BANGKOK: Despite some bumps along the way, Cambodia has taken a few impressive steps in its march toward democracy in the country’s just concluded local government elections.

While the governing Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) is poised for victory in the Feb 3 poll — the country’s first-ever attempt at democratically electing local governments or communes — the opposition also has something to cheer about.

Election returns thus far show that the opposition Sam Rainsy Party (SRP) has garnered sufficient votes to secure a place in the 1,621 communes. This would bring to an end the absolute dominance by the CPP — led by Prime Minister Hun Sen — in the communes in Cambodia’s 22 provinces.

“This marks a dramatic change in grassroots politics in Cambodia and it will have an impact at the national level in the future,” says Sunai Phasuk, researcher at the Bangkok-based Asian Network for Free Elections (ANFREL), which monitored the weekend poll.

“No more will Cambodia have a one-party state at the grassroots level,” adds Sunai. “The CPP will have to give up the overwhelming power it enjoyed at the local level.”

Cambodian poll watcher Koul Panha feels that this shift will help usher in democratic features as checks and balances in governing the communes.

The Feb 3 poll comes after Cambodia’s last two general elections in 1993 and 1998, both of which were part of its transition to democracy after decades of conflict and a large UN presence in the early nineties.

The CPP took control of the communes in 1979, following the ouster of the genocidal Khmer Rouge.

The commune councils were the creation of the French colonists in 1908, helping to serve as administrative units to control the Cambodians and to raise taxes.

The Feb 3 poll also brought another welcome development, given reports of pre-poll violence — the absence of any violence on election day, when more than 80 per cent of Cambodia’s some six million eligible voters turned out to cast their ballots.

Women’s rights activists are hoping that they, too, will have reason to cheer once the final outcome of the poll is known, since this election spurred more than 12,000 women to run as candidates. —Dawn/The InterPress News Service