Cambodia election turnout in the hands of 'clean finger' campaign

A mother of five and grandmother of 11, she doesn’t fit the template of a firebrand activist or democracy campaigner.

But the Phnom Penh local says she won’t be voting in Cambodia’s general election on Sunday, despite authoritarian Prime Minister Hun Sen’s warnings that “traitors”, who choose not vote, will regret their decision.

She has joined the "clean finger campaign" backed by the exiled leaders of the now-disbanded Cambodian National Rescue Party. The name is a reference to the indelible ink that will stain people’s fingers after they vote.

The CNRP hopes to delegitimise the expected easy victory for Hun Sen’s Cambodian People’s Party by convincing Cambodians to stay home on polling day and suppress voter turnout.

The United States, European nations and even Australia – which played a crucial role in the 1991 Paris peace process in Cambodia but which in recent years has largely shied away from criticising authoritarian regimes in Southeast Asia – have declined to send election monitors.

Sokhom lived through the US-aligned Lon Nol regime of the early 1970s, the genocidal Khmer Rouge government led by Pol Pot until 1979, ten years of Vietnamese occupation, the Paris peace accords of 1991 which promised democracy, the coup of 1997 that installed Hun Sen as prime minister and the gradual erosion of democracy in recent years.

Reflecting on the decades of turmoil that have beset her country, she says “I only have peace in the 1960s, in the Sangkum regime [under Norodom Sihanouk from 1953 to 1970]. It was the only regime that was peaceful and in harmony, after that it is not good”.

“When the Vietnamese controlled Cambodia it was a bad regime. This regime, Hun Sen’s, it is still under the influence [of Vietnam] but that was worse than now.

Sokhom, who is a long-term supporter of the banned CNRP and who has served as an elected official for the party in her local district, says her family supports her activism.

“But they are still worried about my safety. Personally, I never received any direct threats,” she says.

She isn’t afraid of Hun Sen’s warning not to boycott the poll, or the prospect of punishment by the authorities for speaking out.

“I used to feel intimidated in the past, these days I no longer feel scared. There are always these kinds of threats. Hun Sen has intimidated the people for a long time, I think it’s enough.”

Sokhom also dismisses the idea of voting for one of the 19 other parties that will contest the poll on Sunday, many of which have only been set up in recent months and which have been linked to the regime.

The CNRP, which very nearly won the 2013 election, is widely considered to be the only party that could have beaten Hun Sen’s Cambodian People’s Party.

“Those who go to vote tomorrow are the ones who are killing the country, killing democracy,” she says bluntly.

That’s not a view, however, that is shared by every supporter of democracy in Cambodia.

Seventy-six-year old Mam Sonando is a high profile radio broadcaster who has previously been arrested by Hun Sen’s regime.

He also leads the Beehive Social Democratic Party, which is not linked to the regime, and thinks Hun Sen’s 33 years as prime minister should end.

“I admit I want to become prime minster, I don’t want just one or two seats,” he says.

But he is just as critical of Sam Rainsy, the long-time former leader of the CNRP, as he is of Hun Sen because of the former’s support for a boycott of the poll.

“After the Khmer Rouge we demanded and wanted to participate in elections, to choose a leader… if he [Rainsy] is a real democrat, why appeal to people not to vote?”

Rainsy and Hun Sen, he argues, once worked together but in recent years have been locked in a personal feud. That feud has hurt Cambodia and both men are now obstacles to Cambodia’s progress towards a more prosperous and more democratic future, he asserts.

“I don’t want to flee the country, I stay here,” he says, referring to the crackdown that has seen so many members of the CNRP like Rainsy go into exile, while others have been sent to jail.

“If Hun Sen wants to arrest me, if he wants to shoot me, do it.”

Sonando’s Beehive Party – so named because bees work together, defend their nest, give life to other plants and are peaceful unless provoked, which he would like the Cambodian people to do – will likely not pick up more than a handful of seats.

And on Sunday after the polls close and the counting is done, Sokhom and Sonando agree the most likely outcome is that Hun Sen will extend his years in charge of a nation still searching for a brighter future.