When an election is not an election?

Hun Sen faces few challengers as Cambodia vote nears

PHNOM PENH (AFP) — With nearly six weeks until Cambodia's general election, almost everyone says they already know the result.

Prime Minister Hun Sen, Southeast Asia's longest-serving leader besides the sultan of Brunei, has spent much of his 23 years in power ruthlessly undermining his political rivals, who are now so weakened that analysts say none have much hope of success.

Cambodia has 57 parties, but only 11 are running in the July 27 poll -- less than half the number that contested the last national election five years ago.

Hun Sen's Cambodian People's Party (CPP) towers above them all.

"Who will win? The CPP. No doubt about that. Even without taking into consideration threats, pressure and vote buying, the CPP is the one with the people on the ground," said Cambodian political analyst Chea Vannath.

The CPP was installed by communist Vietnam in 1979, after Hanoi invaded and toppled the Khmer Rouge -- the genocidal regime behind Cambodia's infamous "Killing Fields."

While the CPP has dropped its communist ideology, it retains a ubiquitous presence across the country and a tight grip on every level of government.

"Government and administrative offices throughout the country are very extensive and tightly controlled," said Lao Mong Hay, senior researcher at the Asian Human Rights Commission.

Opposition members have already accused Hun Sen of buying off their supporters by offering them attractive jobs, a charge the premier has brushed off.

"They say that we are buying people. We are the ruling party -- we have the right to appoint them to positions of power," Hun Sen said last week, during one of his daily televised speeches given at events big and small across the country.

Hun Sen, 55, became prime minister in 1985 and has single-mindedly focused on staying in power, publicly vowing to remain in office until he turns 90.

He actually lost his first election to a royalist party in UN-backed polls in 1993, but bargained his way into becoming a "second prime minister" and then reasserted total control in a 1997 coup.

Hundreds of people were killed in the run-up to elections the following year. Protests against Hun Sen's victory were put down violently.

The last national election in 2003 was far less violent, but plunged the kingdom into a year of political stalemate as parties wrangled over forming a coalition.

The party's current coalition partner, the royalist Funcinpec, has been hobbled by infighting and the ouster of its leader, Prince Norodom Ranariddh, who has formed his own eponymous party.

With their ranks divided, analysts say the royalists appear spent as a political force.

The main opposition Sam Rainsy Party is expected to win few votes outside the capital. Hun Sen rival Kem Sokha has formed a new Human Rights Party that will be cutting its teeth in the polls.

Some 8.1 million people are registered to vote at 15,000 polling stations, under the eyes of more than 13,000 domestic and international observers.

During his rule, Hun Sen has steered the impoverished country out of the ashes of civil war and grown the economy by opening up to trade and tourism.

Garment exports and tourism have brought double-digit economic growth, but Cambodia remains one of the world's poorest countries. Some 35 percent of its 14 million people live on less than 50 US cents a day.

Spiralling inflation has raised concerns about CPP's management of the economy.

"You can see the price of gasoline goes up every day," analyst Chea Vannath said. "I'm sure it will be one of the main concerns."

But he predicted Hun Sen would nonetheless romp to victory.

"The Cambodian people are traumatized by past experiences, so they don't show up on the street," she said.

Copyright © 2008 AFP. All rights reserved.

June 18, 2008
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5gbyuLbPotSWensFoAtFzJ1oczyKA

weddings part II

Wouldn’t recognise ?? – Wedding watch

“tin eh?” is the usual greeting of a morning by the usual market stall holders at the usual time buying my usual veggies …. Its common greeting asking if buying something

giggles, pointing and whispering is not usual. Likewise admiring looks from sellers certainly not usual

hmmmm, think about it, I tell myself. Is my skirt caught up in my knickers? Hmmmm definitely giggles and more pointing. I can see info being passed along the line of stall holders, squatting behind their baskets of goodies. Maybe its not about me. I try to casually look behind me; impossible in the congo line that forms in the narrow space between the floor level baskets of goodies.

Finally feeding my curiosity, the older male stallholder who has been friendly from day one (and thus receives regular buying from me) tells me that last night they saw me and that I was very very beautiful. He tells me all the women say so.

I am so surprised! I want to ask, but not, “How did they see me? Were they at the wedding I went to?” Can I ask them who say me? I am flustered so all is say is thanks and that yes I had fun last night. Many people from my office went to the wedding I say. “We know” they say in a way that leaves no doubt they know all and everything

If I had been looking for them, would I have recognized them at the wedding? They crouch behind wares and I never seeing from any other angle other than the giantess reaching from the momentarily halted congo line of purchasers, for my own supply of limes, capsicum, carrots etc. Was it at the wedding they saw me, or maybe someone at the hotel where I met up with 3 other expat women to scooter over to the wedding space? Or maybe they were along the street somewhere and just saw us from afar on our motos doing that delicate scootering in all our finery?

No I think some were at the wedding. Pity I didn’t even try to see who I knew in all the crowds of people. Except work colleagues and ex-work colleagues from previous organisation, I not look out for others I might know

cutest traffic wardens

Traffic hazard warnings

Nah don’t need them! Instead use the kids of that street …..

A wedding of Sal and her Aust long term partner took place last week and their road is considered one of the worst roads in town. Really big ruts and soft red dust piled high that slips and slides in the dry and of course becomes treacherous in the wet season

Anyway with the road works as roads are getting sealed, (see for more on road works: http://joanna.electronicway.com.au/index.php?cat=32) their road is ignored. I assume the road is designated anti-govt and thus the govt won’t spend on an opposition party’s road. That is all guesswork

Anyway back to weddings and traffic hazards. Leaving my place after pre-wedding sunset drinks with a friend, I am warned at dusk to mind the huge hole in the road that is not marked. Well when we get to the corner I see the entire road has been cut up for large pipes to be laid across the road. But for now the ditch is the entire width of road and really deep. At least metre and half, maybe more. Lots of laughs while on our motos negotiating the hazard, as we wonder if any drunk wedding guests will end up in that enormous obstacle, in a few hours’ time. No street lights here to guide us!

But when I left at 9.30pm the cutest traffic wardens ever were available. The little waif kids waving me down and calling out for me to be careful. One tiny little girl, up to my knee in height, carefully waves me to the far edge where there is space to maneuver the bike. I tell her, jokingly, I am ever so scared and she giggles and said no, no, that I can do it. So I tell that only cos she is there, doing this important task is it possible for me to use the moto (had a few beers by now of course so we always far more humorous and chatty aren’t we?). She says no problem as she very happy to help everyone cos “the road have very big problem and not good now.”

“It does indeed”, I say to the tiny helper as I scooter on home