July, 2015
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Political Paradigm of Pragmatism from the Khmer Youth part 29
Public Policy and Policy Platform of the Political Parties
This part (29), the author Mr. Sophan Seng renewed his talk regarding the Public Policy and Policy Analysis that are the cornerstone for the Policy Platform Crafting. By exposing the finding from Asia Foundation on their survey to collect political opinions from the Cambodian constituents, the summery of key recommendation for the political parties, are following:
1. Corruption is perceived as the biggest problem facing Cambodia. Including a counter-corruption objective in a political party platform will broadly appeal to the electorate’s desire for change. While individual politicians can increase their popularity by leading highly visible counter-corruption campaigns in the run-up to the next national elections, a greater degree of transparency in the conduct of political parties can counter feelings of distrust of political parties, as the survey findings demonstrated.
2. At the local level, poverty, unemployment, and associated issues are perceived as the biggest problems. Visible commitment at the local level to addressing the root cause of these issues will likely be highly popular.
3. Although vote buying or gift giving may still be an effective strategy for getting out a party’s own supporters, it is clear that in Cambodia it is not effective in changing how voters choose to vote. Parties that wish to attract new voters would be better off spending their resources to develop and publicize programs attractive to the electorate at large.
4. It is clear that the public favors political decentralization, with very large majorities in favor of directly elected officials at all levels. Although political parties would prefer to retain control over the selection of officials, there is a huge potential electoral payoff for any party willing to embrace political and fiscal decentralization.
5. The political parties in Cambodia have failed to differentiate themselves in the public mind, and due to the nature of the electoral system, it is likely that voters associate the parties more with their leaders than with specific programs. Developing a detailed platform that can be distilled into four or five bullet points, to be repeated over and over, will differentiate the parties in the public’s mind. Periodic polling will help determine if their messages are sinking in and to gauge their popularity with the general public. These polls will then allow parties to fine-tune their messages as they prepare for the 2018 elections.
These five bullet-points are wholly derived from the finding. It is imperative to comprehend that these recommendations subsumed from the research don’t mention the border effort to protect from neighboring encroachments. This absence might be caused by:
– The borderline issues are more sensitive issue that shall not build strong foundation for the nation in sustaining development, and it is regarded as more polarized than unified within a nation-state if the state institution is not strong.
– It is possible that the researchers didn’t include questions towards the respondents, or the general opinions are too vague on the issue.
In brief, the key recommendations to the political parties are:
– Crafting robust policy platform to anti-corruption
– Family economy improvements through creating more jobs and increase price of their agriculture products as well as to provide them cheap or free healthcare and seniors salary etc.
– Focus more on robust policy and genuine political will than to encourage vote-buying
– Need more decentralized and delegate administration of the party than to consolidate the central power, or organize candidate elections than conduct direct nomination.
– Parties must prepare well-informed information on their political policy platform than to persuade vague personalities to attract the voters.
At the end, the borderline trigger to maximize nation’s interests is imperative but they must be putting aside the attack on each other.
Cambodia jails 11 opposition party members for insurrection
Cambodia jails 11 opposition party members for insurrection
A Cambodian court has sentenced 11 opposition party members to jail terms ranging from seven to 20 years for insurrection after an anti-government protest turned violent a year ago.
- POSTED: 21 Jul 2015 19:21, Op-Ed: Channel News Asia
Supporters of the Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP), are escorted by Cambodian police officers at the Phnom Penh Municipal Court, on July 21, 2015. (Photo: REUTERS/Stringer)
Meach Sovannara (center left), a member of the Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP), and a supporter of CNRP (left), are escorted by Cambodian police officers at the Phnom Penh Municipal Court, on July 21, 2015. (Photo: REUTERS/Stringer)
PHNOM PENH: A court in Cambodia jailed 11 opposition party members on Tuesday for insurrection after an anti-government protest turned violent a year ago, a verdict that could rock a fragile truce between the country’s rival political forces.
The 11 Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) members received jail terms ranging from seven to 20 years for forcibly trying to reopen the country’s only designated protest venue, “Freedom Park”, defence lawyer Sorn Sudalen told Reuters.
The park was temporarily shut as outrage against the ruling Cambodia People’s Party (CPP) grew among activists and trade unions in the wake of a disputed 2013 election, rattling the administration of long-serving Prime Minister Hun Sen.
Chaos erupted during the rally, as security forces fired tear gas and charged CNRP supporters with batons.
Naly Pilorge, director of Cambodian rights group Licadho, described Tuesday’s court proceedings as a “show trial”.
“We are shocked,” she said. “This is another clear example of how the executive is using courts to threaten political activists.”
The CNRP activists were bailed as part of a peace agreement struck last year between the CPP and CNRP that led to the opposition ending its parliamentary boycott, but there have been signs of tension resurfacing.
Political experts have been sceptical about how lasting the “new culture of dialogue” would be, given the long and bitter history between heavyweights in the two parties.
CNRP, a reincarnation of a formerly impotent opposition, stunned the CPP in the 2013 election by winning votes from urban middle classes, disgruntled textiles workers and farmers angered by land grabs.
The 2018 election will be closely watched as former Khmer Rouge soldier Hun Sen seeks to extend a three-decade grip on power that critics say has been reinforced by the influence he wields over Cambodia’s judiciary, bureaucracy and military.
– Reuters
Analysts See Cambodia Bolstering Military Ties With China
FILE – Cambodian Defense Minister Tea Banh, second left, shakes hands with a Chinese army adviser during a graduation ceremony at the Army Institute in Kampong Speu province, March 12, 2015.
PHNOM PENH, CAMBODIA—Cambodia is strengthening its military ties with China, and analysts say it is likely to continue doing so for the forseeable future.
Cambodian Defense Minister Tea Banh made a five-day trip to China last week, meeting with high-ranking military officials and receiving pledges of assistance from the Chinese military.
In a recent interview, he told the VOA Khmer service that the visit was successful in bringing military cooperation between the countries even closer. That relationship is closer than Cambodia’s military ties with the U.S., he said.
Analysts say Phnom Penh is likely to look more and more to Beijing for support because of growing tensions with its old patron, Vietnam, over border issues.
Cambodia and China have traditionally enjoyed close relations, and they became noticeably closer after 2012 when Cambodia, as host of an Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit, sided with China over the contentious South China Sea issue.
The following year, Beijing provided Phnom Penh with a $195 million loan, which bought 12 Chinese Z-9 military helicopters. In May of this year, China pledged military trucks, spare parts, equipment and unspecified chemicals.
Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen has often touted the relationship. During the inauguration of a Chinese-funded road in Kampong Som province last month, he told a group of farmers that Cambodian-Chinese relations were at an all-time high, and that the two were moving toward a “comprehensive” partnership. China’s development fund for Cambodia for 2015 amounted to $140 million, up from $100 million the year before, he said.
Tea Banh defended the bilateral relationship, saying Chinese aid came with no strings attached and that China had never interfered in Cambodian affairs. He declined to disclose how much aid Cambodia would receive from his latest trip.
Benefits for China
Yet analysts warn that China is getting more out of the deal than Cambodia. Chheang Vannarith, a visiting professor at the University of Leeds in England, said China needs Cambodia as a partner in Southeast Asia, where competition is rising.
Double Bind: The Politics of Reform in Cambodia by World Politic Review
Double Bind: The Politics of Reform in Cambodia
Independence Monument, Phnom Penh, Cambodia, June 17, 2015 (photo by Flickr user phalinn licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license).
Cambodia’s July 2013 national elections were a watershed moment in the country’s recent political history. Amid charges of electoral fraud, long-ruling Prime Minister Hun Sen’s Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) was declared the winner of the polls by the National Election Committee. Despite the irregularities, the opposition Cambodian National Rescue Party (CNRP) still saw its support surge, winning 55 out of the 123 seats in parliament. The result represented an unprecedented loss of 22 seats for the CPP and prevented it from wielding the two-thirds majority necessary to amend Cambodia’s constitution.
Following the announcement of the results, anti-government demonstrations in the capital, Phnom Penh, reached an estimated 100,000 people. Corralled by security forces, barricades and barbed wire, protesters marched peacefully through the city’s large avenues. Their many grievances included state impunity, corruption, deforestation, forced evictions and land grabbing. But the CNRP’s threat to boycott the national assembly and continued claims that the elections were in effect stolen by the CPP served to band together the multitude of complaints into a single narrative with clear demands: new elections, the overhaul of the election committee and Hun Sen’s resignation.
In January 2014, in response to the unrelenting street protests, government security forces cracked down, suppressing the demonstrations, arresting dozens of activists and closing Freedom Park, which had become a rallying point for the opposition. Almost overnight, the protests were subdued. Without a viable endgame on the streets, the CNRP had few real options but to conclude a negotiated settlement with the CPP in July 2014 and to take its seats in the National Assembly.
Since then, the political stand-off has entered a state of limbo. But while the opposition has had mixed success in advancing its reform agenda, the lack of clear progress does not necessarily benefit Hun Sen and the CPP, which could see their support further eroded in the event they do not respond to the gathering popular demand for change.
As local and national elections loom in 2017 and 2018, respectively, Cambodia’s near-term future is uncertain. The CPP has provided few, if any, signs that it intends to make a peaceful transition of power possible, if the elections make one necessary. Indeed, Cambodia’s recent history gives ample reason to believe that a win by the opposition may only lead to larger-scale unrest and violence.
To win at the ballot box, the CPP will need to pull off a tricky combination: erode the opposition’s base of support; push through social and economic reforms—particularly in the areas of education, health and commerce—to win back the electorate; and close the space for dissent.
However, in the short term, these tactics are likely to create other problems for the CPP. Demographic trends suggest that voters’ expectations of the state will continue to intensify. The need for alternative outlets to let off pressure will only increase. Tamping down dissent is likely to be met with blowback, domestically and abroad. Many of the meaningful social and economic reforms will require breaking up or bypassing patronage networks. This would risk undermining loyalty within the CPP in uncertain times when loyalty is most critical.
As a result, Cambodia’s stability in the medium to long term will ultimately rest on the CPP leadership’s ability to prepare state institutions for a peaceful transition of power. In order to do that, Cambodia will also need to diversify its economy, strengthen rule of law and find ways for China to continue to play a constructive role without creating further dependency. Clearly, this will be a tall order to fill.
Rules of Engagement and the “Culture of Dialogue”
Hun Sen, who led Cambodia out of civil conflict and navigated the CPP into a post-communist era, has been at his country’s helm for 30 years. After two decades of increasing success at the ballot box, the 2013 national elections surprised Hun Sen and the CPP, which found itself within almost 300,000 ballots of losing the popular vote to the CNRP. The CPP went from 90 seats in the National Assembly to 68. The CNRP holds the remaining 55 seats.
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