It was all supposed to be so different. In 1993, millions of Cambodians went to the polls in the country's first-ever free election, marking the end of a civil war stretching back to the late 1970s. The United Nations had chosen Cambodia for its then largest-ever intervention anywhere in the world. Billions of dollars were invested in ushering in the vote, building state institutions, passing a new Constitution and setting up an international court to deliver justice to the Khmer Rouge victims. For a country that had barely survived the genocidal Khmer Rouge regime less than two decades earlier, a bright, peaceful, democratic future seemed within reach.
Instead, last Sunday's general election, on July 29, may well have marked the final nail in the coffin for the Cambodian democratic experiment. In the year leading up to the vote, Prime Minister Hun Sen had led a targeted crackdown on critics, dismantled the main opposition party, rewritten the constitution in his favour, and silenced independent media. His Cambodian People's Party (CPP) essentially ran unopposed and, unsurprisingly, swept to a landslide victory, gaining all 125 seats in the National Assembly. In his victory speech, Hun Sen, without a hint of irony, thanked his supporters for "truly choosing the path of democracy."
Cambodia was supposed to be the poster child for an international nation building effort that would enshrine global human rights norms. Instead, it epitomizes the new geopolitical reality in South East Asia, where the internationalist liberal order is coming undone, populist authoritarianism is prevailing, and China's growing influence means that old forms of global pressure hold less sway.
This deterioration has been a slow boil as the warning signs in Cambodia have been building for years. Even before last week's vote, Hun Sen's government has been guilty of pushing through increasingly repressive laws, using the highly politicised judiciary to imprison critics, and harassing media into silence. He has run the country like a personal fiefdom, relying on a widespread network of patronage to install cronies and allies in positions of power, down to the village level. In 2017, Transparency International ranked Cambodia as the third most corrupt country in Asia Pacific, ahead of only North Korea and Afghanistan.
It is also safe to say that Hun Sen has used his almost complete control of the state machinery to increasingly tip the electoral balance in the favour of the ruling party. This was certainly the case during the last general election in 2013, and even then, despite the odds being stacked against it, the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) remarkably gained more than 40 percent of the vote.
Clearly determined to avoid a repeat in this year's vote, the government instructed the Supreme Court to arbitrarily dissolve the CNRP in September 2017, just a few months after its leader Khem Sokha was jailed on trumped-up charges. In early 2018, the last remaining independent media outlet in Cambodia, the Phnom Penh Post, was enforcedly sold to a Malaysian businessman with alleged links to the government and nearly a dozen radio stations had their licenses suspended without notice.
Despite Hun Sen's increasingly brazen power grab, the international community hesitated to react forcefully, or early, enough. For many years Cambodia has remained the epitome of a development darling, where international donors have pumped in hundreds of billions of dollars in the name of development and democracy. At times, donors have lost their patience and publicly condemned the government's excesses or even withheld aid. But the CPP has clung onto power, stretching the limits of democracy just enough to be able to maintain deniability when taken to task.
Another factor in emboldening the CPP has been the growing influence of China. Over the past decade, China has emerged as Cambodia's most important financial benefactor, with Chinese capital investment doubling from USD600 million to USD1.1 billion between 2012 to 2016. Unlike Western countries, China does not condition investment on advances in human rights or democracy. As a CPP official told media during the election campaign: "Western governments lecture us, China doesn't." Cambodia has repaid the favour by, for example, backing Beijing's claims in the South China Sea during meetings of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).
The democratic collapse in Cambodia must be a wake-up call for international actors, both in the region and globally. The Cambodian example throws up in sharp relief the limits and pitfalls of international nation building and development efforts, no matter how well intended. It also comes at a worrying time when democratic space is shrinking in many Southeast Asian countries, often as Chinese influence expands.
But all hope is not lost for the region. Just a few months ago in May, the Malaysian opposition pulled off a stunning victory, ending the authoritarian Barisan Nasional government's 61-year authoritarian rule.
The prospects for a similar turn of event look bleak in Cambodia in the short term, but Hun Sen is definitely not without problems on the horizon. The commitment and courage of Cambodia's pro-democracy movement remains steadfast, both inside and outside the country. The CNRP may be banned at home, but many of its members—led by the former Member of Parliament Mu Sochua—are tirelessly travelling the world to raise awareness about the situation in Cambodia. Inside the country, a thriving civil society scene continues to campaign, despite the authorities' best efforts to silence it.
Cambodia also has a young population, two-thirds of which is under the age of 30. It is from this pool of voters that the CNRP draws much of its support. Despite his desperate efforts to retain power, Hun Sen will continue to face a challenge in meeting the new generation's demands for basic freedoms with nothing but repression and corruption. Cambodia's democratic experiment might have failed for now, but one can hope that the seeds have been sown for a revival in the future.
Binaifer Nowrojee is Regional Director of Asia Pacific with the Open Society Foundation.
The views expressed in this article are the author's own.
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