News and Analysis - Cambodia – CPP Maintains Its Dominance in Communal Elections, 08 Apr 2007

01 April’s communal elections left the Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) still the dominant political party in Cambodia. This comes as no surprise, as the CPP, behind the driving force of Prime Minister Hun Sen, has been the prevailing party since 1997 when it forced then Co-Prime Minister Prince Ranariddh out of office after violent factional fighting. The biggest change in Cambodia’s political environment was the extremely poor showing at the polls of the two parties that once made up the old Royalist FUNCINPEC Party, formerly headed by Prince Ranariddh. In a fissure last year, FUNCINPEC split, with Prince Ranariddh starting his own party, the Norodom Ranariddh Party (NRP), separating from the rump FUNCINPEC headed by Party Secretary Nhek Bun Chhay and President Keo Puth Rasmey. Due to pending legal problems, Prince Ranariddh chose not to return home to campaign on behalf of his party, which no doubt adversely effected the party’s performance. The split between Ranariddh and the party his father, King Sihanouk, and he founded, appears to have caused confusion amongst one time supporters in the countryside. While the official results of the election will not be formally announced until 24 April, unofficial results are as follows:

CPP – Council Chiefs 1,592; Councilors 7,987

SRP – Council Chiefs 27; Councilors 2,671

FUNCINPEC - Council Chiefs 2; Councilors 289

NRP - Council Chiefs 0; Councilors 415

The CPP basically maintained its pre-election position controlling about 98% of all communes and garnering approximately 61 percent of the total vote, a negligible difference between the results of the 2003 election. The SPR made substantial gains in the number of overall votes, receiving, 25.5 percent this election versus 16.7 percent in 2003, and increased the number of council chiefs from 13 to 27 and the number of councilors from 1,341 to 2, 671, almost completely at the expense of FUNCINPEC and the NRP. The SRP and the NRP both voiced complaints that polling had not been fair and that there were many instances where voters were turned away at voting stations for not being properly registered. Although there was limited reporting of pre-election violence, no party claimed that it was of such a magnitude as to effect the overall outcome. According to the Voice of America (04 April), Hang Puthea, the Executive Director of the Committee for Free and Fair Elections (COMFREL) stated the initial results were acceptable.

(Comment:  If FUNCINPEC and the NRP cannot rally in the next two years, the trend line appears as if Cambodia is headed to become a two-party state – the SPR and the CPP. With only a simple majority now required to form a government, it is now looks as if the CPP will likely be able to control the parliament after the 2008 national elections for the first time without having to enter into a coalition – this has been a long time CPP strategic objective. Another interesting trend is that the SRP lost ground in Phnom Penh in the commune elections, where most observers believed that a better educated, and relative to the countryside, higher income electorate would be more willing to the vote for the reform oriented SPR. This proved not to be the case, and if the SRP wants to improve its position for the national elections, it will have to evaluate what went wrong in the capital.) [slr]