A well-known figure within Cambodia's opposition has resigned his position at the head of the Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP), citing intensifying legal pressure from the government in Phnom Penh. Sam Rainsy, a longtime rival of Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen who has been living in self-imposed exile in France since 2015, gave up his party's presidency on Feb. 11, describing the move as a measure intended to defend himself from the mounting legal threats against him.
Ahead of important communal elections in June and general elections slated for 2018, Hun Sen has been gradually tightening the screws on the opposition, relying on many of the same tactics he has used routinely since 1998 to keep his Cambodian People's Party (CPP) comfortably in power. Over the past two years, opposition lawmakers have been beaten and arrested, a prominent critic of the government was assassinated, and embarrassing leaks have been made that allegedly expose misconduct among CNRP leaders. Rainsy’s deputy, now acting party President Kem Sokha, spent much of 2016 under de facto house arrest inside the CNRP’s headquarters while his party boycotted parliament for six months.
On Feb. 2, Hun Sen threatened to amend Cambodia's Law on Political Parties to allow for the dissolution of parties whose leaders have criminal convictions. Rainsy, who has been repeatedly targeted with criminal defamation suits and other charges, was convicted in absentia in December over accusations he made against the prime minister. Rainsy’s resignation ostensibly nullifies Hun Sen’s threat to dissolve the CNRP, but its effect on the party's prospects in the upcoming elections is unclear. Rainsy has spent four stints in self-imposed exile, increasingly limiting his participation in his party's day-to-day affairs. There is no reason to suspect that Rainsy’s resignation will curtail his main activities abroad: lobbying foreign governments on behalf of the opposition, touting the CNRP’s cause to foreign media and organizing support from the vast Cambodian diaspora. He may also try to appoint a proxy as his successor.
However, the move may further curb Rainsy's influence within the CNRP. Over the past few years, criticism has risen within the party over his choice to remain in France rather than risk joining his lower-level party comrades in jail, thus depriving the opposition of a high-profile political prisoner — like Anwar Ibrahim in Malaysia or Aung San Suu Kyi in Myanmar — capable of generating international pressure against the government. The CPP’s legal tactics have been designed, in part, to stoke tensions between Rainsy’s supporters and those of Kem Sokha (who was pardoned in December after pledging to work with the prime minister), weakening the party by dividing it. The two factions' willingness to cooperate on picking a successor will shed light on their ability to form a unified front ahead of elections.
The CNRP has yet to produce another figure with Rainsy's proven ability to unite and mobilize the opposition. After Rainsy received a royal pardon two weeks before the 2013 general elections, hundreds of thousands of supporters lined the streets of Phnom Penh to welcome his return. Moreover, the merger of Rainsy's eponymous party with Kem Sokha’s Human Rights Party a year earlier culminated in the strongest electoral challenge to Hun Sen and the CPP since 1998, coming within 300,000 votes of victory. For months following the vote, Rainsy led mass demonstrations to protest the results, which the opposition claimed were tainted by fraud. Hun Sen and the CPP evidently remain wary of Rainsy’s ability to orchestrate a repeat of those events. In October, the government formally banned Rainsy from Cambodia, suggesting a lack of confidence in its ability to manage a popular backlash should he decide to return home — even to a jail cell.
But the ruling party's move to oust Rainsy also reflects its increasing confidence in its ability to weather international pressure over its strong-arm tactics. This stems, in part, from the flood of aid and investment doled out by Beijing since the last elections, weakening the government’s reliance on the Western funding that helped the country rebuild from decades of civil war and insulating the ruling party from Western pressure in response to its politics. Cambodia’s recent cancelation of small-scale military exercises with the United States was likely motivated both by Beijing’s largesse and the desire to minimize Western influence among troops, whose loyalties will be critical if the elections breed substantial instability. The combination of political anxiety and Chinese-funded impunity in Phnom Penh portends a bumpy electoral season ahead.
