President, International Republican Institute

Before the House International Relations Committee Subcommittee on East
Asian and Pacific Affairs, October 2, 1998

Mr. chairman, it is an honor to testify again before you today here in the congress, where I spent much of the 1980's working on foreign policy issues, including Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Cambodia. Election standards Election observation has come a long way since those days. Ten years ago, the events of Election Day, whether citizens were able to cast their ballots in an orderly fashion, was the standard by which the democratic process was judged.

In the late 1980's and early 1990's, Latin American and east European dictators taught us a lesson, that the events surrounding the election are often more important than the day itself. Specifically, authoritarians realized that, to steal an election, they did not have to stuff the ballot boxes, but could instead achieve their objective in the months surrounding Election Day by means less apparent to traditional observers. In effect, for IRI and other observation groups, a one part test for judging an election had to become a four part test if we were to accurately evaluate how representative of a country's democracy an election was.

The first part to be evaluated is the months long pre-election phase, during which the central issues are whether candidates and their supporters are allowed to campaign freely, whether they have equal opportunity to access both the media and the election commission itself, and whether voters are left free to decide for whom they will vote; the second part of the test is the conduct of Election Day itself, which I outlined above; the third phase immediately follows Election Day: were ballots counted in an orderly, accurate manner, and were there opportunities for reasonable appeal of results doubted by some? and finally, in the longer term, after voting and counting ballots, did all parties respect the election's results?

Since 1983 IRI has observed more than 70 elections in over three dozen countries. In doing so, we have only one asset that matters, and that is a reputation for impartiality-a willingness to call an election process like we see it, and to do so without regard to who won or lost.

Most recently, our approach led IRI to call the 1995 Haitian elections flawed, earning us criticism from democrats here in congress. It also led IRI to judge the 1996 Albanian elections flawed, earning IRI criticism from some in my own party who admire President Berisha.

Our willingness to call it like we see it leads IRI to judge Cambodia's 1998 election process similarly flawed, and among the worst we have observed since 1993.

The events that lead IRI to condemn it occurred not on Election Day, but in the days, weeks and months before and after the balloting. While the July 26th Election Day itself impressed many observers, including IRI, those of us who monitored the pre-election process, and remained to observe the counting and longer -term post-election events, believe that, taken as a whole, this election fell below the standard needed to be judged acceptable. Let me divide Cambodia's elections process into the four phases I mentioned before to show how IRI reached its judgement.

In a July 14th joint statement, IRI and the national democratic institute (NDI) judged the pre-election phase " fundamentally flawed ". We did so because of: the July 1997 coup, and subsequent destruction of opposition party infrastructures; the failure to allow opposition leaders to return until less than six months before balloting, the denial to them of access to media once in-country, and the murder of up to 100 opposition members without any resolution to the crimes; the overwhelming ruling Cambodian peoples party (CPP) domination of the 11 member national election commission (NEC), with all but one of the non-CPP party seats given to CPP-backed splinter groups of opposition parties, and a hastily formed, biased constitutional council, the ultimate arbiter in election matters; more than 100% of those thought to be of voting age registering in some areas; the widely reported intimidation of voters, leading to a common belief that their votes were not secret. (this is one of the most problematic areas-in past elections where authoritarians controlled the process, a key factor leading to a genuine election result has been the voters' belief that they could cast their ballots in secret and therefore without fear of reprisal; election law and regulations that were debated and approved by the CPP and splinter groups of the opposition parties. The legitimate leaders and elements of the opposition parties were in exile in Bangkok, still fearing for their lives from the coup. (after his return to Phnom Penh, Prime Minister Ranariddh was able to have one element of the election law, the location of ballot counting, changed). In short, during the pre-election period, the CPP wrote the rules and controlled the process.

As the IRI-NDI July 28th preliminary statement indicated, the second test, Cambodia's Election Day administration, was as good as many we have seen over the past five years, and deserves a high mark: the election administration ran very smoothly at most places observed; few of our delegates saw any sign of Election Day intimidation; over 90% of those registered turned up at the polls.

There remains a question of whether pre-Election Day intimidation pre-ordained the votes of many Cambodians (most voters we asked directly said they were not intimidated). That said, had subsequent portions of the Cambodian election run as smoothly as the Election Day activities we observed, one could say that some pre-election problems, though unacceptable, were, in context, to a significant degree ameliorated.

Unfortunately, that is not the case. After a promising start, the third part of the election immediately following Election Day, the counting process, must be judged as deliberately incomplete: counting proceeded smoothly for part of July 27th; counting was halted in mid-afternoon of July 27th.

According to a source high in the national election commission, this pause was ordered by CPP officials after the opposition took the lead in ballot counts; while legally obligated to do so, the NEC declined to address all but a few of the more than 800 Election Day and counting irregularities charged by the opposition; the constitutional council, supposedly the final arbiter of elections appeals, like the NEC refused to hear the majority of opposition complaints and sided completely with the NEC on issues important to the opposition, including used and unused ballots, recounts, and assembly seat allocation; during the counting process, with little explanation, the NEC revealed that the formula relating ballots won to assembly seats won had been changed before the election.

While the original formulas would have left the CPP with a minority of assembly seats, the formula finally decided upon gave the CPP a majority. In the longer term, after voting and counting have ended, Cambodia's government has failed to act in the way one would expect in a democracy: intimidation of the opposition resumed with the departure of observers; Sam Rainsy himself narrowly missed being killed in an august 20th drive by shooting and grenade attack shortly after a media interview outside the ministry of interior. Rainsy was then detained for questioning in connection with the attack; at least 20 people, according to the U.N. center on human rights, are known to have been killed, and others went missing, during a three-week period of demonstrations and a sit in at Phnom Penh's " democracy square ". The sit in and demonstrations were forcibly ended after two grenades exploded outside Hun Sen's house while he was outside of town; following the grenade explosions, Hun Sen ordered the arrest of Rainsy, charging him with the attack. Rainsy took refuge with the special representative of the UN secretary general in Phnom Penh's Cambodiana hotel; Cambodia's opposition politicians were also banned from travelling abroad after the grenade attack. While the ban still exists, prince Ranariddh and Rainsy were permitted to travel to Bangkok on September 25th. The events of the last few days, with FUNCINPEC and the Rainsy party agreeing to attend the opening of Cambodia's parliament, under duress, should come as no surprise. Beyond the international pressure (mainly from Japan and Asian countries) exerted on the opposition to come to terms with Hun Sen, as King Sihanouk put it " in a Cambodia that is not a state of law and not a full fledged democracy, I have no other choice than to advise the weak to choose a policy that avoids misfortune for the people, the motherland and themselves. " One-sided negotiations cannot a lasting coalition make.

Cambodia's 1998 election constitutes a deliberate attempt to take advantage of the weaknesses in 1980's -style observation to have the process declared legitimate. Cambodia's government conducted an Election Day up to international standards, hoping that observers would ignore the hundreds of days of repression surrounding it. To a large degree, the strategy worked.

We are already hearing excuses about why Cambodia's election fell so hort of international standards. After every bad election, the two most common are: Americans are judging the state of a country's democracy from the perspective of a nation with two hundred years of freedom (this was a common refrain from south African politicians seeking to extend apartheid in its dying days); or The country in which the poor election took place is poor, and that the bar for an acceptable election should therefore be lowered.

At IRI, we hear these arguments after every poorly run election, and in IRI's experience of observing six dozen elections, such arguments are specious. I can say that because IRI has seen textbook elections in countries that are as poor as Cambodia, and while these countries have not experienced the trauma of Cambodia's killing fields, many have a longer history of dictatorship.

For example, a ruling party does not need to head a wealthy, long-time democracy to refrain from murdering its political opponents. Mongolia, a nation nearly as poor in Cambodia, with a longer history of dictatorship, had an election run-and lost-by former communists in 1996 without any election-related murders. Nor must a country be a longstanding, wealthy democracy to properly count and recount ballots. One of the most well conducted elections IRI has observed was the 1994 Autonomous Council Election on the remote Miskito Coast of Nicaragua, the poorest region of a poor country emerging from decades of dictatorship.

Ramifications of accepting Cambodia's election To accept this election would, in fact, devalue the worth of elections in building democracies around the world. Other dictators would feel free to kill opposition members, gut opposition party infrastructures, name a biased election commission, intimidate voters, conduct questionable ballot counts and refuse recounts, all the while confident that the international community will certify the process, as long as Election Day looks good.

Observers from the U.N., parts of Europe, China, Vietnam, and Burma are apparently willing to give such a certification to Cambodia's election, but the U.S. has a duty to billions around the world who look to us to uphold a higher standard of democracy. To agree to low standards for elections lowers the expectations of democracy for those voting. The U.S. should not give elections a bad name by assenting to recent events in Cambodia Cambodia's election and U.S. policy So where does this leave U.S. policy? We have a basic choice to make between accepting or not accepting the election process. Both the house and senate versions of the fiscal year 1999 foreign operations bill, makes clear the unwillingness of congress to accept Cambodia's elections. This is not a case of trade sanctions being put in place against Cambodia, nor should withholding U.S. aid leave Washington alone in the world. While Asian may already have concluded that they are satisfied with the election, the Europeans (with the exception of France) have not. Leadership by the united states in setting forth our position and working with others to follow it has, in the past, produced results.

Action such as that contemplated by both houses of this congress would also have a high likelihood of producing results. The worldwide disgust that followed last July's coup had much of the desired effect on Hun Sen, largely because, unlike the 1980's, Moscow and Vietnam are unable to bankroll and guard his rule. Moreover, as anyone familiar with Hun Sen can tell you, he craves legitimacy, and, in his eyes, the ultimate legitimacy is acceptance by the U.S. history, specifically the events of the 1980's, 1993, 1997 and 1998 have shown that Hun Sen is not a democrat. It should by now be clear that any hope for democracy in Cambodia lies not with Hun Sen, but with Cambodia's opposition, whom we should support. Pressure should be placed on Hun Sen to change his ways, and not on the opposition to simultaneously risk their lives while debasing their understanding of democracy. As you contemplate further steps, including whether the united states should back international financial institution assistance for Cambodia, the issue of Cambodia's U.N. seat, and whether a new U.S. ambassador should be confirmed, let me respectfully request your assistance on another issue. The results of the FBI's investigation into the Easter 1997 grenade attack on Sam Rainsy should be made public. I appeal for your help on this for two reasons: first, among the reasons Rainsy is being threatened with arrest by Hun Sen's security forces is for supposedly attacking himself in the Easter grenade attack (a charge dismissed by the head of the UN Human Rights Office, which itself investigated the attack), and second, because an IRI employee, Ron Abney, was injured in the attack. Along with the congress, both men deserve to know who ordered and carried out the attack.

Cambodia has suffered conflict for almost thirty years. I am not among those who believe that U.S. policy during the Vietnam war resulted in the 1975 Khmer Rouge victory, but I do believe that, with the exception of 1991-1993, Cambodia for too long has suffered from the neglect of the international community. This was especially true during the last five years, when U.S. policy towards Cambodia at best consisted of building roads at the expense of building democracy, and at worst suffered from egregiously poor judgement. If there is a people on earth who deserve better, it is Cambodians. The united states, including the U.S. congress, should help give Cambodians the future they deserve.