‘The Rule of Murderers and Thieves’

Cambodia was once the grand international project. Before the upheavals of Iraq, Afghanistan and the Balkans, the global community launched an ambitious plan to heal a ruined country through diplomacy, development and democracy. It's been an uneven road--littered with hundreds of bodies, questionable elections and billions of aid dollars.

The next milestone comes on July 27, the day Cambodians will take part in national polls to choose a prime minister for the third time since 1993, when the United Nations oversaw one of the biggest electoral projects in its history. Outside Cambodia, the world may be focusing on whether a war-crimes tribunal will finally bring some hint of justice for the 1.8 million victims of the Khmer Rouge nearly three decades after the regime fell, but inside the country voters have more pressing concerns: rising inflation, glaring corruption (including government-backed land seizures) and an ever-larger gap between the wealthy and the dirt-poor.

A dozen parties qualified to run parliamentary candidates, but two main contenders for the premiership stand out. The People's Party of incumbent Prime Minister Hun Sen--a former communist and one-time low-level Khmer Rouge commander who remains an intimidating presence after more than two decades in power--holds 73 seats. The other is Sam Rainsy, a former finance minister who has long railed against corruption and was almost killed during a hit-squad attack during a 1997 protest. (A quick-moving bodyguard sacrificed his life by jumping in front of Rainsy; he was among the 13 confirmed dead.) Rainsy's party, which currently holds 24 parliamentary seats, appears likely to benefit from internal divisions in the royalist FUNCINPEC party, which currently holds 26 seats and is the junior partner in the current coalition government. But given Hun Sen's near absolute control of Cambodian television, radio, the courts and the electoral structures that validate elections, any meaningful decline in his power would amount to a stunning blow.

NEWSWEEK's Eric Pape spoke by cell phone with Cambodia's opposition leader about his third run against archrival Hun Sen, the "curse" of oil discoveries and the rise of Chinese influence. Excerpts:

NEWSWEEK: As with the last three elections, rights groups are reporting political murders of government opponents during this campaign…
Sam Rainsy: [Last week] a journalist from the Khmer Conscience newspaper, Khim Sambo, and his 21-year-old son, were killed near the Olympic Market in Phnom Penh by a motorcycle hit squad. These are the sixth and seventh murders linked to politics in this campaign.

But [Hun Sen allies] also threaten villagers. "And if you vote for the opposition," they are told, "there could be civil war; your homes could be destroyed." They can lose their livelihoods, even their cows.