Introduction

Between July 21st and July 28th, I participated in the Japan Centre For Conflict Prevention (JCCP) International Observation Election Monitoring team.

Please see my main report, ‘Observations on the 2003 Cambodian General Elections’ for detailed observations on the election. Here I just make some general remarks about democracy in Cambodia as well as on the JCCP observation project.

Limitations

My opinions are limited by the short amount of time I spent in Cambodia, hence I feel unqualified to comment in-depth on the extent to which Cambodia is democratic or not.

Impressions On Democracy In Cambodia

Various NGOs in Phnom Penh (in particular LICARDO and Human Rights Watch) claimed the vote buying and gift-giving were commonplace prior to the General Elections of July 27th. In particular, the Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) was accused of this violation. This evidence was backed up by allegations from numerous individuals on polling day, who claimed the CPP had visited villages in Kandal province the night before, offering gifts for votes. Furthermore I witnessed a number of village chiefs present at polling station entrances, possibly intimidating voters.

As I was not present at the 1998 general elections, I cannot directly compare them. However, I do note that numerous media reports and NGOs have reported that things were less violent than in 1998, but that voter intimidation and coercion appears to be continuing.

I did witness one instance where FUNCINPEC and Sam Rainsy opposition party supporters stopped ethnic-Vietnamese from voting and encouraged groups of men to assemble to stop the ethnic-Vietnamese and "to tell them to go home". I also visited one polling station shortly after a fight between ethnic-Vietnamese and ethnic-Khmer ensured following similar problems. It appears that the opposition parties, rather than attacking Hun Sen’s policies, decided to focus a major part of their campaign on ethnic-hatred in order to stir up popular opinion.

The electoral process on polling day seemed well organized, which I heard is an improvement on 1998, though many people still complained about the National Election Committee recruitment procedures being biased towards the CPP.

Finally, one serious threat to ‘democracy’ is the huge differences in campaign funding between the parties. Only the CPP has the resources to campaign in the rural areas. Until a cap is placed on election campaign spending and opposition parties have equal campaign access to remote rural areas, this will compromise Cambodian democracy.

In conclusion, Cambodia is making steps towards democracy, but intimidation, campaign resource inequality and opposition campaigns based around ethnic-hatred remain, making a truly effective representative democracy still a distant future in Cambodia.

On Our Group Activities

I feel we did a good job and worked well together. However, I feel our group was too large. Would two or three permanent observers for two/three months doing in-depth work have been more useful? Given that most of the allegations made were regarding the pre-election campaign, field research into this area would have been a worthwhile pursuit.

Sometimes I felt our schedule could have been better organized; smaller groups (one Cambodian, one observer), transportation times minimised through overnight stays in the local area, etc. Also, lunchtimes seemed too long.

Security is an important consideration, though it is also important to realize we are there to observe what we see, not only the peaceful times. If, as in my experience, the situation could be perceived by some as dangerous, participants should be trained and know specific criteria by which to assess when to withdraw the observation. It is important to not be too cautious about this, otherwise one may miss important observations, but also observers should not to be too cavalier. One point of note is that some people can feel safe in an environment that others find dangerous. People have different security thresholds. Hence each observer group must have a clearly defined agreement regarding the criteria for stopping an observation.

Overall, I found the observation to be a great experience and look forward to keeping in touch with JCCP in the future.