Sihanouk had nearly sorted out Cambodia’s latest political crisis last week until his son Prince Norodom Ranariddh threw a spanner into the works. As the votes were being counted from Cambodia’s election two weeks ago, it appeared that Ranariddh’s royalist party, known by its French acronym, Funcinpec, had beaten the current, Vietnamese-backed government. But the government and its Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) refused to accept the result, demanding new elections in areas where the royalists had done well and hurling vague threats of “insurrections and riots.” Hoping to “avoid a bloody conflict,” Sihanouk announced that he had set up a government of national reconciliation, in which Funcinpec and the CPP would share power equally, with himself as prime minister and military commander in chief. He worked out the plan with CPP leader Chea Sim and then announced that Ranariddh had given his “full agreement and unconditional support.”
Someone should have told him to check with his son, who was holed up at a military base in northwestern Cambodia. When Ranariddh learned of the deal, he sent his father a fax expressing “great surprise” and repudiating the arrangement. Ranariddh said he could not think of serving in a coalition government with his half-brother, Prince Chakrapong, a CPP official who, according to Ranariddh, “has no other aim except my destruction, even my death.” Fifteen hours after proclaiming his new government, Sihanouk pronounced it dead and took to his bed, purportedly sick.
The political scramble in Phnom Penh left the Khmer Rouge guerrillas on the outside looking in. The Marxist Khmer Rouge had threatened to sabotage the election, only to see more than 90 percent of the eligible voters turn out in a resounding endorsement of peace after years of civil war. If a legitimate government emerges from the election, and the Khmer Rouge are excluded from it, they could become dangerously isolated. But the guerrillas aren’t dead yet. They continued their Maoist-style struggle, seeking to expand their control in the hinterlands, village by village. They also continued their campaign against ethnic Vietnamese, murdering nine more fishermen. “The Khmer Rouge will try to compensate for their political losses by military means,” predicted a senior official of the United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC), which supervised the election. Should the royalists and the CPP fail to produce a new constitution and a viable government, the Khmer Rouge may be able to regain the ground they have lost politically.
Election returns: The outcome may depend on whether Sihanouk can pull his own son into line. Prince Ranariddh evidently decided there was no reason to rush into a 50-50 power-sharing arrangement with the CPP when Funcinpec had beaten the ruling party at the polls. Though final returns weren’t in yet, the royalists apparently won just over 45 percent of the vote, with the CPP finishing second at 38.7 percent. If that result holds up when the official count comes out this week, Ranariddh’s party would receive about 57 of the 120 seats in a new national assembly, and its noncommunist ally, the Buddhist Liberal Democratic Party, would hold about 10 seats. The CPP was expected to win about 52 seats, and its support would be needed to ratify a new constitution, which requires a two-thirds majority.
“The electoral mathematics are helpful,” said an UNTAC official. “No one has a majority, so the parties will be forced to make a deal. In fact, that’s what the people voted for-for peace and for the warring parties to work together.” If a deal is to be made, Sihanouk will have to make it. Through decades of scheming, his objective has always been the same: to keep his country independent and at peace-under his own leadership. There were signs of flexibility from his son’s camp last week, hints that if Sihanouk can sweeten the offer, Ranariddh may yet consent to join a new coalition government. Like father, like son.
