'Firefly' Political Parties And The Cambodian Election

A week from Sunday, Cambodian voters will head to the polls in what is expected to be a landslide victory for sitting Prime Minister Hun Sen. The reason for that is primarily that Hun Sen, who has been in power since 1985, dissolved the primary opposition party last year to help ensure victory for his Cambodian People's Party.

But his CPP is not, despite that fact, literally the only party on the ballot: as this piece from The New York Times explains, there are nearly 20 smaller political parties competing as well. They're known as “ampil ampik” in the Khmer language, or "fireflies," because they spring up before an election and disappear shortly thereafter.

These parties — including, for example, one led by a woman who says a spirit encouraged her to enter politics — are typically small and underfunded, meaning they're not expected to garner any significant percentage of the vote on July 29. But their presence on the ballot serves a purpose for Hun Sen: they are "specifically designed to uphold the facade of electoral competition," one expert told the Times. In other words, he can argue that Cambodia remains a multi-party democracy, despite the fact that none of these other parties really have a fighting chance.

Presumably one or two of these "fireflies" will make it into parliament, though it's unclear at this point which ones that might be. The fact that these smaller parties are the only opposition to Hun Sen's CPP, however weak they may be, says a lot about the state of democracy in Cambodia.