Cambodia's Economic Transformation by Caroline Hughes & Kheang Un

Author:Caroline Hughes & Kheang Un [Hughes, Caroline & Un, Kheang]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Business & Economics, Economic History, History, Asia, Southeast Asia, Social Science, Anthropology, Cultural & Social
ISBN: 9788776940836
Google: HxAikgAACAAJ
Barnesnoble:
Goodreads: 15920198
Publisher: NIAS
Published: 2011-01-15T06:53:07+00:00

In the last statement, in particular, “freedom” is associated with salvation from violence and corruption, and “dictatorship” with loss of national identity and territory. The conflation of “democracy” with the SRP and/or Funcinpec, in opposition to the “dictatorship” of the “ruling party,” reflects the opposition of Khmer and “yuon” in Khmer-language propaganda, and the connection of these with equivalent oppositions of violence/peace, corruption/moral integrity, and patriotism/treason.

The conflation of issues of democracy and Khmer moral rebirth disguised distinct perceptions of the meaning and function of the election, between local NUF supporters and potential international interveners. While the downplaying of the Vietnamese issue in statements released internationally by the party leaders must have been deliberate, little attention was apparently paid to whether this difference was symptomatic of deeper divergencies in stance between foreign liberal democratic observers and the parties. The ease with which strategies for beckoning international support skated over this difference entailed that Rainsy and Ranariddh continued to seek international backing for their cause, and their supporters continued to demonstrate to this end, even after international monitors had declared their belief that the elections constituted “a successful exercise in national self-determination.”38

The narrow CPP victory was viewed with incredulity by Funcinpec, the SRP, and their supporters. The between these reactions and international reactions to the election result brought the different views of the meaning and function of elections into sharp relief. Initially, rejection of the election result by Funcinpec and the SRP emerged in part from a refusal to believe that their fellow countrymen could have voted against national independence and “true democracy” as embodied by their respective parties, when given the opportunity in a reasonably free election. This refusal was widely shared among demonstrators interviewed. International observers, by contrast, viewed a peaceful election process in which there was no systematic evidence of fraud, as legitimizing the CPP as the elected representatives of the Cambodian popular will, as constituted on polling day.

More fundamentally, for the Funcinpec, the SRP, and their supporters, the CPP were the antithesis of popular sovereignty because of their supposed relationship with Vietnam. The conflation of their own parties with Khmer selfdetermination, moral regeneration, and democracy entailed that an election that returned a CPP government could not by definition be authoritative, rightful, or democratic for these parties. Evidence was sought to support this a priori conviction, and in response, individuals increasingly came forward as the postelection campaign of nonrecognition gained momentum, to make accusations of varying credibility. This evidence never mounted sufficiently to make a compelling case for sustained fraud, in the eyes of most international observer groups. Yet for the parties in question, the CPP victory represented a defeat of sovereignty and could not therefore also be an expression of it. Consequently, thousands of these parties’ supporters insisted upon a view of the election as a corruption, rather than an expression, of Cambodian aspirations.

It is significant in this regard that thousands of protestors campaigned vigorously in an attempt to persuade the “international community” to reverse its assessment of the elections.

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