Cambodia's opposition on the run as Hun Sen threatens property seizure

With the opposition party stripped of its designation as an official minority party and Prime Minister Hun Sen threatening to seize the property of opposition leader Sam Rainsy, the country’s “culture of dialogue” between the two parties has come to a bitter end
In the space of days, the relationship between Cambodia’s ruling party and its opposition has virtually disintegrated. The opposition has lost its status as a minority party and Prime Minister Hun Sen has threatened to seize the property of, as well as personally arrest, opposition leader Sam Rainsy.
On Tuesday, the ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) used their narrow majority in parliament to do away with majority and minority party designations. The labels, which were put in place to help break the political deadlock that followed the country’s disputed 2013 elections, were designed to give the CNRP greater legitimacy and allow them to participate in formal discussions with the ruling party. CNRP lawmakers, perceiving the move as a direct affront to their party’s legitimacy, boycotted the vote.
Then, speaking at the National Assembly yesterday, Hun Sen issued an overt threat to CNRP leader Rainsy, who is exiled in France, saying that he will have the court seize Rainsy’s property to pay for damages in a $1m defamation suit that was filed against the opposition leader in January.
“I wait only for the verdict to be finalised. This time, I take money… Not [$1], as with [opposition Senator] Thak Lany. I demand $1 million,” said Hun Sen.
“When the verdict is definitive, freeze… [and] sell those assets,” he added. “I heard that the party’s headquarters is in Sam Rainsy’s name, so sell the party headquarters at auction.”
The premier directly challenged Rainsy to return to Cambodia and face arrest.
“Now, come,” he said. “I’ll make this clear: I will try my best to handcuff you.”
Hun Sen also requested yesterday that CPP lawmakers amend a existing law in order to ban convicted criminals from serving as the president of a political party, a provision that would keep Sam Rainsy from leading the CNRP, as he is wanted for arrest over the aforementioned defamation conviction.
The prime minister also reiterated a previous claim that the CPP was forced to change the rules regarding the CNRP’s minority status as the CNRP continued to press for the release of political prisoners, saying the CPP had to “end the culture of the minority holding the majority a political hostage by endlessly demanding the release of prisoners through political talks”.
The developments ostensibly end a ‘culture of dialogue’ between the two parties, a code of conduct that was to facilitate peace and relatively smooth discourse in a political climate that, for decades, has been rocky at best.
Deputy opposition leader Kem Sokha, who has been the acting CNRP president since Rainsy did not return to Cambodia to face arrest in November 2015, was pardoned late last year from a five-month prison sentence over a highly politicised ‘prostitution’ case. The pardoning provided a sense of relief to a political standoff that saw Sokha holed up for months in CNRP headquarters.
In a statement given to the Cambodia Daily, Sam Rainsy said that the CPP’s actions were indicative of its fear in the run-up to the country’s commune elections in 2017 and general elections in 2018.
“The threats are entirely self-defeating and show a dysfunctional ruling party in the final stages of panic,” he said. “Hun Sen has tried for years to misuse the courts to exclude me from politics and to suppress or divide the CNRP, so in that sense, there is nothing new. He has failed because the CNRP remains a united force that will defeat him at the 2017 and 2018 elections.”
While the party’s minority status in itself did not hold a great amount of significance, Sophal Ear, professor of diplomacy and world affairs at Occidental College, Los Angeles, and author of Aid Dependence in Cambodia, said that taking it away from the CNRP could bode ill for the ruling party.
“I think it will backfire because it creates martyrs,” he said. “Look at the optics of the situation: even if the CNRP isn’t the party they’d choose, people in Cambodia have a very strong sense of black and white. They know right and wrong, and so the victim will garner sympathy.”