Tunisia’s Independent High Authority for Elections faced a formidable task in May 2011. The newly created commission had five months to organize and implement elections for a National Constituent Assembly that would rewrite the Tunisian constitution. Commissioners moved quickly to build capacity and restore public faith in elections. The commission navigated the pressures of a compressed electoral calendar, an agitated electorate, and skepticism of the transitional government. The story of the group’s efforts to manage a successful election offers insight into how an electoral commission can take advantage of relationships with political parties, government, and the public to overcome inexperience in volatile circumstances. This case study focuses on commission staffing and recruitment, the creation of regional subsidiary bodies, and voter registration.
Sok Siphana discusses Cambodia’s efforts to join the World Trade Organization and to implement economic reform and development domestically. He discusses Cambodia’s transition to a market economy. Accession to the WTO offered an overarching goal that allowed the government to implement key reforms, including establishing legal frameworks protecting private property and regulating economic activity, standardizing government procedures with respect to foreign corporations, and overcoming entrenched interests. Siphana explains in detail the efforts of the WTO negotiation team to represent the Cambodian nation and to build consensus within the public sector, the private sector, the non-profit sector, international donors and the general populace. Siphana discusses the problems faced by Cambodia in these aims, including entrenched interests, political gamesmanship, lack of expertise and capacity building, bargaining inequality, language barriers and budgetary constraints.
At the time of the interview, Sok Siphana was adviser to the government of Cambodia. Between 1993 and 1999, he was employed as a legal adviser at the United Nations Development Programme. In 1999 he was appointed vice minister of commerce in Cambodia, where he was largely responsible for the nation’s accession to the World Trade Organization. After Cambodia’s successful accession to the WTO in 2004, he worked as director of technical cooperation at the International Trade Centre. Siphana holds a juris doctor degree from the Widener University School of Law and a doctoral degree in law from the Bond University School of Law.
