OPINION

Telephone 'Thainess'

Well over a year ago, the landline connection to our small estate was cut.

Calls by my wife and our neighbour elicited the same response, i.e. that the cable had been stolen and that they didn't have any more to replace it, despite the fact that it is a common sight to see TOT crews running new cable connections.

I got the same response when I went to the TOT office, over and over again, when I had to complain strongly that I was still being charged the fixed-line fee, in order to get a rebate. Having no fixed line causes great inconvenience, as I used it for international calls rather than my mobile, because we have a poor cellphone signal out here.

On one trip to the TOT office, I was told the entire month's bill, including the internet/Wi-Fi charge. would be rescinded, much to my astonishment. However, come the end of the month, I was not so astonished to find my internet cut off, necessitating another trip into town.

Fast forward to a few months ago and TOT technicians removed my router box and replaced it with two separate boxes, one for LAN and the other Wi-Fi.

The next bill didn't show a fixed-line charge. Instead. I had a "fibre" charge and the bill is now more expensive than my original bills with the fixed line! Now, I have seen absolutely no activity involving TOT crews running fibre cables out here, unlike in Hat Yai. The internet and Wi-Fi connections now are slower than before and suffer more cuts in service.

It's an obvious case of inefficiency and denial -- perhaps these are some of the essential requirements for the much-touted "Thainess" slogan, which is currently in vogue!

And I still don't have a landline connection, although the number still appears monthly at the top of each bill.

In recent months, we saw massive election victories for Cambodia's Hun Sen and Malaysia's Mahathir Mohamad. Yet, their outcomes were viewed and judged with different prisms by several critics and media outlets, overlooking the compelling fact that in both cases, they were multi-party elections in which voters were ultimately in charge of their own decisions.

In this age of inundation of information and misinformation, it is no surprise that the swift and trendy reaction of some outsiders to an election outcome which is in favour of a long-time ruling party is to throw into question the legitimacy of that election. For sure, Hun Sen's victory is not as clean as that of Dr Mahathir's, given that last year his government outlawed the main opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP).

Nonetheless, its legitimacy is arguably no lesser than the other, because of the above-mentioned reason: it was a multi-party election. And it is not a sure thing that had the CNRP been allowed to participate, it would have won. There are several underlying reasons for that assertion.

The CNRP's campaign platform left much to be desired to begin with. It was almost entirely based on an impossible-to-deliver populist agenda, and was largely improvised by hardliners, whose ulterior motive was to instigate regime change at any cost, even if it meant bleeding the nation's economy dry.

After its dissolution, the CNRP could have collaborated with and thrown its weight behind other opposition parties, effectively marshalling public support and preventing the CPP from amassing a parliamentary majority. Instead, with its usual stubborn arrogance and my-way-or-the-high-way attitude vis-à-vis its peer opposition parties, it chose to sideline itself; called for an election boycott; and instructed its grassroots to stay home -- a very costly strategic and tactical error indeed.

Politics aside, the 2018 general election showed that increasing numbers of Cambodian voters learnt to reason and to accept that change just for the sake of change is not a viable solution and often leads to unintended disastrous consequences. For a country that suffered and is still recovering from decades of civil war, the manifestation of such wisdom alone, in and of itself, is worth celebrating, regardless of which party won the election.

Hun Sen's victory should not be seen as a zero-sum game for democracy. As long as the country remains peaceful and the economy at large continues to develop, Cambodian society will gradually attain social and political maturity; and genuine and constructive change will happen in due time, hopefully in the not-so-distant future.

It took Malaysians over 60 years to change a government. If Cambodia were to follow their example, it still has 30 more years to go -- Hun Sen's government will likely long be history by then.

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