My dear Kacvey,
You and your students will face a difficult choice on 29 July 2018:
– to vote or not to vote?
– to vote by casting a void ballot or to vote for which party?
– how could conscience dictate?
Damn you vote, damn you don’t.
Damn you vote, damn the autocrat wins (by predetermination).
Damn you don’t vote, damn the autocrat still wins (by predetermination).
It’s a lose-lose situation, for the voters and/or non-voters.
When citizen’s sovereign rights and freedom of choice are trampled by autocracy that disguises itself as a democracy, crass as it is!
What a difference since the communal elections on 4 June 2017! Polyphemus, being rejected by the people spit fire and burned democracy to death. And he’s trying to disguise his gullible acts by promoting his autocratic democracy through multiplication of new parties that have never ever proven that they have done anything to Cambodia and its people: 11 parties at the 4 June 2017 communal elections, and now 19 parties for the legislative on 29 July 2018. Numbers are phony in their democratic meaning.
The scenario designed and orchestrated by the autocrat resembles a field controlled for more than 30 years by an old fox with 19 newly hatched chicks. Since all parties-chicks seem to be male, let call them cockerels. This reminds of a Latin phrase ‘Ovem lupo commitere’ that could be interpreted as “foxes sneak in chicken coops and eat the chickens.”
To push the pretense to an absurdity level, through the politicization of Buddhism, they set up a drawing ceremony on 29 May 2018 to attribute number to the 20 parties. Calculated fortune is that autocracy gets number 20 so that the autocrat’s sycophants could bark that democracy is well served. What does that type of number serve anyway, since victory for the ruling party has been already schemed, designed and planned since September 2017!
Boo! Boo!
Kacvey, your students might ask:
– what if the predetermined victory would not turn out to be glorious or glorified, under the heavy pressure of international opinion, the autocrat decided at the last-minute to open the gate of Thbong Khmoum jail and release the falsely-charged prisoner?
– would he postpone the election so as to allow the opposition to organize the campaign or would he not postpone it and argue on the 5-year ban?
– in June 2017, there were 7,107,395 voters, out of which 3,540,056 went to the ruling party, and 3,056,824 to the opposition. You do the math, Kacvey. What if 4 or 5 millions of combined ruling or opposition voters did not show up on 29 July 2018?! A tsunami of non-voters! Khmer electorate understands better and better the power of their voices and secret ballots since UNTAC elections in May 1993, and it continues to learn and appreciate it as times go forward;
– what if millions of voters show up at and flood the polling stations 15 minutes before the poll closing time or sunset?
– what if those millions voted for the party numbered “21”, like playing golf’s “19th hole”?
– would the autocrat be happy or satisfied with a victory with 99.99% ballots in his favor, or would he play false modesty by allowing some parties (such as for example the scum party that sits in the opposition seats in the national assembly and the senate after the opposition was annihilated) to get 10 to 15 seats out of the total of 123?
– what if the autocrat politics through Facebook that he feeds many, many hours per day has a negative return despite his (authentic or otherwise) millions and millions “likes”?
– in the mean time, what if Hypnos could re-play the trick against Zeus on the esplanade of Angkor Wat?
A lot of stuff to think about, Kacvey!