Hun Sen, the prime minister of Cambodia, will no longer be able to threaten resistance followers on his Facebook page, but he can also stifle their votes as the nation gets ready for a general election.
Hun Sen, who has ruled the nation as the head of the Cambodian People’s Party for almost 40 years, appeared to possess deleted his Facebook page on June 30, 2023. Whether Hun Sen had taken down the page or Meta had removed it wasn’t quickly obvious.
Hun Sen’s Facebook page and Instagram account should be suspended immediately for six months, according to a proposal made by the oversight committee of the parent company of Facebook. In the movie, he urges political opponents who claim vote-rigging to choose between the” legal program” and” a bat.” Hun Sen furthermore threatens to” collect CPP people to resist and conquer( opposition) up” in the Facebook video that was posted on January 9.
Hun Sen, who had often posted on Facebook to his 14 million followers, receives a slap in the face from the selection. But as a political analyst in Cambodia, I am aware that it won’t significantly influence the outcome of the general election, which is set for July 23, 2023. Hun Sen served as Cambodia’s prime minister for 38 times. And new developments have merely strengthened Hun Sen’s hold on power.
Numerous functions, no criticism
As in the six national parliamentary elections held since officially democratic elections were reinstated in 1993, voters going to the polls will once more be given little real choice.
It’s not that voters didn’t have a choice of several functions on July 23. In actuality, the Cambodian People’s Party, which currently holds power, will be one of many events on the poll. Other than the CPP, there were 19 different events in the 2018 national poll.
The primary opposition group, the Cambodia National Rescue Party, is not on the list of events permitted to run, which presents a problem for democracy observers. The Thai Supreme Court, which is presided over by a permanent council part of Hun Sen’s CPP, ordered the convenient dissolution of the CNRP on November 16, 2017.
Additionally, for administrative motives, the Candlelight Party— the last vestige of legitimate, trustworthy resistance in Cambodia— was denied registration for the upcoming election. CLP supporters think that a police raid on the criticism headquarters years earlier resulted in the theft of the missing documents that prevented registration.
These actions continue decades of Hun Sen and his ruling CPP’s removal of true choice from Vietnamese ballots. And it has been successful for Hun Sen and the CPP: In the most recent election, which was held in 2018, they received 77 % of the vote and won all 123 seats in the National Assembly.
Commander of the Khmer Rouge to authoritarian president
After being appointed deputy prime minister and foreign minister by the Vietnamese forces that liberated Cambodia from the Khmer Rouge in 1979— a murderous regime in which Hun Sen served as a commander — and then occupied the nation for ten years— Hun Send rose to power.
In 1985, Hun Sen took office as prime minister after Chan Sy passed away while his nation was still under Asian rule. Since then, he has continued to hold onto energy through tenure and a significant amount of brute force.
In a deal negotiated by Ranariddh’s father, King Norodom Sihanouk, Hun Sen was able to wriggle his way into the prime ministership – sharing position as” second prime Minister” with equal power to the” first chief minister ,” Prince Nirrodh. This was true even after the CPP lost the popular vote in 1993.
Hun Sen orchestrated a revolution in 1997 and succeeded Norodom Ranariddh after having an affair with his co-prime minister. Hun Sen resumed his position as the only prime minister in an election the next year and launched a campaign of repression, making arrangements for political rivals to be detained, imprisoned, and occasionally exiled.
By allowing opposition figures Kem Sokha and Sam Rainsy to shape the opposition CNRP in 2012, he let his shield down. In the 2013 vote, the CNRP narrowly defeated the CPP; some might even claim that it did, but who was in charge of counting the votes?
Since then, efforts to install opposition to the CPP have been further thwarted by the amazing changes in Cambodia’s society and economy, which have given Hun Sen credit for sound economic management.
Cambodia’s monthly gross domestic product growth averaged close to 8 % from 1998 to 2019 prior to the Covid-19 crisis. Since 1995, total national income, which is based on the purchasing power of the average person, has also increased tenfold, from US$ 760 to$ 5, 080.
But it has come at a price. Growth in the economy and infrastructure has been attributed to a land grab that has harmed remote producers. One farmer I heard of said that economic growth meant” they build a path and steal my land.”
And generally, that road was constructed by the Chinese using loans that the Thai people and their descendants will be required to pay back.
From oligarchy to a system of nepotism?
Hun Sen, however, is hesitant to make his report public for the benefit of citizens or a free press.
The state has imposed restrictions on independent media in advance of the July 23 vote. Hun Sen shut down the Voice of Democracy, one of the last absolutely independent sources.
Is it violence? to release a report claiming that the primary minister’s son and apparent heir signed an established government contribution to Turkey following the earthquake on behalf of his father. Hun Sen claimed that the report had damaged the president’s standing and that only the prime minister is permitted to sign off on international aid items.
A senior government official had been the supply. Voice of Democracy was yet held accountable and instructed to regret, which it did but was later silenced.
Hun Sen has been effective in stifling Cambodian criticism and media scrutiny, but he is powerless to stop sanctions and global attention.
The European Union, the White House, and the UN have all denounced Cambodia’s violations of human rights and anti-democratic law.
The US had some Thai commanders on the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability record, which was used to okay” culprits of serious human rights misuse and problem around the world ,” even before the most recent crackdown on opposition parties and independent media.
The EU, for its part, reduced the number of Cambodian goods eligible for zero duty imports due to concerns about human rights by 20 %, which will result in an estimated 1 billion euros($ 1.1 billion ) in annual revenue for Cambodia.
However, neither Facebook’s decision to deny him access to a social media account nor these actions have significantly pushed Cambodia toward political procedures.
Sophal Ear, Associate Professor at Arizona State University’s Thunderbird School of Global Management
Beyond his intellectual appointment, Sophal Ear has not disclosed any important affiliations. He also does not work for, demand, own shares in, or get funding from any businesses or organizations that might profit from this article.
Under a Creative Commons license, this post has been republished from The Conversation. read the article in its entirety.