Constitutional crisis looms in
Cambodia By Julio A Jeldres
PHNOM PENH - Nearly a month after being sworn
into office, Prime Minister Hun Sen is in complete
control of the administration, police and army of
Cambodia and has been able to put together a rather
expanded government with the help of the royalist
Funcinpec party. But observers fear that the new
arrangements are not helping to establish Cambodia's
democratic institutions firmly, and a constitutional
crisis looms over the proposed abdication of King
Norodom Sihanouk. As if that weren't enough, the
International Monetary Fund (IMF) has painted a grim
outlook for the country's economy in 2005 as government
corruption and poverty threaten social unrest in the
kingdom.
A seasoned Cambodia watcher might
rapidly conclude that the kingdom's endemic political
conflicts do not have an end, and that while the country
has made some advances in the development of democratic
structures and institutions, it has also taken some
dramatic steps backward.
One of these was the
recently announced new coalition government between the
Cambodian People's Party (CPP) of Prime Minister Hun Sen
and the royalist Funcinpec party led by King Sihanouk's
second son, Prince Norodom Ranariddh.
On July
15, almost a full year after inconclusive general
elections were held, leaving the country without a
working government, the National Assembly met for the
first time since the elections and passed a
controversial amendment to the 1993 constitution
allowing the simultaneous swearing-in of Hun Sen as
prime minister and Prince Ranariddh as president of the
National Assembly.
According to the 1993
constitution, Prince Ranariddh should have been sworn in
first and then would have appointed the new prime
minister. However, it appears that Hun Sen did not trust
the prince to do so and thus insisted on amending the
constitution, an action that was carried out under the
threat of parliamentarians losing their seats if they
did not go along with their leader's designs without
debate. Normally such a parliamentary procedure is also
undertaken by secret vote, but on this occasion it was
done by a showing of hands.
King Sihanouk, who
left the country in mid-January and has said that he
will not return until the politicians solve their
problems, refused to sign the decree in order to make
the amendment legal and suggested that the acting head
of state, CPP president Chea Sim, could either sign or
not sign the amendment according to the dictate of his
conscience. Chea Sim, who leads a faction that opposes
Hun Sen within the CPP, refused to sign for reasons that
have yet to be fully explained and was promptly escorted
out of the country under armed guard, leaving his deputy
to sign the controversial amendment.
While King
Sihanouk has in the past announced his abdication and
then subsequently changed his mind, on this occasion,
observers agree that the king is serious and will
finally abdicate as he did back in 1955. The king is
said to be very distressed by the state of the country,
with the poorest getting poorer and the richest getting
richer through corrupt deals and the abuse of authority.
The king's abdication could have far-reaching
constitutional consequences because Cambodia's 1993
constitution is written around the person of the king,
whom the constitution describes as the "symbol of the
unity and continuity of the nation", the "guarantor of
Cambodia's independence, sovereignty and territorial
integrity" and, in particular, the "guarantor of the
people's rights and liberties". There are other clauses
in the constitution that give the king responsibility
for guaranteeing the independence of the judiciary as
well as the regular functioning of the government and
the army.
The constitution states that the king
is king for life, but it does not say anything about a
possible abdication of the monarch, which has been
interpreted by Prime Minister Hun Sen as the king's
inability to abdicate. Other Cambodian legal observers
suggest, however, that King Sihanouk, both as a
Cambodian citizen and as a human being, is perfectly
entitled to abdicate his post of head of state.
King Sihanouk requested, late last week, that
the government provide him with a clarification that it
is not illegal for him to abdicate and has stated that
he will not return to Cambodia until he is given such
clarification.
An appeal by the leader of the
parliamentary opposition, Sam Rainsy, for the
constitution to be amended allowing for the abdication
of the king and for the leaders of the three main
political parties to travel to Beijing and ask the king
to reconsider his proposed abdication, has been turned
down by Hun Sen, who claimed he had more pressing things
to do than to worry about the king's abdication. So it
appears that the king will remain in Beijing for the
foreseeable future.
In a letter to Rainsy on
August 4, King Sihanouk thanked him for his initiative,
adding that he would not change his mind regarding his
decision to abdicate and that he wishes to have a
successor "who is clean [non-corrupt] and gentle and who
will strive to serve the country and the nation".
The king's remarks in his letter to Rainsy have
once again brought up the debate over the formation of
the Crown Council, the body that is supposed to elect a
new king after the abdication or death of the current
monarch.
The 1993 constitution clearly
stipulates that legislation establishing the Crown
Council needs to be passed by the National Assembly, but
11 years after the constitution was implemented, the
Crown Council is still a myth. Twice, a parliamentarian
from the opposition Sam Rainsy Party has presented draft
legislation to the Permanent Committee of the National
Assembly, where it has remained blocked on the
instructions of political leadership.
Should
King Sihanouk abdicate, the country could be engulfed by
a constitutional crisis, as the Crown Council has not
been formalized by the National Assembly and, therefore,
could not elect a new sovereign in the seven days
allocated by the current constitution.
In
addition to these problems, the IMF has painted a grim
outlook for the country's economic growth, falling from
5.2% in 2003 to 4.3% in 2004 and an expected 1.9% next
year. The IMF report suggests that government corruption
and the growing income disparity threaten social unrest
in the kingdom. Speaking at a press conference last
Thursday, the IMF representative in Cambodia, Robert
Hagemann, said the high poverty rates were particularly
troubling since Cambodia had received more aid per head
than any other low-income country in recent years.
Julio A Jeldres is a former senior
private secretary to King Norodom Sihanouk and chairman
of the Khmer Institute of Democracy (KID) in Phnom
Penh.
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