Advocacy in Cambodia: Increasing Democratic ... - Pact Cambodia

8Increasing Democratic Space
and importance of advocacy for long-term
sustainable development. The non-voluntary
origin of NGOs and associations and the
nascency of the advocacy movement have
important implications for advocacy in
Cambodia.
Political Context
The political context at the national level
is reasonably open, especially when compared
to other Southeast Asian countries. Change at
the local level is occurring more slowly,
particularly with regards to the political culture,
although this could change with the recent
election of Commune Councils. National
elections were held in 1993 and 1998 and
freedom of expression and association are
included in the new Constitution. The
transition from a centrally planned system to
a decentralized democracy has had its positive
aspects, including the establishment of an
elected government, economic growth, and
human resource development.
A number of sound laws have been passed
since the early 1990s. However, the executive,
legislative, and judiciary systems are still
vulnerable to financial and political pressure,
making enforcement of laws weak. Ordinary
citizens have little recourse to the judiciary and
the rights guaranteed by the Constitution are
neutralized by fear created by powerful figures.
There is a growing concern that insufficient
precautions were taken in the liberalization of the
Cambodian economy.
Of greater concern is the apparent lack of
political will to uphold the rule of law, attributed
to the fact that popular representation does not
occur at all administrative levels (notably the
provincial and district levels). The government has
not prevented powerful figures from transforming
their political power into economic power, such
as questionable acquisition of land and other
natural resources by political figures.
For example, according to Oxfam Great
Britain’s Land Study Project report of September
2000 entitled Making the Poor More Visible:
Landlessness and Development Research,
landlessness in Cambodia increased from about
2.48% in 1984 to about 13% in 2000, mainly
because of the privatization of commonly used
resources such as forests and wetlands. Legal Aid
of Cambodia conservatively estimates that
100,000 people are currently being displaced by
more powerful figures. With such disturbing
figures, advocates may wonder for whom has the
country been liberalized and how current trends
will affect the future stability and economic growth
of the country.
Local
villagers
depend
on
income
made
from
tapping
resin
trees
like
this
one in
Kratie
province. Increasing forest concessions and
privatization of forest lands risks villagers’
livlihoods.
Most developed nations have a sizable
educated middle class that makes up about twothirds
of the population and has a stabilizing effect
through balancing political, economic, and social
powers. The remaining population is usually
evenly distributed between the upper and lower
classes. As Cambodia’s middle class is just barely
emerging, the country does not benefit from this
central stabilizing factor. Before the liberalization
of the economy, the population tended to be
homogenous. Now however, there is a growing gap
between rich and poor to such an extent that land
and other disputes are increasingly difficult to
reconcile.
Advocacy is most effective when advocates
can gather a critical mass of stakeholders and
apply pressure on elected officials to be
accountable to them. One of the difficulties of
doing advocacy in Cambodia is the fact that
national elected officials are selected by the party
and not elected as individuals. Therefore these
officials are less likely to be affected by the
criticism of their constituents and the possibility
of losing the next election. This situation may
change at the local level with the Commune
Councils established in 2002. But only if people
are empowered to make Commune Councils
accountable to local development needs and
Commune Council members understand that they
represent a constituency, can the councils act as
important advocates at the local level.
Some multilaterals are placing conditions on
loans to the government that demand a
consultative process with the NGO and private
sectors for policy formation. A consultative
process has not been fully embraced by the