PHNOM PENH–FIVE years on from King Norodom Sihanouk’s intricately-scripted departure from the political stage, Cambodia’s new monarch Norodom Sihamoni is quietly and finally emerging from his father’s shadow. Enthroned by French colonial authorities in 1941, Sihanouk grew into a national symbol and wily political operator, entrenching himself at the center of the country’s political life through his Sangkum Reastr Niyum, or People’s Socialist Community, which ruled from 1955 to 1969.
Unpredictable to the last, the often tempestuous monarch announced his surprise abdication on October 7, 2004, ending an era that spanned six decades and countless political and royal titles. The monarchy was officially re-established under Sihanouk in 1993 as part of a United Nations-sponsored peace process and the country has since been governed as a constitutional monarchy. However, Sihamoni, Sihanouk’s son and hand-picked successor, was always going to find it hard to live up to Sihanouk’s colorful and often controversial legacy.
Born in 1953 to Sihanouk’s wife Norodom Monineath, he was cut from an altogether different cloth: a dance instructor and actor, the new monarch had only a fleeting contact with political life. He served a brief spell as his father’s personal secretary while he was exile in the early 1980s as well as Cambodia’s ambassador to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization in Paris. Despite the vast gulf in charisma and political style, observers say since Sihamoni’s coronation in October 2004 there has been a subtle re-invigoration of the monarchy. Diverging from his father’s hands-on style, the new king has managed to reshape the monarchy’s role coincident with a changing political landscape, withdrawing it from the fray of day-to-day politics while advancing the institution as a symbol of national reconciliation.
At the same time, the five years of Sihamoni’s reign have been tough for Cambodia’s royalist political movement. Popular support for the kingdom’s royalist political parties, Funcinpec and the Norodom Ranariddh Party, has fallen precipitously. Even before 2004, Funcinpec – first founded by Sihanouk in 1981 with the aim of opposing the Vietnamese military occupation – was on a steady electoral decline. Prince Norodom Ranariddh, another of Sihanouk’s sons, led the party to a stunning victory at the UN-backed 1993 elections, the first multiparty polls held in Cambodia in over 20 years, clinching 45% of the popular vote and 58 seats in the then 120-seat National Assembly. But the party has lost ground at every election since, dropping from 43 seats in 1998 to 26 seats in 2003. The party lost 24 of its remaining seats in 2008, winning just 5% of the national vote. In addition to electoral defeats, last year also saw the retirement of royalist stalwarts Ranariddh and Prince Norodom Sirivuth.
The royalist movement’s electoral failures have coincided with the mounting successes of Prime Minister Hun Sen and his ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP), which won 58% of the vote and 90 seats in the 123-member National Assembly at 2008 elections. In a fiery October 2005 speech, following years of constant and sometimes violent conflict between the CPP and Funcinpec, Hun Sen hinted at the possibility of abolishing the monarchy – as done under the Republican Lon Nol regime in 1970 – and suing members of the royal family for libel. The following year, national television and radio aired strong criticisms of the King Father, a position Sihanouk was granted after stepping down, broadcasting Republican-era songs that accused him of ceding land to the Vietnamese communists during the 1960s. (Hun Sen has notably come under similar criticisms in recent years, leading to a crackdown on journalists and commentators that made the claims.) The government also banned the use of Sihanouk’s image in campaigning for the 2008 national election.
‘Eternal’ symbol
But despite these challenges, Cambodia’s monarchy continues to flourish. Unlike Sihanouk, who bucked against the constitutional requirement that the King “reign but not rule”, royalists say Sihamoni has grown into the role of figurehead, presenting himself as a less volatile symbol of the Khmer nation and national reconciliation. According to Cambodia’s constitution, the King is both head of state and symbol of the unity and “eternity” of the nation.
Prince Sisowath Sirirath, Funcinpec’s second deputy president, said that between the monarchy’s abolition in October 1970 and its re-instatement in 1993, Cambodians had forgotten what previous monarchs were like. After the darkest years in Cambodia’s modern history, he said, Sihamoni had reestablished the monarchy’s traditional role as an “umbrella” under which Cambodians could unite. “His Excellency King Sihamoni is doing his very best to renew that respectable position both for the nation, the people of Cambodia and the members of the royal family,” he said.
Julio A Jeldres, Sihanouk’s official biographer, agreed that despite the attempt of successive governments to “diminish” the central role the monarchy, the new king has proven a worthy successor. “King Sihamoni has followed up on his eminent father’s example and has adopted the same way of dealing with present circumstances in Cambodia as well as establishing close links with the more disadvantaged of his compatriots,” he said.
Despite the evolution of the monarchy and continual losses of its aligned parties at the polls, royalist politicians believe they still have a future in Cambodian politics. “Given a fair and honest chance in the elections, Funcinpec will regain its position,” said Prince Sirirath. “We believe in democratic values, we believe in respecting human rights [and] we believe whatever we sign with our partners is of great value. Things like this continue to be in the mind of the Funcinpec leaders.” He added that Cambodia’s peace and stability could best be secured by royalist leaders that established continuities between the past and the present. “The people of Cambodia need a member of the royal family to lead them,” he said. “The love of the monarchy, the love of the King, is there in the hearts of the Cambodian people, and [if you] shake the monarchy you will be shaking the roots of the people’s support.”
Others, however, think the decline of royalist politicians stems from increasing voter disillusionment with their aims and intentions. Funcinpec won the 1993 election thanks to its clever use of Sihanouk’s image, but countless missteps in the years since have alienated its supporter base. Jeldres said that although rural support for the monarchy remained strong despite electoral defeats, generational changes had possibly made royalty less relevant to younger Cambodians. While older peasants remained loyal to the institution, new generations “do not seem to have been given much knowledge” about the monarchy’s past role in Cambodian affairs and thus were “less inclined” to see it as a national institution, he said.
Outspoken royal Prince Sisowath Thomico, who formed the short-lived Sangkum Jatiniyum Front Party in 2006, said the withdrawal of royals from politics – and the de-politicization of the monarchy more generally – was a vital step in ensuring their ability to act in the country’s best interest. “If the royals are not involved in politics their actions cannot be seen as political actions aimed at gaining political support. It is a fundamental part of the problem: if the royals are suspected of getting involved in politics then whatever they do will be limited,” he said. “[Withdrawal from politics] is the sine qua non condition for them to succeed.”
The fear, he added, was that the presence of “royalist” parties – however successful – implied that all competing parties were anti-royalist, an assumption that could easily become a self-fulfilling prophecy. By creating a perceived link between the royalist opposition and the throne, royalist politicians have dragged the institution into its conflicts with Hun Sen and the CPP. “These threats were done in a context in which Funcinpec pretended to be royalist,” Prince Thomico added. “If Funcinpec is seen as a royalist party, then the other parties competing against Funcinpec are not. And the future of the monarchy [will be] seen to rely on the success of the party, which is not true.”
Ros Chantraboth, deputy director of the Royal Academy in Phnom Penh, agreed that Sihanouk’s domination of political life the 1950s and 1960s had unwittingly dragged the monarchy into the political fray, culminating in its eventual abolition in 1970. “I think Sihanouk’s politics contained the seeds of their own destruction, because he made some mistakes, and it pushed some people without any real power to overthrow him,” he said. But Sihamoni’s turn away from his father’s hands-on style, he said, had established a firm basis for the long-term survival of the monarchy. “If the king stands above the Cambodian people, I think it will bring Cambodia political stability,” he said. “This is the new evolution of the monarchy.”
[Published in Asia Times Online, October 9, 2009]
