It remains to be seen, however, whether Cambodia took a step forward or back. Despite the rosy assessments, the country may in fact be nowhere near ending a crisis that began the day after the July 27 parliamentary election. Hun Sen’s ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) easily won the poll–some claim by rigging it–but failed to secure the two-thirds majority needed to form a new government. Opposition leaders Rainsy and Ranariddh had both refused to bring their respective parties into a coalition as long as Hun Sen remained in charge. So it greeted with surprise the news that the opposition–at the prodding of revered King Norodom Sihanouk–had signed an agreement to join a new government led by Hun Sen.
The devil is in the details. The opposition insists that it never agreed that Hun Sen would be prime minister, and that his election by the 123-seat Parliament remains in doubt if certain demands are not met. Among the conditions are an equal split of government ministries, the creation of an anti-corruption commission and the return of the international environmental group Global Witness, which Hun Sen fired as an independent monitor last April following its reports on rampant illegal logging. Rainsy says the opposition is willing to let the deadlock drag into next year. “It will be tough negotiations,” Rainsy says. “We will put the bar high, and Hun Sen may not be able to clear it.”
One might argue that Hun Sen can simply ignore such troublesome demands. But the conditions that brought him to the negotiating table persist and may finally edge him toward more substantive reforms. The prime minister, who has ruled Cambodia unchallenged for nearly two decades, is facing mounting economic worries, which will require political stability to solve. Prak Sokhon, a senior Hun Sen adviser, says donor nations, which provide 45 percent of Cambodia’s national budget, as well as foreign investors, are anxious for the political deadlock to be resolved–peacefully. “It would be difficult for the Cambodian economy,” he says, if there were to be more violence. “Investment would be hard to come by because it is a question of confidence.”
Time, too, is not on Hun Sen’s side. Only $60 million dollars in foreign projects flowed into the country in 2002. By comparison, neighboring Vietnam had upwards of $2 billion in foreign investment last year. Cambodia’s tourism industry is beginning to recover from the SARS outbreak, but the country desperately needs industries that will create jobs for its 12 million people, half of whom are under 20 years old. “They need the foreign and private sector to come in as heavily as possible in the next five years in order to have any hope of creating jobs to handle this demographic tidal wave,” says one Western analyst.
Still, Hun Sen isn’t known for compromising, and has threatened to keep the current government running indefinitely–and the Parliament closed–if the opposition does not join a coalition. As the lingering deadlock suggests, many doubt that any coalition government has much chance of success. “I don’t think this tripartite government would work well,” says human-rights activist Thun Saray. “According to democratic principles, you have one party in government and at least one in opposition.” If talks do break down again, there may be a new wave of politically motivated murders. And smiles will once again be hard to come by.
