Democratizing Autocracy in Cambodia
A visit to the killing fields in Phnom Penh, Cambodia some time in 2013 evoked a harrowing feeling as the guide walked us down memory lane of how the Pol Pot regime massacred millions of professional and educated Cambodians within his 4-year chancellorship in this forgotten Southeast Asian country. Influenced by the Marxist-Leninist ideology while in France, Pol Pot went back to Cambodia in 1953 and led the Khmer Rouge revolutionary group, presided over a totalitarian government and authored the modern-day Cambodian genocide.
Rising from the ashes of this horrifying interlude in history, Cambodia now is hopeful of establishing good governance as a critical requisite for development just as Philippines is trying so hard to pick up pieces of its broken past brought about by martial law to becoming the bastion of democratic governance in Asia. Three decades past, both countries still languish behind some of their neighbors in the region in search for the elusive development they dream about.
If we are to use Kaufman, et.al.’s (2004) fundamental principle of historicity where the past largely impacts on a state’s governance culture, then we can say that much of the transitions that took place in Cambodia’s yesteryears have defined, to some degree, its current behavior as a state balancing the cycles of autocracy and democracy. Croissant (2018) sums up these transitions in three ways: that Cambodia transformed “from civil war to post war reconstruction, from socialist one-party state to a multiparty electoral system, and from a centrally planned economy to a market economy.”
Historically, Cambodia began as a powerful Khmer Empire of Angkor until its fall to Siam, the modern day Thailand. If not because of the arrival of the French colonizers in mid 19th century, Cambodia would have been attached to either Thailand or Vietnam, two of its powerful neighbors. Even with the years of French control over Cambodia, the Khmers never lost their influence especially along the peripheries with the French not contributing much to their development. Since their colonization, it was only in 1953 that Cambodia became truly sovereign after Japan’s fall during the second world war.
With much promise of reforms underway, King Sihanouk ruled Cambodia as its head of government whose leadership was fraught with attempts to unseat him if not for the support of the peasants, later on forming the Khmer Rouge led by Pol Pot. The rise of Pol Pot to power was the beginning of Cambodia’s darkest pages in history with the purging of non-Khmers. Only Vietnam sustained in challenging Pol Pot’s regime until it suffered setbacks economically that it withdrew its forces in 1989 (Croissant, 2018). The stalemate was finally sealed with the Paris Accords in 1991 which gave the United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC) an indirect rule governing through the Cambodia People’s Party (CPP) with Norodom Sihanouk as the titular head.
UNTAC managed to secure the election of the Constituent Assembly in 1993 although the results showed unfavorable figures against the CPP. Refusing to recognize the results of the election, Hun Sen of CPP coalesced with the winning party only to stage a coup later on unseating the winning party brought about by the instability of the power-sharing mechanism between CPP and the FUNCIPENC. The parliamentary monarchy earlier established was replaced with an authoritarian regime under the premiership of Hun Sen who continue to control Cambodia until today making him one of the longest serving authoritarians in the world. He is able to perpetuate himself in power through its firm control on state apparatuses, ability to rig elections, co-optation of the elites and masking his autocratic leadership with the legitimating effect of calling for free elections where people can participate.
Similar to Cambodia, Philippines has gone through the rise-and-fall motion of democracies and dictatorships. Its post-Spanish colonization era saw a recurring concern for the protection of democratic safeguards which is lost to authoritarianism and while restored with the re-installation of freedom, the same seem to be manipulated by the political elites. The closest to Hun Sen’s regime is the dictatorship which Marcos fortified in almost fifteen years after declaring martial law in 1972. The Marcos regime was also defined by crony capitalism as a form of co-optation of the economic and political elites, control of state institutions in fomenting ideological consciousness favorable to his administration and questionable election results as backdrop of what appeared to be free elections in 1981 leading to the snap elections in 1986 which signaled the beginning of the end of his regime.
While Philippines may have enjoyed the re-birth of democracy in 1986, one cannot conclude that the Filipinos have truly enjoyed its blessings thirty years after. Philippine government remains to be plagued with issues of corruption, elite-captured bureaucracy, political dynasties, warlordism, election fraud, and widespread human rights violations. While the rise of Duterte to presidency may have offered a new hope for the Philippines when it dismantled the reign of traditional political elites, he may just be another elite representing those displaced in the EDSA revolution. Unlike Cambodia, Philippines under Duterte may technically present itself as a democracy but in truth, is actually cloaked with the hypocrisy of autocracy.
Duterte’s optimization of the state apparatuses allowed him to secure the consent of many Filipinos creating what the Neo-Marxists would call as “false consciousness” allowing domination to take place, albeit, in the realm the psyche through his rhetoric. He succeeded in imprinting the belief that killing is a logical by-product of its campaign against drugs, that human rights advocates are a noisy bunch of idiots even if this meant to include Nanay Soling who staunchly fought the dictator, that he disdains corruption yet glorifies Marcos who was judged by history as the most corrupt leader the PH ever had, that brags of his landmark policy in Davao protecting women's rights yet insults women's dignity by way of sexual innuendos and sexist jokes, that he only wants to protect the poor yet runs a drug campaign that targets the poor, that honors free speech yet resorts to crass politics whenever his policies are criticized. These and many more can be considered as democratic facades that keep his neo-authoritarian tendencies beyond the radar of the the public eye.
For both countries, there is a huge backlog when it comes to delivering the promise of development primarily because there are bigger issues affecting their ability for good governance.
The historical narratives of both the Philippines and Cambodia show that radical shifts in governance are closely tied with the credibility of their political authority, sans, good governance culture. The growing desperation of the citizens for their government’s inability to deliver the public goods, may reshape the future of politics in these two countries. These therefore, raise greater challenges on the ability of the civil society organizations to safeguard the little victories won, thus far, and in pushing further for a truly people-centered governance.
(Photo: Xinhuanet)
References:
Croissant, Aurel and Lorenz, Philip. 2018. Laos: The Transformation of Periphery Socialism. Comparative Politics in Southeast Asia. Ian ntroduction to Government and Political Regimes. Springer International Publishing AG. Switzerland. Pp 36-69.
Kaufmann, Daniel, Aart Kraay and Massimo Mastruzzi (2004). Governance Matters III: Governance Indicators for 1996, 1998, 2000, and 2002. World Bank Economic Review. 18:253-287.
