Cambodia—Political System

About 5 pages (1,452 words)

Cambodia Summary

Cambodia—Political System

Cambodia's political system is a product both of the country's troubled and oftentimes turbulent modern history and of factors rooted deeply in its premodern development. This article examines the political and governmental units that constitute Cambodia's political system and explores the political system in terms of its current structures and its historical development.

Structure of the Contemporary Political System

Cambodia's system of government officially is a multiparty liberal democracy under a constitutional monarchy. This system was established and adopted in September 1993, after the conclusion of a process of political reconstruction sponsored and overseen by the United Nations. King Norodom Sihanouk, who had first assumed the throne in 1941, before abdicating in favor of his father in 1954, returned as chief of state after the conclusion of that process. Under the framework established by the constitution, the king serves as the head of state for life. Possibly in response to the very active and often controversial roles Sihanouk has played in the political process in Cambodia since independence, the constitutional framework also clearly articulates that the king reigns but does not govern and is to serve as the symbol of the unity and continuity of the nation. The head of government, elected in 1998, is Prime Minister Hun Sen, whose appointment was officially made by the monarch after a vote of confidence by the National Assembly.

The National Assembly constitutes the first of the two legislative branches of the system of government. Its 122 members are elected by popular vote to serve five-year terms in parliament. The July 1998 elections resulted in a victory by Hun Sen's Cambodian People's Party (CPP), which secured 41 percent of the vote, and therefore 64 seats in the assembly. The CPP's major opponents were the royalist FUNCINPEC (Front Uni National pour un Cambodge Indépendant, Neutre, Pacifique, et Coopératif; National United Front for an Independent, Neutral, Peaceful, and Cooperative Cambodia) party (32 percent of the vote and 43 seats) and the Sam Rainsy Party (14 percent of the vote and 15 seats). The second legislative branch of the government is the Senate. It was formed following the November 1998 coalition agreement signed between the CPP and FUNCINPEC, which settled an impasse over FUNCINPEC allegations of electoral discrepancies in the July elections. The Senate currently has 61 members, whose appointments are officially made by the king, who also nominates two of its members. Of these appointments, CPP recommended 31 members, FUNCINPEC 21 members, and the Sam Rainsy Party 7 members.

The system of government also provides for an independent judiciary. At the head of the judiciary is the Supreme Council of the Magistracy, which was provided for in the 1993 constitution, and which was eventually formed in December 1997. Judicial authority is exercised through a supreme court and lower provincial courts.

Development of the Cambodian Political System

Examining Cambodia's political system only in terms of the formal structures that were adopted as a part of the United Nations–sponsored peace process would lead to a substantially skewed understanding of the system. An appreciation for Cambodia's historical development is essential to understand the nature of the country's political system completely. In particular, we need to account for the development of the political culture that has dominated Cambodia since the Angkor era (eighth to thirteenth centuries CE), when the Khmer ruled the most powerful state in Southeast Asia. We also need to account for the destructive legacies of Cambodia's more recent past, which left the local political scene fractured and factionalized.

Cambodia's political culture has been established upon a complex system of patron-client relations. The roots of this system are grounded in the Angkor era, which began with the consecration of a united Khmer state under King Jayavarman II. In 802 CE Jayavarman participated in a religious ritual that celebrated the cult of the God-King (devaraja), and in which he became a universal monarch (chakravartin). These events provided the foundations of a political culture in which leaders are distanced from their subjects, and that does not recognize an obligation for those with power to serve the interests of those over whom that power is exercised. The legacy of the political culture is that power, in the Cambodian political environment, has become an end in itself—those with authority seeking to become more powerful without regard for the lives of those over whom they exercise that power.

Two Cambodian women in Phnom Penh with voter registration forms in 1992. (CATHERINE KARNOW/CORBIS)

That attitude, which for centuries has facilitated the rise of leaders with no sense of accountability to those they lead, was institutionalized in modern Cambodia with the political rise of Norodom Sihanouk. Selected by Cambodia's French colonial masters to assume the throne because of a perception he would be easily manipulated, Sihanouk soon turned on the French and was credited with achieving independence for Cambodia in 1953. Over the next several years, especially after he had abdicated the throne but retained his royal credentials, Sihanouk established a political system that placed him firmly at its center and that gave him almost absolute control over the levers of power. While the veneer of democracy was maintained with a National Assembly and national congresses, through which the people could take their grievances directly to Sihanouk, power was effectively concentrated in the hands of one person, who seemed able to do as he pleased without responding to voices of his constituents.

The political system revealed its inherent weakness when Sihanouk was eventually deposed by the National Assembly in 1970. Without the apparatuses, institutions, or historical precedents to facilitate reasoned debate, or even to tolerate opposing voices and figures of opposition, the political system was cast aside in favor of armed conflict. While the regime that deposed Sihanouk tried to reorient the political system, dispensing with the monarchy and embracing republicanism, its fundamental tenets remained unchanged. Cambodia's new ruler, Lon Nol, adopted an authoritarian approach to ruling Cambodia and ignored many of the new democratic political institutions he had established.

Sihanouk was cast outside Lon Nol's political system and aligned himself with the communist Khmer Rouge, who assumed power in 1975. Maintaining the authoritarianism of their predecessors, the Communists continued to see no relationship between rulers and ruled and established participatory institutions in name only. When the Khmer Rouge was ousted in 1979, Cambodia's new Vietnamese-sponsored rulers again refused to allow those with alternative political ideas to participate in their system. Instead, opposition groups camped on the Thai-Cambodian border and waged war with the ruling regime for more than a decade.

The Paris Peace Agreements, signed on 23 October 1991, were intended to lay the groundwork for the establishment of a political system based on a pluralistic democracy. The peace agreements provided for the conduct of national elections, through which a constituent assembly could be elected and a new constitution could be promulgated. While the new constitution that eventually was adopted provided the framework for governance discussed above, it failed to account for the authoritarian political culture that has evolved in Cambodia for more than a millennium. The result is that many of the institutions and processes established by the 1993 constitution have been ignored by Cambodia's post-1993 political leaders. The National Assembly rarely debates issues of pressing national concern, the Senate is largely inactive, few commentators would attest that the judiciary is independent, and political violence—directed especially at opposition political figures—remains endemic.

David M. Ayres