case you have access to the deep pockets of the state in order to maintain that power. Eliminate legitimate opposition by claiming to speak for all of the body politic; and whenever possible, question the patriotism and loyalty of those that attempt to form any opposition.
It’s only natural that people want to be on the winning side. If you can make yourself appear powerful and popular, public opinion will be inclined to shift in your direction.
The two-party system in the United States isn’t much different. Both parties profess to speak for the entire public - the old “the American people want change” rhetoric. For almost a hundred years the Democrats and Republicans have managed to suffocate any voices that don’t coincide with their own worldviews, assuring that one or the other will rule the country.
Conveniently, many of the views of these two parties coincide: tax breaks for the wealthy, a bill of rights for the corporation, foreign policy that assures domination of natural resources with little regard for the sovereignty of other countries, and xenophobia about anything that isn’t white, rich or Judeo-Christian.
Do the American people really have a choice anymore?
Or are we simply being loaded into the trucks with the promise of a free lunch, waving our flags, and allowing critical decisions to be made by those that exude the illusion of popularity?
Tags: propaganda, parties, democracy, War of Misinformation, Cambodia
We should be so lucky…….a free lunch, t-shirt and a hat? That would be far too expensive for the Bushies; they’ll just wrest power in the good old-fashioned way: brute force.
Great to have you back, Wil, thanks for the e-mail, I was starting to get concerned.
Peace and Grace to you, my brother.
I think that a comparison between what we saw in Cambodia and the way U.S. politics works in relation to the American people is more different than is
given credit in the post, though. Americans don’t tend to vote because they’re uneducated or illiterate, or because they can’t spare the time - I
think they don’t vote because they’re too busy with their material goods and they’re lazy.
The Cambodian mind-frame is likely quite different. If democracy was a hill, they’d be on the way up it, and we’d be going down the other side. The mind-frame of both rulers and citizens is different on these two sides.
Americans easily take democracy for granted, shrugging off the positive implications as too much effort, while perhaps voters in developing countries aren’t even aware of the possibilities.
It would be interesting to see what the two can learn from each other, anyway.
Anon Cambodia Traveler:
I think you make a great point. I tried to make the same, but you did it more eloquently.
The main gist of it is that while Cambodians are on their way up the democracy ladder, Americans are on the way down.
At which point on the hill are the two countries at the same altitude?
First, welcome back Will.
Secondly, who mistake is this? And how it can be solved? Sometimes people say Democrats and Republicans are just the two faces of the same coin.
Is there still in the world any real free nations? Or all democracies are just the same or another form of dictatorship?
I think there are still many; to name a few, Sweden, Norway, New Zealand, South Korea, what else?
Impoverished people who’ve spent most of their lives under the rule of one, iron-fisted, ruthlessly violent party hardly have much choice but to vote for the status quo. According to the International Herald Trib, which you linked to, there were many parties in Cambodia besides the CCP for the people to choose from, but only one opposition party, the Sam Rainsy Party, was able to gain any control of local councils.
“Hun Sen’s party [the CCP] has ruled Cambodia for nearly three decades and has strong rural support. Before the first local elections in 2002, communes were ruled by his loyalists appointed by the Interior Ministry.â€
The people have only been able to vote in this “democracy†for the last five years, yet voter turnout was estimated at 70 percent. I think it’s telling that, even if the CCP garnered 98 percent of the vote (unofficially, as of April 2, according to the IH Trib), the Sam Rainsy party claims it has gained 28 local councils and sangkats (communes) in this election, more than doubling the number it gained in the last (first) election (13) in 2003. The Sam Rainsy party is a “personalist and more or less liberal†party in Cambodia and is “a member of the Council of Asian Liberals and Democrats,†according to Wikipedia.
So yes, it seems that in spite of the overwhelming, nearly 30-year control the CCP has wielded over the lives of the Cambodian people, the country is moving ever so slowly toward a real democracy, at least in that it’s holding elections at all. And not everyone voted for the shirts, hats and a free lunch.
America seems to be on the “downward side of the ladder,†yes. But I would point out that while our two-party system feels a lot like a one-party system sometimes – and up until the last election in Nov. 2006, seemed to be headed for that in reality – the two main parties are still fundamentally different in philosophy and governance. Still, powerful politicians, no matter their party, are always perceived as corrupt by the people — and often are. While we’re not out of the woods yet here, our system of constitutional checks and balances is once again asserting itself. As long as it is allowed to continue in its lumbering, slow way, a modicum of balance will once again be achieved.
Obviously, it’s not perfect.
This isn’t really an argument against your point,nor does it answer your question, Wil, (in fact, now I’ve written it up, I wonder what my own point is, except that you got me thinking). But I would like to point out that Cambodia and the U.S. are very, very different countries. In Cambodia, voting at all is still a new and intriguing novelty, and I’d wager that most people, because of their extreme poverty and lack of education and access to information, don’t know much about the other parties. Comparing the two democracies – one so new, the other fairly old, and each with its own system – seems a little unfair.
Of course, here in America we’re jaded – we expect the fruits of democracy without the hard work, which is why so many Americans still don’t inform themselves of the options or bother to vote at all. And unless they’re unusually interested in politics, I think most Americans don’t really understand how important their vote is. That single civics class I took in high school was a long time ago, and I don’t think most teen-agers really “get†it anyway. As long as their own lives continue to be about the same, it doesn’t matter much to most people which party is in power.
Hmmm. Maybe we’re not so different from Cambodia after all.
I’ll take a stab at answering your question, though — the two countries will reach the same altitude on your metaphorical “hill” when each of their democracies achieve the balance it was intended to provoke. Not easy or fast, and there are sure to be a lot of falls back down the hill. The really hard task is to get up again and restart the climb. Here in America, we’ve fallen a long way. But I do think we’re brushing ourselves off and have already started back up toward the summit, one wobbly step at a time.
Welcome back, Wil! You always get me thinking in spite of myself. Now I’m going to be worrying at this one for the rest of the day, at least. Looking forward to more posts about what you experienced while visiting Cambodia and Thailand, and of course, your lucid thoughts on the world at large.
Yasser-
Thanks for your comment. I wouldn’t put South Korea in the same category as Norway and Sweden. Actually, I wouldn’t even put them above the US - technically they are a puppet government that has only had free elections for little more than ten years, and the foreign policy is still subject to the whims of the US occupying forces.
However, I think you make a point, that true democracy is something to strive for, and that just assuming it exists because there is a two-party system isn’t always true. Hopefully in the future nations can find the natural and perfect balance — that spot on the hill, so to speak.
Wren–
Thanks for the extended comment…You never fail to actually tear apart what I write…(where did you learn to do that?)
You make some great points, and I would agree with you that there is obviously more differences between Cambodia and the US - I made the comparison sort of exaggerated just to make my point.
I’m concerned that too many Americans believe we have achieved true democracy simply because there is a strong two-party system, but those two parties seem to be eerily similar and nothing seems to change. Add to that the voter apathy and laziness, as the Anon Cambodia Traveler put it, and I wonder if we have a democracy at all.
Perhaps it is just being naive on my part, but I grew up believing that democracy meant a true rule by the people, for the people. The plutocracy that has become the US system does anything but rule for the people, masking the system by portraying it as a “choice” between Democrats and Republicans.
I think a good system would eliminate this “winner take all” system, and perhaps something more like a Parliamentary proportional system, where a party that gets 5% of the vote gets 5% of the seats in the legislature. This would eventually allow the emergence of new and alternate parties.
Someone made a good point in a conversation yesterday…they said that perhaps it isn’t one hill at all. Perhaps democracy is like flying an airplane, and that countries have to find their altitude upon which to glide. There is some turbulence on the way, and at some points it seems we are headed for a crash, but eventually - with good pilots - the plane pulls up and finds the smooth pocket of air.
So much for analogies…
Thailand and Cambodia? Wow. I cannot deny I envy your travels.
It is always good to get a fresh perspective, especially right from the source. How is Thailand under military rule?
Glad your plane didn’t crash too.
clearthought-
Thailand is surprisingly luxurious. Kind of like Hawaii, but not as crowded and everything is cheap.
There are pics of the King EVERYWHERE, but other than that you don’t notice anything that different. They have historically been involved in one military coup after another, and nothing much changes.
Having said that, I noticed a news story today that Thailand has now banned Youtube because someone posted a video defacing photos of their beloved king…so much for free speech.
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1607121,00.html
Wren-
One other thing about the opposition parties in Cambodia.
It’s true, I did see a couple of signs for a couple of different opposition parties, but for every sign there was twenty CPP headquarters, not to mention dozens of other signs and photos of the leaders.
And, perhaps most importantly, the tuk-tuk driver who explained to me the ills of the CPP, didn’t seem comfortable in doing so. I doubt he ever considered publicly expressing his disappointment in the party…I certainly wouldn’t. I was rather surprised he did so to us, and as we watched the parade go by, he simply stood in silence. The atmosphere is one of intimidation and subtle threats.