The country could then sink back into mix of tyranny, wanton brutality and desperation under the leadership of Hun Sen, the current Second Prime Minister.

It was never going to be easy to get democracy to take root in the killing fields of Cambodia. Hun Sen's background is not that of a democrat. He became Second Prime Minister after the 1993 free and fair elections, which were won by Funcinpec's Prince Norodom Ranariddh, because he would not have accepted the result otherwise, and because he had the military power and hold on the apparatus of state to ensure his acceptance was needed. In the event he effectively deposed Prince Norodom Naranariddh last year anyway.

The forces of the scar faced lieutenant, who defected and threw in his lot with the vietnamese, apparently regard torture as a legitimate tool. When he seize power there were reports of his men torturing and killing royal loyalists, include gouging out their eyes. Despite leaving the Khmer Rouge he and his men did not abandon its thuggish practices. The United Nations has documented more than 80 political killings since Hun Sen seized power, the human rights groups claim there have been many more. Opposition leaders are persecuted, including Sam Rainsy who survived a grenade attack at a rally last year which killed 17 of his supporters He says the election is "just a joke".

The judgement call that New Zealand and other nations will have to make after Sunday Elections is whether to regard the poll as making the winner the legitimate leader of Cambodia. As and article on this page show, Hun Sen's Cambodian People's Party is expected to  emerged victorious, largely because od a campaign of intimidation that has made the election far from what the West would normally consider fair and free.

It is unrealistic to expect the Cambodian elections to approach the standards of fairness that are demanded in Western democratic nations. All the indications are that they will not be as free and fair has in 1993. All that can be said for them is that they are a small step forward from the 1997 Coup.

The West should not make too much of the elections, nor regard the result as given Hun Sen a legitimacy he does not deserve. He must be made aware that the rest of the world needs more reassurance than a victory in an election run under dubious conditions if he is to be regarded as a legitimate  democratic leader.

Cambodia needs an investment of money and skills from the West to rebuild the infrastructure destroyed during despotism of Pol Pot.  The message to Hun Sen must to get that investment he must allow  a genuine, pluralist political infrastructure to develop, that he must guarantee that there will be future elections, and that those elections will be fairer than the current effort.

LEAVING CAMBODIA TO ITS FATE
(The international community is tired of Cambodia 's history of political unrest and is viewing the up coming elections with little enthusiasm o interest as David Barber reports) 

The children of Cambodia have the same limpid beauty as the countryside, now springing back to life at the start of the rainy season. More than half the nation's 11 million population is under 18 and too young to vote, but this month's general election is all about their future. Peace was supposed to be assured after the 1991 Paris agreements which promised to end the war and human rights violations after three years of fighting had devastated and impoverished the country.

But more than 20,000 foreign peacekeepers failed to prevent the killing and wounding of 100 people in the country's first democratic election run by the United Nations in 1993. And 12 months ago, Phnom Penh erupted in a frenzy of fighting and looting when strongman leader Hun Sen ousted First Prime Minister Prince Norodom Ranariddh. Since then, the UN has documented more than 80 political killings and human rights groups say there have been many more. Life remains cheap in a nation which has suffered a Khmer Rouge campaign of genocide, where one in five adult males totes a gun and where 100 people a month are still being killed or maimed by the biggest accumulation of land mines on earth. There is every sign the election will legitimize Hun Sen's coup of last July 5 and the international community, which then reacted with outrage, will this time breathe a collective sign of relief.

For the world is suffering an acute case of Cambodia fatigue.  Major aid donors like the European Union (which is financing the poll), the United Stated and Japan modified their earlier insistence on a free and fair democratic election in a favour that is "free-ish" and "fair-ish". Diplomats in Phnom Penh now talk only of the July 26 poll being "credible" and discuss acceptable and unacceptable levels of violence and intimidation. "The mere act of elections is democracy- forget the results," says one resignedly, confessing the general desire is to achieve some political stability and "de-internationalise" Cambodia's problems. In other words, leave Cambodia to its fate. Most people in Phnom Penh say the result, like many elections in Asia, is a foregone conclusion.  Hun Sen's Cambodian People's Party, which claims the UN mastermind an international conspiracy to rob it of victory five years ago, has drawn up a master plan based on organization and fear to ensure success this time.

Hun Sen, 48, who was made Prime Minister by Cambodia's  Vietnamese occupying force in 1985, was confident of winning in 1993, but Ranariddih's royalist United Front  for an independence, Neutral, Peaceful and Co-operative Cambodia (Funcinpec) took most seats. The CPP refused to recognize the result threatening violence, forced the UN which had administered the country since 1991, to broker a peace-keeping deal giving  it a substantial role in coalition government and naming Hun Sen Second Prime Minister. In charge since last July's coup, many in the CPP are far from keen on the ballot. "Elections are not fair," says a party official. "You control the power , you control the country and the ballot papers can take that away from you? No."  But Hun  Sen knows he needs a democratically elected, universally-recognised government with the UN seat and Asean membership denied after his coup, to get foreign aid, investment and tourism resumed to recharge a sick economy.  The CPP has established  an extensive grassroots organization and its members dominated national and local administrations and militia. Dubious membership campaign tactics include taking deeply religious voters to local temples to swear before buddha that they will vote for the CPP. Others have been made to put their thumbprints on contracts pledging party loyalty, a move dubbed intimidation by UN observers. Opposition supporters have told of being given glasses of water containing bullets - an unspoken threat that they will be delivered by other means if they do not vote for the CPP. Many people believe a wild rumour that a space satellite will record how they vote and there is widespread fear that the CPP will wreak vengeance on those who vote the "wrong" way. Prominent opposition politician Sam Rainsy, who escaped a grenade attack on a rally of his own party which killed 17 and injured 150 others in Phnom Penh, has threatened to boycott the poll he says is far from free and fair. Funcinpec is again led Naranariddh, 54, who returned to Cambodia in April, having fled the country just before the coup, been tried in absentia on charges of importing weapons and colluding with the Khmer Rouge, convicted and pardoned in a japanese brokered agreement.