Key Elections for Cambodia

In a year of sudden leadership changes in Asian countries, the best hope for Cambodia’s national elections this Sunday is simply that they will be fair and credible. That is in question, however, amid reports of intimidation of the nation’s largely poor electorate.

How the elections are conducted will help determine Cambodia’s standing in the international community. Voters are more vulnerable and less informed than they were in the Southeast Asian country’s last election, conducted in 1993 under the auspices of the United Nations and the 1991 Paris peace accords. Sunday’s elections will be run by the government of Hun Sen, a former Communist once allied with the Vietnamese invaders of Cambodia.

Hun Sen lost at the polls in 1993 but deftly positioned himself to share the office of prime minister with Prince Norodom Ranariddh, the head of a royalist party and the son of self-exiled King Sihanouk. Last July, Hun Sen ousted the prince and caused opposition leaders to seek refuge in exile. About 100 people were killed in violence in the ensuing months, but Hun Sen is not known to have meted out any political or criminal punishment.

His Cambodian People’s Party, which is likely to capture enough seats to form a bloc, has been fingered as the culprit in that violence and in the threats leading up to Sunday’s elections. The two main opposition parties, led by Prince Ranariddh and Sam Rainsy, each have a following, enough apparently to prompt Hun Sen to resort to unsavory tactics.

The presence of 500 international observers, including some from the United States, is considered crucial. Their very presence could embolden voters--who turned out in unexpected numbers five years ago, despite a rash of violence--and could help discourage vote tampering, although there are not enough monitors to prevent it.

Thursday, the U.S. State Department issued a statement calling for the elections to occur without delay but reserving judgment on how free and fair the balloting is likely to be.

So far the international community has shunned Hun Sen, and Cambodia’s seat at the United Nations has been kept vacant. U.S. assistance to the government was suspended last July. Cambodia’s entry into the Assn. of Southeast Asian Nations has been on hold. ASEAN members, along with U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, will watch closely over the weekend from Manila, where they will be meeting.

Much rests on the credibility of these elections. Cambodia can regain the respect of the world community only if it respects its own people and heeds their voice.