Kem Ley and Cambodian Citizenship Today: Grass-Roots Mobilisation, Electoral Politics and Individuals

Abstract

Starting with a bang in 2013 and ending silently in 2017, Cambodia experienced a brief democratic momentum that saw people taking to the streets to demand political change. Kem Ley - a political analyst and grass-roots organiser - provided a rallying point that ordinary Cambodians gathered around particularly after his 2016 murder, yet his political legacy remains meagre. The Grassroots Democratic Party that Kem Ley was involved in setting up commands next to no popular allegiance and performed poorly both in local elections in 2017 and national elections 2018. This article seeks to explore an elusive aspect of Cambodia’s democratic momentum: civil society activists moving to engage in electoral politics. It is argued that Cambodian activists have sought to reshape party politics according to civil society logics, but that this has been an ambiguous enterprise with little appeal to a sharply divided electorate.