Is Cambodia’s political environment encouraging a muted voter generation or are they happily disengaged?

Soung Sophorn speaks with the power and conviction of a seasoned politician, barking into the microphone and occasionally raising an accusatory finger at nobody in particular.

“We have to understand the mindset of the human being,” he bellows. “If you force somebody, the love will last a short time. If you capture their mind, the love will last forever.”

If broadcast in grainy black and white, it would be easy to recast the Sam Rainsy Party’s 25-year-old youth movement leader as a political heavyweight of yesteryear, addressing a rally of thousands who soon rise en masse to roar their approval. As it stands, Soung Sophorn is speaking at a workshop in a conference room at Phnom Penh’s Sunway Hotel.

Nevertheless, his passion is admirable and, with Cambodia’s commune council elections due to take place in June 2012 and the National Assembly elections following in 2013, the timing of a workshop promoting democracy and youth participation in elections could hardly be better.

Two million of the country’s young citizens will reach voting age in 2012 and, according to the organiser of the workshop, Konrad Adenauer Stiftung (KAS), a political foundation offering civic education, the government “lacks the equipment to issue [new ID cards] in time”.

According to a 2010 study for the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) conducted by the BBC World Service Trust (WST), a large proportion of young Cambodians are already not exercising their right to vote: “Of those who were aged from 21 up in the 2007 commune elections, 53% did not go to vote,” it states.

As well as the potential shortfall in new ID cards, there are other documentation concerns helping contribute to a lack of youth participation in elections. According to the KAS: “Voter registration responsibility lies with the commune councils, name lists are drafted manually and very often include spelling mistakes or redundancy of names.”

The high instance of migration among Cambodia’s youth is also causing problems. If a voter is raised and registered in, for example, Mondulkiri province, but has moved to Phnom Penh for work, he or she must make the trip back to Mondulkiri in order to vote in elections.

“On election day, most schools and companies give a day off to their students or staff to vote. But many of them don’t… Many of them think: ‘Oh, it will cost me so much money, it is not that important,’” said Soksan Hing, 30, Chief of Cabinet and Youth Leader of the Human Rights Party (HRP).

Many young people also face (what they see as) more pressing issues, such as academic achievement, holding down jobs, or, with 43% of the Cambodian population below the poverty line, simply surviving.

“We observed that most students with university-level education still don’t pay much attention to elections, stating that they only have their names registered because of their parents’ encouragement and that they only follow other people,” said Ke Dararoth, a director of the Khmer Youth Association (KYA).

As well as practical obstacles to political engagement, this laissez faire attitude often combines with a lack of understanding of institutions and democratic concepts.

The UNDP-WST study, titled Youth Civic Participation in Cambodia, highlights such problems. “Participation levels are low (8%) when measured in terms of youth voicing their opinions to public officials, either to government officials or NGO staff,” it states.

In addition, the report found that just three-quarters of the young people interviewed had heard of ‘Parliament’ and that two-thirds of these people did not know what parliament does. In addition, only 28% knew the meaning of the word ‘Democracy’, while just 6% read a newspaper or magazine compared to 77% who watch television.

“Our research would suggest that people have limited understandings of what some of the key institutions actually do and what opportunities those institutions offer them as young citizens,” confirmed Colin Spurway, project director of the BBC WST.

“Also, the family, senior people, don’t allow their children to become involved in politics; they tell them to be careful and that it is dangerous,” added Soksan Hing, a sentiment that was echoed by the reaction of a number of young people on the streets of Phnom Penh.

“I don’t want to be involved. I don’t trust politics in Cambodia. They make laws but they don’t follow the principles of the law,” said a 25-year-old university student who asked to be identified only as ‘Reaksmey’ due to fear of reprisals.

“I don’t want to be involved in politics at all. I’m really afraid that it will cause a lot of problems for me,” said Vanny Men, 20, a female student at the National University of Management.