Khmer Have Proven Themselves as the Descendants of Jayvaraman 7 in this Election

By ខែ្មរវឌ្ឍនកម្ម
  
        Since the first day of election campaign, Khmer all over the country have shown their courage and determination to demand for social justice, true democracy, and true national sovereignty from Hanoi's domination, that we have never seen in our modern history. During the election campaign, tens thousands of people especially the youths bravely volunteered to help the opposition (CNRP) campaign. During the election day, as people lost their faith to the authority as well as the NEC to guarantee the free and fair election result for them, they actively participated in many different important roles such as the ballot owners, election monitors, and fraud detectors that had made this election a historic event for the country.
   
       As we already have seen this election campaign marked the turning point for our country that never experienced this kind of election campaign in the past. Tens thousands of people pouring into the street  voluntarily helped campaigning for the opposition (CNRP) party courageously even the atmosphere was filled with intimidation from the ruling party. Because they are tired of the long corrupted dictatorship rule of the CPP which has been installed by Hanoi since 1979. The only hope for the future of the country is to change the current government that has served the Vietnamese interest over the Khmer's. As the Khmer, we are proud and grateful to all of our fellow Khmer brothers and sisters who have scarified their valuable time, energy, financial resources, and even their lives in order to save our motherland from Hanoi's domination and to bring a true democracy for our nation.
 

Massive Electoral Fraud Throughout the Country

By ខែ្មរវឌ្ឍនកម្ម

       After a long month of excited but fearful election campaign, an unofficial result produced a very sad and disappointed news for Khmer inside and outside the country. The incumbent CPP which has ruled the country over 30 years with systematic network of intimidation and corruption still won the election. while the newly formed Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNPR) lost to a narrow margin. Most people has confidence that if this election was held in a free and fair atmosphere, the CNPR would win with landslide.        
    In a long calm and curious election day, people took in a long line to cast their ballots in hope of a great change will happen in the upcoming day. But in the late evening day, the CPP proclaimed their election victory with 68 seats to 55 seats for the opposition the CNRP. Many opposition supporters broke into tear in disbelief when an unofficial result was heard. This election result has reflected the massive fraud throughout the country such as deletion the name of the voters, double names, ghost list, the movement of Vietnamese, military, and government officials to vote in different places, and vote buying by the CPP.

The World Longest Serving Prime Minister Sees his Dead End

By ខែ្មរវឌ្ឍនកម្ម

     Since the Paris Peace Accord in 1991, which was officially ended a long protracted war in Cambodia, there were many rival Khmer leaders competed one other to rule the country. But those many familiar faces have disappeared from Cambodia political arena except Prime Minister Hun Sen who has already  set a record for the longest serving prime minister in Asia and in the world if he wins again in this election. However, the record serving time as prime minister of Hun Sen has come up with many controversial questions.
   When Vietnam had invaded Cambodia in 1979, they installed two Khmer Prime Ministers previous to Hun Sen, Mr. Pen Sovann and Mr. Chan Chi. But these two Khmer leaders had lost their trust from Hanoi, and Mr. Pen Sovann found himself in Hanoi's jail in 1981 for more than a decade while Mr. Chan Chi was dead in Vietnam in 1985 without clear explanation. In order to occupy Cambodia successfully, Vietnam needed the faithful Khmer leaders to cooperate with them as their emperors needed the Khmer faithful Kings in the past. By 1985, Hun Sen, a young vocal foreign minister was anointed by Hanoi as the new Khmer Prime Minister to run the country while the war between the Khmer Resistant Groups and the Vietnamese Army was intensified. To win the guerrilla warfare in Cambodia, Hanoi used all strategic war plans which they had employed during their war against the US and  its South Vietnamese ally in the past.

This Election Set the High Stake for Khmer

By ខែ្មរវឌ្ឍនកម្ម

     For most people in the democratic world, the national election is a normal democratic process to choose their leaders based on the policy and ability of those leaders to run a daily work for the country. But in Cambodia, this election would be more meaningful than that. This election outcome will distinctly push the nation into two opposite directions: if the CPP continues to win, Khmer will live under the same dictatorship, and the fate of the nation will be endangered. But if the CNRP win, Khmer will get the true democracy and the nation will historically survive from Vietnamization. Thus, in the upcoming election, Khmer must look at these two key aspects that the two major parties stand for.
     The CPP which formerly created in 1951, a remnant of the Indochina Communist party created by Ho Chi Minh, has survived through many different circumstances until its final victory in 1979 supported by Vietnamese troop. Since then, this party has continued to rule the country until today and well prepared to maintain its power by all means as needed. These party is strong and powerful because Hanoi has played a key role behind the scene to direct all the CPP's policies. Without Vietnamese behind the stage, the CPP would be disappear since the UN supervised election 1993. In contrast, the CPP has grown stronger and bigger when it overwhelmingly took over 90 National Assembly seats in the previous election.  Most people have always asked themselves why the CPP got all the seats which they were not deserved. However, there are many factors that have guaranteed the CPP's continuous victory -- intimidation through its whole network in the country, registering and voting system is manipulated by the CPP's installed NEC, all illegal Vietnamese immigrants allowed to vote freely, buying votes through gifts and false promises are a common practice, all major media networks under the CPP control--In general, most aspects of daily lives of the country is systematically controlled by the CPP.

Free and Fair Election?

By​ខែ្មរវឌ្ឍនកម្ម

      Election is the most common mean for people around the world to choose their leaders to run the country peacefully. However, through this peaceful mean, some groups or leaders try to manipulate it in order to legitimize their dictatorial power. In Western Democracy, the election is always free and fair based on the four major conditions: Free from intimidation, equal access to the media, all government institutions are neutral, and the independent national election committee. If all these four major condition are not met, the election result will not reflect to the will of the people. The fifth national election will be held in this coming weekend, and most political observers inside and outside the country have expressed their grave concern about the election result that will not reflect the will of the Cambodian people according to the above conditions.
     1- Are people free from all kinds of intimidation?
For the past three weeks of election campaigns, violence and intimidation have been happened widespread across the country, mainly from the ruling party CCP against the main opposition party CNRP. The intimidation ranked from destroying numerous the opposition party bill boards, throwing objects at the opposition supporters causing injury, setting up group to disrupt the campaigns, hiring people to insult and disrupt the opposition candidate's debate, creating lawsuits against the opposition leaders, deleting the opposition leader name from the candidate list, firing shot at the the opposition's Head Quarter Office, burning down opposition supporter's home, collecting phone numbers and family ID's cards from people by village chiefs without reasons, and buying people to play as the opposition members then defect to the CPP and show them on the TV screens. All these intimidated actions and tricks were not well investigated and stopped by the authorities and the NEC. Most offenders are the members of the CPP and usually spared by police and the local NEC. All kinds of these intimidation and tricks against the opposition supporters are unacceptable in all levels and must be clearly addressed and stopped from happening again by the NEC. Otherwise, all these actions will severely affect the election result.

No TVs Coverage for Sam Rainsey's Return

Sam Rainsey's return from exile

By ខែ្មរវឌ្ឍនកម្ម

       It is a great event for all Khmer people in the country as well as around the world, who witnessed this historical day that never ever happened in our history. The return of Sam Rainsey from his exile was greeted with ten thousands of cheering crowd from across the country. There is no any Khmer leader in history got such a huge enthusiastic welcome from the people, even the King Father Sihanouk. But there was a weird thing happened at this time:The absence of news coverage from all TVs in the country. Instead, this historical event was covered by world major media networks and some local FM radios and newspapers.

      In a true democratic country, such popular event fully live broadcast  from all kinds of media networks without any restriction. The full live coverage in such historical event not only benefited the people who can receive a fast and accurate information but also benefited the media networks which tried to get most audiences to watch their news that translates into more profit from their sale advertising. Unfortunately, Cambodian government has controlled the media in Communist style. The purpose of its media doesn't inform people about the truth but to propagandize the ruling party's policies and to honor its circle member only. Most news from the networks under government control are not just bias news but full of distortion and manipulation from the fact such as the border and  Bengkak Lake issues. The news always being twisted from black to white and from right to wrong.

Sam Rainsey Should Be Reinstated As a Candidate For This Election

Sam Rainsey

By ខែ្មរវឌ្ឍនកម្ម

      All charges and conviction against Mr. Sam Rainsey were totally political , so when a political solution was found for him, he is free to go back to perform his job as a member of Parliament and has a full rights to run for his next term. Because of a political conviction against him, Hun Sen ordered the NEC under his control to stripe all his rights as an ordinary citizen as well as a candidate for the election. Now when Mr. Rainsey returns from his exile, he faces an other obstacle of losing his name from the candidate list. To help insure that this election free and fair, Hun Sen must let Sam Rainsey --a main opposition leader--to compete with him without any condition.

     Sam Rainsey not only committed any crime against his country, instead he is a hero, a savior, and a great role model leader for our nation. As a MP, he has a duty to serve and protect interest his constituents according to the constitution. The way he uprooted a temporary border post with Vietnam, which was installed on the middle of the farmer's rice field is just a symbolic protest and a show of his concern about the border encroachment from Vietnam. In this case, if Hun Sen's government is fully independent from Hanoi, There would be no any problem at all. Cambodian government can use diplomatic channel to solve this problem with Vietnam without damaging to any party. If Cambodian government cares about its own people, Hun Sen must help to protect Sam Rainsey from any accusation from Vietnam because he is a leader for all Khmer.

The Return of Sam Rainsey, The New Open Political Battle Field

     By ខែ្មរវឌ្ឃនកម្ម

        Mr. Sam Rainsey was convicted for uprooting a temporary border post with Vietnam and falsifying the map. However, his conviction was seen as a political motivation by Hun Sen's government because this government is believed to be run by  Hanoi behind the scene.
      The court under Hun Sen control convicted Mr.Rainsey in absentia to 11 years in prison. Mr. Rainsey was in France since then. He would face arrest if he return to Cambodia. But he chose self-exile and continued to lead his party from a distance. After disappointed communal election result for his party. He decided to merge his party with the smaller Human Rights Party in order to create the Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP). After the CNRP was created in early 2013, this party was gained more and more support from all over the country.

     Now the balance of power has changed. Most of the people are tired of the CPP long rule since 1979, and this party manipulated to survive its lost election in 1993 which was organized by the UN. The fifth national election will take place on this July 28, The Vietnamese backed CPP is well prepared to win this election again. They predict their victory easily because the CPP has controlled every thing in the country: from military, police, courts, media network, and even the National Election Committee (NEC). The CPP run the country in Communist style; the party inserts its power from grass root to top levels of the government. any body has a hard time to differentiate between the CPP and Hun Sen's government. If you work for the government, you are automatically a supporter of the CPP. Your job will not be safe if they knew you are the other party supporter. People fear to express their political view.
      Today, as technology advances, Hun Sen lost control his grip on the media especially the social network. More and more youths are using Facebook everyday. The way to communicate among them is ways faster than before. In the past two weeks of the election campaign, we have seen more and more youths participate in the political rally especially for the CNRP which attracted most support from the youths. All these young people have demanded change for their government. Because since they were born, they have seen only one leader, Hun Sen, has ruled the country.
       After heavy pressure from international communities, especially the US Congress some of them used the strongest tone for Hun Sen, demanding him to step down from power immediately ,and will put Hun Sen in the Black List as the worse leader in the world if he dares to arrest Mr. Rainsey at the air port. Numerous reactions from the Hun Sen's government to the international communities but produced no good result because they know who he is already. The situation has quickly changed, Hun Sen agreed to let Sam Rainsey return from excile free without arrest. Hun Sen saw two sides of pressure: the international communities and the fast growing support for the CNRP from youths across the country.

Which Party Will Win This Election?

The CNRP rally in Phnom Penh

      By ខែ្មរវឌ្ឍនកម្ម

           There are 8 political parties to compete for this election. But only two political parties are poise to win this election: the CPP and the CNRP, Funcenpec will tail both parties or none. We assume the NEC is neutral.

            Based on the communal election result on 2012, there are about 6 million voters casted their ballots that time. The CPP got 3.6 million votes, the Sam Rainsey and Human Rights parties got about 2 million votes, translating to commune chief seat, they got only 40 commune chief seats while the CPP overwhelmingly got 1,592 commune chief seats and the other small parties got no commune chief seats. Now there are about 9 million register voters, about 3 million voters did not vote in the past commune election. We assume that the CPP at least maintains most of its 3.6 million votes. Look at the other 3 million voters. who are they going to vote for?  These 3 million voters are independent and undecided voters, and they did not go to votes in the past for many reasons. So if any party can inform and persuade them about its meaningful policy and get them to vote at this time, that party will get this swing votes and easy to win. Based on constitutional amendment formula 50% plus one, now the political party needs only 62 seats plus one seat to form the government based on the 123 total seats. So each party looks at this number in order to win. The CPP doesn't need to gain any more seats but have to maintain the numbers it currently holds (90 seats) or to minimize its lost. Any lost more than 30 seats will put the CPP in a dangerous zone. For the CNRP, currently holds 29 seats; it needs to gain more than double of its currently holding seats or 34 more seats in order to win. These numbers can be a tough fight. the strategy is to take over 4 seats from Funcenpec and 30 seats from the CPP or take as much as it can from the CPP.

         If the CNRP cannot go to 62 +1 zone, it may stay  between 45 and 50 seats. At this point, the CNRP has enough votes in the National Assembly to block all arbitrary laws created by the CPP. So look at the important zone that each party needs to pass. From 63 seats up is the jackpot for the winner and 45 seats up is the reward point for the losers. This short analysis, is based on the free and fair election environment.