By Kuch Naren and Colin Meyn - October 15, 2013
For the fifth time in the past 20 years, Chea Sim addressed the
Cambodian People’s Party Congress in March as the party’s president, a
position he has held since the party changed its name to the CPP in
1991.
In his speech, 80-year-old Mr. Sim assured the some 2,000 CPP members
at the congress that their long-ruling party would again win the July
national election with a landslide vote, and extend their power to 2018.
–News Analysis
“During the past five years, the CPP has continued to expand and
strengthen its achievements in politics, people’s minds and in control,”
Mr. Sim told the congress.
It turned out that Mr. Sim’s confidence in his party’s unstinting
popularity was misplaced. The CPP did officially win the election, but
the party lost 22 seats in parliament to the fledgling opposition CNRP.
Despite calls for an investigation of the July vote, the CPP has
pushed ahead with forming a government, which was voted in by only 68
CPP members of parliament in the National Assembly. The CNRP’s 55
lawmakers-elect boycotted the inaugural session of parliament, and are
rallying support at home and abroad for their view that the new
government is unconstitutional.
Though the elderly, and quite often ailing, Mr. Sim is the CPP’s
supreme leader, one can hardly blame him for his party’s worst election
result since 1998. The CPP’s election campaign was firmly in the hands
of Prime Minister Hun Sen, whose cult of personality and personal power
defines the very fabric of the party regardless of those with more
senior titles.
Alongside the time-tested posters of the CPP’s leadership
triumvirate—Mr. Hun Sen, Mr. Sim, and CPP National Assembly President
Heng Samrin—thousands of new posters featuring a solo Hun Sen were
rolled out across the country during the election campaign season.
The ruling party’s pre-election mantra also focused on the prime minister: “If you love Hun Sen, vote for the CPP.”
Now, despite the prime minister delivering a poor election result for
the CPP, Mr. Hun Sen’s position within the ruling party is set to
elevate when the thorny subject of a new president of the CPP becomes an
issue.
“Samdech Hun Sen is the future for the CPP presidency position if
Samdech Chea Sim resigns or stops from his position for any reason,” CPP
lawmaker and spokesman Cheam Yeap said last week.
While, Mr. Sim is still strong enough to lead the party despite his
occasional bouts of ill health, Mr. Yeap said Mr. Hun Sen is also ready
to step in, and has received the support of the CPP’s 34-member
standing committee, of which Mr. Yeap is a member.
“Samdech Hun Sen is already in the position as the deputy leader of
the party, and no others in the party can compare with his capacity and
experience in leading the party,” Mr. Yeap said.
Nguon Nhil, a CPP standing committee member and the first deputy
president of the National Assembly, said that as long as Mr. Sim
remained the party’s president, the official decision to name his
successor would not be made.
“Samdech [Chea Sim] remains alive so it’s not proper to reveal who
will be the next party’s president. But the party is already preparing
who will be the next [president],” Mr. Nhil said.
Chheang Vun, a CPP lawmaker and spokesman for the National Assembly,
as well as Phay Siphan, a CPP secretary of state and spokesman for the
Council of Ministers, said they were not aware of future plans for the
CPP presidency, and Yim Leang, deputy chief of Mr. Sim’s cabinet,
declined to comment.
“I don’t know about this because it is the internal affairs of the
party,” said Mr. Vun. “If Mr. Cheam Yeap has said so, he may know.”
Bou Thang, a CPP-appointed senator and member of the CPP’s standing
committee, likewise said the successor to Mr. Sim was the internal
affair of the party.
“Why do you want to know?” Mr. Thang said, before hanging up on a reporter.
While Mr. Hun Sen may be feeling the pressure after the surprise July
election, his leadership credentials are still formidable. He oversaw,
since his promotion to prime minister in 1985, the creation of a
political machine that controls every state institution and maintains
the loyalty of more than 95 percent of the country’s 1,633 commune
chiefs.
“Hun Sen is, in terms of effectiveness and achievement for the party,
much better than Chea Sim,” said independent political analyst Lao Mong
Hay.
“And so far, I have seen no credible replacement,” Mr. Mong Hay said,
adding that the prime minister has also succeeded in meeting the
demands of a vast patronage network as he has consolidated his power.
“So far, the CPP has been able to accommodate all [of their patrons]
when in power. It has been able to create public offices for them, and
they have been contented, if not happy,” he said.
“The trend in the CPP is that the prime minister is very
influential,” said Preap Kol, executive director of Transparency
International Cambodia, adding that most of the standing committee
members had won their posts by showing their loyalty to Mr. Hun Sen.
“Clearly the prime minister’s popularity has declined, but his power
Still remains very solid within the party because of his alliance with
the military and with the police forces. He has some family connections
through marriage and all of that relationship building, so his power
remains solid,” Mr. Kol added.
The CPP’s unity behind Mr. Hun Sen may give the party strength in the
short-term, said Mr. Mong Hay, but concentrating power in one man
carries inherent risks for the country. And while Mr. Hun Sen may retain
the loyalty of powerbrokers within the party, this year’s election
showed that many lower-level party “members” decided against casting
their ballots for the CPP.
At the CPP congress in March, Finance Ministry Secretary of State Ouk
Rabun boasted that the CPP had more than 5.9 million card-carrying
party members in a population of about 9 million eligible voters.
Yet, the CPP received only about 3.2 million votes in July, meaning
that self-professed ruling party members must have voted for the
opposition.
“I think this 2013 vote proved that many members of CPP are not
happy,” said Koul Panha, executive director of the Committee for Free
and Fair Elections in Cambodia.
“If they don’t adopt a new version [of governance], the health of the
party [will decline] and they will face a lot of risks,” Mr. Panha
said.
“They should learn how to remain a healthy political party and create
a new democratic structure—sharing of power, no fixed leadership—even
communist parties in China and Vietnam do this,” he said.
“I think the CPP should look to modernize their party,” Mr. Panha
said, adding, however, that in the immediate post-election period, the
CPP government has “proceeded with classic or traditional behavior.”
While the CPP may have decided that Mr. Hun Sen remains their best
chance to retain power, it is likely that he will have to change his
leadership style in order to retain support from inside the party, said
Carlyle Thayer, a Southeast Asia expert at the Australian Defense Force
Academy.
“Party members will place a premium on preserving the CPP’s hold on
power in the face of challenges by Sam Rainsy and the opposition. But,
at the same time, party members will be giving Hun Sen close scrutiny,”
he said.
“If Hun Sen in his new role as party chief [when he becomes
president] disregards constructive criticism within the CPP, and concern
mounts about the CPP’s future political future, we could see
destabilizing in-fighting,” he added.
“But for the moment Hun Sen appears in an unassailable position in the near term.”
(Additional reporting by Hul Reaksmey)
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