By Allen Myers - Posted on June 24, 2014
Writing in the June 17 Cambodia Daily,
CNRP politician Mu Sochua took issue with a June 11 Reuters article by Prak
Chan Thul.
The earlier article basically said that the
CNRP’s campaign to overturn last July’s National Assembly elections seems to
have run out of steam. Not so, replies Sochua: just look at how things are
changing – workers are seeking higher wages, there are “grass-roots and youth
movements for change”, people are using social media, monks are building networks
“to preserve our Buddhist values”.
Mu Sochua, like some other CNRP leaders, seems to
have fallen into the trap of starting to believe their own propaganda.
In last year’s election, the CNRP used the
vaguest slogan it could think of – “Change” – in order to win votes from people
who would have differed from each other about slogans that advocated anything
more precisely. Now the leaders seem to have convinced themselves that, if
anything in Cambodia changes, the CNRP is either the cause of the change or the
beneficiary of it, or both.
The CNRP leaders badly need a reality check.
Things change all the time, regardless of the efforts or intentions of the
CNRP. Even if there were no organised political opposition at all, workers who
are being paid less than they need would be trying to get higher wages. People,
especially young ones, have enthusiastically taken to social media all over the
world, so it’s unlikely that Cambodians needed the encouragement of the CNRP in
order to join Facebook or Twitter. Cambodian monks have been trying to preserve
Buddhist values for many centuries, and will undoubtedly go on doing so
whatever the outcome of future elections, so that “change” isn’t a change at
all.
I don’t know what Mu Sochua was referring to with
her phrase about “grass-roots and youth movements for change”. I hope she
wasn’t referring to the CNRP supporters in last year’s demonstrations for whom
“change” meant looting shops which they thought were owned by “yuon”.
Sadly, self-deception has always been an important
characteristic of the politics of Sam Rainsy and his close associates. The
claim that the opposition “really” won the 2013 election was not invented last
July; it was recycled from many previous elections.
What was different about 2013 was two things. One
was that the opposition, being united for the first time, came closer to
winning than ever before.
The second difference was that the opposition
leaders made a specific claim: that the CNRP had really won 63 seats, eight
more than the 55 they won according to the official result. Unlike the claims
after earlier elections, which were always only that some aspect or another
wasn’t fair, the claim of an additional eight seats was something that could
easily be checked. All that was necessary was for the CNRP leaders to be a
little more precise: “In Province A, the NEC records us receiving x
votes and the CPP receiving y, but these figures are wrong; the real
totals were x + a and y – b.” It would then be possible to go
back to the actual documents – either recounting the ballots or checking the
combining of totals at the commune or provincial level – to see who was right:
the NEC or the CNRP.
But the CNRP leaders have never provided
any precise figures to back their claim. The reason is not hard to find. It is
that their claim is untrue, and this would become obvious as soon as they made
it precise. At every stage of the vote tally, from counting at polling stations
to compiling provincial totals, CNRP representatives were present and signed
the appropriate documents certifying that the figures were accurate.
But the CNRP leaders have to go on pretending. To
admit that they didn’t “really” win the election would be to admit that
they have been demonstrating in an effort to overturn the clear choice of a
majority of Cambodian voters.
Mu Sochua actually writes, “The people have
spoken. And we should honor them.” Indeed, everyone should. Many of the people
voted for the CNRP. A larger number voted for the CPP. If the CNRP leaders were
finally to acknowledge this, their claims to stand for democracy would have a
better chance of being taken seriously.
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