Personal Reflections of a Cambodian Election Observer

by John McAuliff
Co-organizer, Volunteer Observers for the Cambodian Election

After much turmoil, a coalition government has been established in Cambodia by 88% of National Assembly members which expresses a spirit of compromise and national unity.

Although there were serious problems prior to the official month of campaigning, the electoral period met a reasonable standard of fairness and freedom. To a great extent the pre-electoral bias of the indigenous electronic media was offset by the equally partisan pro-opposition broadcasts of the Khmer language services of the Voice of America and Radio Free Asia.

On election and counting day, the process was so transparent and rigorous and the population was so engaged and enthusiastic that even most of the harshest critics endorsed what had occurred. Subsequent violent conflict on the streets of Phnom Penh owed much to the frustration of the two losing parties, who would have easily won had they not divided their votes.

The presence of 800 international observers working alongside 20,000 Cambodian NGO observers contributed to the success of election day. We were warmly welcomed by the public and by members of the local and communal committees responsible for implementation of the election laws and regulations.

In less than a month Volunteer Observers to the Cambodian Election (VOCE) mobilized twenty-eight participants. The Australians and New Zealanders organized by former Australian Ambassador Tony Kevin were generally funded by the non-governmental organizations with which they currently or formerly served. The 17 North Americans assembled by USIRP were largely self-funded.

Two VOCE observers filled last minute vacancies within the UN organized Joint International Observer Group (JIOG). The rest of us were invited to attend the JIOG orientation sessions, received polling place assignments from JIOG, and were given JIOG baseball caps and flags for identification. Afterwards we submitted our observation reports to JIOG on the forms provided. VOCE was well distributed from the northern border with Laos to the southern coast, from the west end of the Tonle Sap to the populated provinces east of it, from the remotest villages to the national capital. Our experiences were similar and primarily positive.

No close observer can predict with confidence that Cambodia is on a sure path to peaceful and democratic governance. Creation of a Senate headed by the CPP's Chea Sim was a key aspect of the compromise between CPP and Funcinpec but will not be simple to accomplish. The Sam Rainsy Party (SRP) is adamantly against current proposals for the Senate while Singapore, Thailand and the Philippines have made its establishment a new and presumably final hoop through which Cambodia must jump to join ASEAN.

An extraordinary step forward has been achieved through the final and total collapse of the Khmer Rouge, for which the long term strategy of the CPP must be given due credit. Yet new problems arise about whether the surviving central KR leadership should be tried for genocide and crimes against humanity. The Cambodian government is pressured by Vietnam and Western countries to bring Khieu Samphan, Nuon Chea and others to trial. At the same time, Thailand is charged with having made non-prosecution the price for releasing them across the border to Pailin.

Lots of people could have a real disinterest in seeing the KR brought to trial. Some Americans will find it uncomfortable if the spotlight shifts to responsibility for the 1970 overthrow of Prince Sihanouk and to the impact of B-52 bombing on the Cambodian rural population. America, China and Thailand bear primary responsibility for the military and political resurrection of the KR after its destruction in 1979. They also engineered the forced marriage in the 1980s between the KR and Cambodian exile groups in order to create a credible guerrilla war against Vietnam and to deny the UN seat to Phnom Penh. Virtually everyone in Cambodian political leadership from Hun Sen to Norodom Ranariddh to Sam Rainsy to the King can be tarred with the brush of association with the KR at some point in the past three decades.

An ominous sign that the KR can not be completely written off as an organized force are accusations from UNHCR that followers of the last unreconciled KR leader, Ta Mok, have been pressuring refugees in Thailand to return to Pailin. This stronghold of former KR is controlled by ex-KR Foreign Minister Ieng Sary and already provides sanctuary to Khieu Samphan and Nuon Chea. (A peculiar result of the election is that the Sam Rainsy Party represents Pailin in the National Assembly.)

Sam Rainsy and his followers have moved their militant confrontation with CPP from the streets into the National Assembly Hall while maintaining the option to go back to the streets at will. Actions such as sending a petition to the US Senate favoring SR 309. "to collect all evidence against Mr. Hun Sen as a criminal…and to support an international tribunal", certainly stretch the definition of a parliamentary opposition.

My baseline is the total physical and moral destruction I witnessed in my first visit to Phnom Penh in February 1981, so I cannot but see more signs of hope than despair in the unsteady but persistent progress since then. Participating as an observer in the election brought back memories of the courageous people I met as a voter registration volunteer in Mississippi in the summer of 1964. It engendered a renewal of faith in Cambodians whose conflicting histories bring specialness to their struggle to find a democratic path to development.

VOCE: Excerpts from Comments and Articles

As an accredited international observer to the July election in Cambodia, I spent the election in the Koh Sotin district of Kompong Cham, a heavily contested province northeast of Phnom Penh.   With a privately retained translator and a rented boat, my teammate and I visited 13 polling stations along the Mekong River on election day and found that the balloting went smoothly and fairly. The same was true for the count of ballots the next day. We detected no fraud or voter intimidation. The process was fully observed by us, by national observers, and by party representatives stationed in all of the polling places.   In speaking with dozens of other international observers posted throughout Cambodia, I found that they shared my experience. Significantly, their conclusions were the same, regardless of who won in a given area. (In Koh Sotin commune, where I monitored the count, the two main opposition parties together outpolled the ruling party by more than 3-1).   The international observers shared the conclusions of the main Cambodian observation group. Reference to "widespread ballot manipulation" is a charge that the losing opposition parties have made, but the proof seems to be lacking, and was certainly not borne out by the experience of most observers.   This does not mean that the serious allegations of political intimidation and murder during the previous year should be ignored. It does mean, however, that the integrity of the secret ballot was not breached, which offers a basis for relying on the outcome as a legitimate expression of the people's desire.

The actual mechanics of the polling and counting went much better than everyone had expected, the subsequent criticisms of FUNCINPEC and Sam Rainsy notwithstanding. The problem of course is getting everyone to agree on the nature of the elections before the results are made public. The point being that under such circumstances losers can be expected to complain about the results while winners are generally satisfied. In any event, everyone was surprised that the polling and counting transpired with very little violence, voter turn-out was much larger than expected, and, oddly enough, the results in some areas were counter to what people expected. For example, the CPP (Hun Sen's party) lost in Kompong Cham and Kandal, both provinces in which the CCP was heavily expected to win.

One important question concerns whether or not there was an atmosphere that was conducive to free and fair elections following the coup last July. Surely not, until about two months prior to the election when parties (39 in all) were able to openly run: assemblies, parades, speeches, passing out literature, etc. During this period many parties, including the main opposition were able to re-establish organizations that reached all the way down to the village level in most parts of the country

Was the election free and fair? Probably as free and fair it as possible given the circumstances. My theory is that the degree of fairness was inversely related to the distance from urban areas.

Fear is endemic among Cambodians. Emotions are rarely shown to strangers and trust is understandably hesitant. Yet the people as a whole voted with courage on 26 July. Observers could not help being impressed by the desire of ordinary folk to achieve cohesive government through the ballot box. The phrase we heard most was, 'We hope for peace'…

At Dam Dek, a rural centre thirty kilometres from Siem Reap, we watched at 7 a.m. as women with infants entered the polling station first, followed by a sprinkling of blind and disabled people, assisted by polling station staff. Then the remaining 450 or so in orderly fashion according to numbered slips given out on arrival. In many places voting was over by midday…

I was fortunate to be accompanied by two Khmer speakers, one an American anthropologist involved in resettling Cambodians, the other our Khmer student interpreter. We visited eleven polling stations, together devising questions and making suggestions. Two days of briefings beforehand in Phnom Penh alerted us to likely opportunities for fraud.

We knew of allegations that people had been intimidated, that bribes were being offered, that during the [months before the] campaign the media had featured CCP, the governing party, almost to the exclusion of others. But what would be the effect of such bias? Might it misfire? Our own task as observers was technical rather than political, yet we could not disregard the lead-up to the election.

Australian computer assistance had provided even the tiniest rural polling place with a computerized list of its voters. So voter cards were checked against the register, voters received a ballot paper listing the parties and their logos, and completed ballots slid into secure metal boxes under watchful eyes. Voters then had their right index finger dipped into indelible ink.

As observers from North America and Australia, we were privileged to watch the Cambodian polling officials on election day and during counting the following morning. Whereas the 1993 elections were conducted by international officials, and 15,000 troops patrolled the country, this year's elections were conducted by Cambodians themselves. July 26 was a major moment in the country's shaky progress towards democracy.

At polling stations, agents from various parties scrutinized the voting process. Alongside them, Cambodian observers from local human rights groups - two at each polling place - guarded against cheating. To the surprise of many, especially overseas diplomats and observers, the officials behaved impeccably in most places. Some allegations of vote rigging have been made, especially where party agents were excluded. These complaints should be properly investigated by the Constitutional Commission during August, before the election result is finalized.

The New Cambodian Government

John McAuliff

Below is the list of Ministers and Secretaries of State (Vice Ministers) in the Cambodian coalition government as compiled by Bill Herod. Were the U.S. to provide bilateral government-to-government aid, the most likely partner ministries are headed by FUNCINPEC (e.g. Education, Health, Justice, Rural Development, Public Works, and Women's Affairs).

Cambodia resumed its full participation in the United Nations on December 14, 1998, when Foreign Minister Hor Nam Hong presented his credentials in New York. The Permanent Representative and Ambassador to the UN is Mr. Ouch Borith from CPP. The Ambassador to the US is expected to be from FUNCINPEC.

Published quarterly by the U.S.-Indochina Reconciliation Project (USIRP)

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