With elections approaching at the end of July, the newspapers have been filled with even more entertainment than usual. The ruling party, CPP, has a hold on power that no one expects to lesson after this July’s contest and unfortunately appears unlikely to diminish any time soon. Although elections in Cambodia are monitored and technically seen as fair, general intimidation, jailing of a few critics for minor offenses, power cuts to neighborhoods that are strongholds for the opposition, and some politicians’ magical party affiliation changes are increasingly un-noteworthy and seem to be clear indications of a less than fair election system at the macro level, even if ballots are technically counted properly.
In what I would typically think of as a warped interpretation of playing fair, Prime Minister and CPP leader Hun Sen declared that he will not simply discard the three SRP opposition party leaders who defected to his party after the election. Instead, he has promised to appoint them to be undersecretaries of state. This exposure of quid-pro-quo is actually seen by the CPP as being a positive piece of news to release because it shows that the party is not simply taking advantage of these politicians for political gain and then dumping them afterwards. No, instead, they are going to appoint them to government-salaried positions because they switched party affiliation, irrelevant of whether they’re qualified for the positions or if their appointments would be in the country’s best interest. At the end of the day, everything is in the interest of the ruling party and their hold on government, not in the interest of the country they’re supposed to be serving.
Additionally, I’ve learned that Hun Sen is also a proponent of free speech. Although his party controls numerous radio and television outlets, after a regular broadcast by the opposition party began on a single radio station for a couple hours a day recently, Hun Sen declared that he would retaliate and make sure that they would disappear. In an eerily Bush-esque move, he claimed that criticizing the government is not in the interest of Cambodians. (Basically, take any Republican’s 9/11/terrorism speech, insert Khmer Rouge instead, and you can experience your very own Cambodian campaign cycle from the comforts of the US).
Finally, in an unrelated but thoroughly amusing news event this week, the government has decided that the city’s streets are too dirty with garbage. Yes, they are. We pretty much agree on this one. But in order to encourage the collection company to increase its collection schedule to three times a week again instead of the current one-time a week, the government has threatened to start dumping trash in front of the trash-collection company’s headquarters. It’s probably one of the most immature negotiation tactics I’ve ever heard, but at the same time, I can kind of imagine the satisfaction they must have had in releasing that statement. Who hasn’t at one point wished they could dump trash in front of some company’s headquarters?
All in all, I’m just going to have to call shenanigans.