Thayer Consultancy Background Brief:

ABN # 65 648 097 123

Cambodia National Elections
Scene Setter
July 18, 2023

We request your analysis of the following issues prior to Cambodia’s national elections
on 23 July.
Q1. Is this election special compared to previous ones given that there is a rumoured
transition of power to take place with Prime Minister Hun Sen stepping down in favour
of his eldest son Hun Manet?
ANSWER: Cambodia’s national elections on 23rd July appears to be a two-step process.
The first step will replicate the 2018 national elections when the Cambodian People’s
Party (CPP) won all 125 seats in the National Assembly. The CPP’s victory was a
foregone conclusion after the opposition Cambodian National Rescue Party was
declared illegal. In February this year the opposition Candlelight Party was similarly
declared illegal.
The second step appears to be a carefully orchestrated generational transfer of power
from the present ruling elite to their children. The most notable example is Hun
Manet, son of Prime Minister Hun Sen, who was selected in 2021 by the CPP to be the
next Prime Minister. Accounts on Cambodia’s social media tip a Cabinet reshuffle. Hun
Sen is expected to retire and become head of the CPP where he will yield power
behind the scenes. Hun Manet will step up and replace his father.
Q2. What election outcome will Vietnam prefer: Cambodia under Hun Sen or a
democratic Cambodia?
ANSWER: Vietnam prefers “the devil you know to the devil you don’t know.” When
Cambodia was a functioning multi-party system, the opposition Sam Rainsy Party
adopted policies that were hostile to Vietnam, such as criticizing the border treaty
between Vietnam and Cambodia. Cambodia’s opposition party was also close to pro-
democracy activists in western countries.
Vietnam has worked pragmatically with Hun Sen to maintain good bilateral relations.
Since the chances of Cambodia becoming a multiparty democracy are extremely
remote, Vietnam’s main concerns are that Cambodia remains politically stable and
does not fall into China’s orbit at Vietnam’s expense.
Q3. The unfinished demarcation of their land border has caused persistent tensions
between the two countries. How will this problem shape Cambodia’s domestic
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politics? Has the border agreement also contributed to the lingering suspicion among
certain Cambodians about Vietnam’s expansionist intentions?
ANSWER: Vietnam and Cambodia signed a border agreement in 1983 at a time when
Vietnamese military forces and advisors were still in Cambodia. The major political
opposition parties have argued that the treaty was imposed on Cambodia and
Vietnam gained Cambodian land unfairly. In October 2009, members of the Sam Rainy
Party staged demonstrations along the border and removed border posts in Svay
Rieng province.
Since 1983, the Vietnam-Cambodia Joint Committee on Land Border Demarcation and
Marker Planting has maintained, repaired and erected new markers to demarcate the
border. Approximately eighty-four percent of the border has been demarcated. At the
most recent meeting in June 2022, Cambodia and Vietnam agreed to negotiate new
border regulations.
After the July national elections, when the CPP is expected to return to government,
it should be business as usual in border demarcation. While some sections of the
Cambodian population may harbour suspicions of “Vietnamese expansionism” the
border issue is unlikely to be a major problem in bilateral relations as the opposition
Candlelight Party has been declared an illegal organisation. The new government in
Cambodia can protect national sovereignty by renegotiating a border treaty with
Vietnam as an equal.
Q4. Ethnic Vietnamese immigrants in Cambodia remained a long-standing problem
that has been exploited to fuel nationalist and anti-Vietnamese sentiments in
Cambodia. Is this still the case? Will Hun Sen use this to gain public support?
ANSWER: There are an estimated 400,000 to 700,000 ethnic Vietnamese living in
Cambodia of whom ninety percent are stateless. The opposition Cambodian National
Rescue Party (CNRP) played on ethnic differences to bolster domestic political
support. This put the Hun Sen government in a difficult position and it responded with
a mixed policy of documentation and registration on the one hand and eviction,
relocation and deportation on the other.
The CNRP and its successor have been declared illegal thus undercutting their efforts
to politicize the ethnic Vietnamese issue in domestic politics. The ethnic Vietnamese
issue has been muted in the 2023 elections.
Hun Sen and his CPP has not played the anti-Vietnamese card and is unlikely to do so.
Academic research indicates that the majority of ethnic Vietnamese in Cambodia,
even if they are stateless, support the CPP and that those who are legally registered
will vote for the CPP.

Suggested citation: Carlyle A. Thayer, “Cambodia National Elections Scene Setter,”

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Thayer Consultancy provides political analysis of current regional security issues and
other research support to selected clients. Thayer Consultancy was officially
registered as a small business in Australia in 2002.