(As appeared on website of Cambodian Institute for Strategic Studies, Link)
April
01, 2016
The
upcoming Cambodian general election is in two years’ time, and Cambodian
politicians should now begin their policy debate, especially on how to build a
stronger economy.
The
strength of the economy is not reflective of the amount of Lexus cars being
driven in Phnom Penh or the amount of vacant high-rise buildings being built.
It is instead more dependent upon how sizeable and healthy our middle class
population is, and how economic benefits are being distributed nationwide. Also
central is the amount of government revenue to implement policy, provide public
services, modernize the military, etc.
Past
achievements have brought about peace and stability on which Cambodia has been
able to stand firm in the international arena. However, Cambodia can’t afford
to just stand; we need to run or even leap in order to catch up with the time
lost through Cambodia’s tumultuous history.
As a
young democratic country, we as Cambodians should be proud of ourselves in
terms of the electoral process which is, although not flawless, widely accepted
internationally and can be said to be relatively more democratic when compared
to some of our ASEAN peers.
Unfortunately,
even though we have had experience of five general elections, political debates
are still very much limited to dichotomy politics and partisanship, intra-party
power struggles, inter-party re-alignments, traditional blame games and credit
takings for past legacies.
Cambodian
voters deserve better from our politicians. The Cambodian public should be more
exposed to policy discussions and politicians from both the ruling and
opposition parties should be responsible for leading such discussions and
inform the public more widely about current policies Cambodia is undertaking.
It is time that we debate more about the future, about the economy and business
in this world of global competition for economic and sovereign territorial
survival.
Considering
the current challenges we are facing, policy topics are abundant. Yet, we seem
to have lost sight of where we want to go, and our politicians do not
sufficiently debate visions for Cambodia’s future. The Cambodian government
launched our Industrial Development Policy (IDP) 2015-2025 last year, but we
haven’t yet seen our politicians discussing this policy in public. Looking
around us, we can easily see that competition in the region is tough. Every
country is trying hard to better its economic status.
Vietnam
is evaluating the viability of expanding into automobile manufacturing.
Thailand will soon have a bullet train and its military government is creating
ten new industrial zones along the border to maximize benefit from cross-border
trade. Indonesia was seen trying to court Facebook and Google to support its
digital economy and is aiming to replace Singapore and Malaysia as Southeast
Asia’s logistics hub. The Philippines has overtaken Thailand and Vietnam as the
investment destination of choice in Asia amongst Japanese companies, as these
companies try to diversify their investment beyond China. These are the types
of developments that highlight the ambition of our ASEAN peers for the future
and how they are competing to take the economic spotlight.
But
what about Cambodia? What is our dream for the future? And what steps have we
taken towards that dream? Our economy and national security are very much
vulnerable and heavily reliant on our two big neighbors. When armed conflict
broke out with Thailand in 2008, the Cambodian army was caught off-guard
lacking military hardware; even simple clothing for soldiers. Fighting with
Thailand put a strain on the national budget: every ministry had to cut down
expenses, every institution conducted charity events to support soldiers at the
frontline. However, charity cannot last forever, and nationalism and pride
cannot protect us from missiles either. We need military hardware.
When
Thailand decided to crack down on illegal laborers in 2014, nearly 200,000
Cambodians were loaded into trucks and dumped at the border. This inhumane
imagery is still fresh in our memory. The destiny of an estimated one million
Cambodian migrant laborers are in Thailand’s grip. In November last year,
during the water festival, 24 provinces in Cambodia experienced blackouts for
more than one hour due to “technical problems” in Vietnam. Despite the fact
that Cambodia aims to become a major rice exporter, roughly one million tons of
Vietnamese rice enters Cambodia illegally every year.
These
are issues that Cambodian politicians should debate more, with the aim to raise
policy alternatives instead of playing the “blame-game”. Policy-making is not
the exclusive right of the ruling party. In other words, you don’t need to
become a ruling party before you can create and propose policy options.
The
time is ripe for Cambodian politicians to lead Cambodian public discussion to a
new level of debate to be based on policy alternatives instead of endless
destructive criticism and emotional and personal attacks.