After
a gruelling session that started in July and looks like
it'll wrap up shortly, the Cambodian National Assembly
and its tag'along "Yeah, what he said" whipping boy, the
Senate, has knocked off some four or five laws in total.
A break is in order, and that much has been acknowledged
by the Royal Government, which has announced a three'month
recess for the parliamentarians to get a well'earned break.
The
laws that have been passed have been worthy enough, don't
get me wrong. The first was to approve the formation of
government after the 12-month stalemate following the
election in July 2003. Under the Cambodian Constitution,
a 2/3 majority of the directly'elected National Assembly
is required to form government. Not surprisingly, notwithstanding
the political stranglehold on Cambodia enjoyed by Prime
Minister Hun Sen and his Cambodian People's Party, a 2/3
majority is not that easy to come by. The upshot of this
is that coalition governments are the order of the day
for Cambodia. All (good) things in Cambodia take time,
and the formation of a coalition is no exception. 12 months
might be longer than one would ordinarily expect to wait,
but patience is the only virtue worth hanging onto here.
So, after endless rounds of negotiations about which party
gets to put a porker at which trough, a coalition was
formed in July 2004. Three or so months later, all we
have to show for it is a lousy couple of laws that haven't
advanced the cause of poverty reduction in quite the way
I'd envisaged.
Chanted
like a mantra by the pollies, "poverty reduction" is the
catch-cry/panacea/raison-d'etre-you-have-when-you-don't-have-a-raison-d'etre
for all pollies, diplomats and do-gooders (aka aid sector
workers). I have no doubt they are reducing poverty in
Cambodia; I just hadn't imagined that they would do it
from the top down.
In
the spirit of matters financial, though, came the law
to approve Cambodia's accession to the World Trade Organisation,
the WTO. Getting the WTO to let Cambodia join the club
has been a labour of love for a couple of government
officials over the last few years. The most public face
of the campaign, here and abroad, has been His Excellency
Sok Siphanna, the charismatic, bow-tie wearing, 11-fingered
(only in Cambodia) Secretary of State of the Ministry
of Commerce. Dozens of junkets and thousands of pages
of reports later, though, even Sok Siphanna can't give
you a straight answer as to why Cambodia needed to join.
The cart is dragging the horse on this one, for sure,
but how long that is going to last is not clear, either.
One
of the things that Cambodia agreed to do as part of
its initiation rites is commit itself to an agenda of
enacting some 40 key pieces of legislation before January
2006. After the aforementioned-Stirling run that the
parliament has had in 2004 (i.e. 4 laws, none of which
is on that WTO agenda), this recess that the pollies
are having is starting to look positively pre'emptive.
Since the sum total of Cambodian law at the moment isn't
much more than 40 (well, the good ones, anyway), if
I were a Cambodian parliamentarian, I would be snoozing
up and carbo loading right through the recess in anticipation
of a long string of all'nighters in 2005 if they want
any chance of not making poor old Siphanna look like
more of a peanut than usual in front of the WTO heavies.
Big
Law 3 for 2004 was the approval of the government's
agreement with the United Nations, the UN, for the Khmer
Rouge Tribunal. We can talk about this subject a whole
other time, though, but let me put it out there and
call it now by saying that it'll never get off the ground.
The only conceivable winner would be the Cambodian people,
in striking one small blow against the prevailing culture
of impunity that is insurmountable to the man on the
street. Unfortunately, the good of the ordinary Cambodian
punter isn't usually the motive for anything 'round
here.
Just
the other day came our last law, delivering us a new
King, King Norodom Sihamoni. Artistic, long'time Paris
resident, dancer and choreographer and 51-year-old bachelor,
the new King may not have produced any heirs that we
know of (although it's not a hereditary monarchy, so
that's not such an issue) but he will tango with the
best of them as he takes to the Cambodian political
dancefloor.
To
Cambodian parliamentarians, I say "Rest on". 2004 may
not be one much worth remembering, but your 2005 is
shaping up as one for the ages.
