PRESS RELEASE

ICG Calls For an Honest Assessment of the Cambodian Poll

Phnom Penh, 26 July 1998

In January 1998, an ICG report called on the international community to put pressure on Prime Minister Hun Sen to create the conditions for free and fair parliamentary elections, including to allow arch-rival and his former coalition partner Prince Norodom Ranariddh to return to Cambodia and run in the polls.

In its June 1998 report, ICG urged that the elections be postponed for a few months because the neutral political environment necessary for such polls did not exist yet - a view shared by others.

The Cambodian elections were not postponed and on Sunday July 26, millions of voters cast their ballot expressing their preference for any one of the 39 parties. First results are not expected until later in the week, but a healthy turnout of registered voters indicated that the Cambodian electorate was determined to be heard.

The campaign assessments of the International Crisis Group and of other outsiders following the situation in Cambodia, such as Amnesty International, the United Nations, Human Rights Watch and the mixed US team of National Democratic Institute/International Republican Institute agreed that the Cambodian opposition parties had suffered from serious abuses in the months leading up to July 26. The Joint International Observer Group, created especially to observe the Cambodian poll, noted that there were abuses but avoided saying that the opposition was the main target.

These abuses consisted of widespread and subtle intimidation of potential opposition voters in the countryside, de facto vote buying by Hun Sen’s ruling Cambodian People’s Party, inequitable media coverage and violence, including killings of opposition activists.

The international community will now have to determine what is its general assessment of the Cambodian elections.

If the opposition wins in a decisive way - despite intimidation, vote buying and violence - the international community can easily conclude that the elections were sufficiently free and fair to reflect the Cambodian electorate’s determination for change.

However, if the ruling party wins convincingly, doubts will always persist over the conduct of the polls: it will never be possible to determine whether the Cambodian People’s Party election victory was a result of intimidation, vote buying and violence or whether it broadly represented the will of the people.

If the ruling party wins, the decision on whether or not to accept the conduct and results of the elections becomes a political one. The International Crisis Group is conscious that the countries and organizations observing the electoral process will be guided, in their assessment of the Cambodian elections, by their own interests and calculations and by the country’s tragic historical background but hopes that their assessments will be honest.

The International Crisis Group is a private, multinational organisation created to reinforce the capacity and resolve of the international community to prevent crises arising from human causes. Members of the ICG board include former heads of state and government, foreign ministers, MPs and leading figures in business and the media. ICG is chaired by the former US Senate majority leader, George Mitchell.

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