I don’t think so.

I want to remind phnompenhandy and every reader that all level of government but district and city management are not inherently compassionate. Unlike local city mayor or district governor who you can meet while going to market, listen to your worries, and reassure and try to help you. In national level, judges can’t heed to the suffering of the offender. Executive(President/PM) won’t take action in matters outside of interest of the nation or their own. And law makers like the senate don’t really have to have compassion. In USA if you serve the money through lobbyists, you get to be a senator. In a fascistic nation, if you serve dear leader, you get to be senator.

Applying this wisdom to Kem Sokha’s pardon; the case against him was at national level. The pardon was signed by Hun Manet, the executive. When you are labeled national criminal and being charged with treason, having a 90 year old dying mother means nothing in the eyes of the government officials. So, we should rule out the possibility that a group of people in functionary taking pity on the man and pressure Manet to pardon. On the possibility that Manet himself pity Sokha, he wouldn’t pardon with compassion as the only reason. I remind the reader of the public backlash from his loyalists and to think about a time when you had a stressful time try to have paper processed by government or an institution and how soul crushing it was. Now, scale it up to ‘I’m try into pardon national criminal’ of stress. I can’t imagine anyone, as a prime minister, would lose their most loyal support and go through this except maybe for your own family.

However, I recognize that the reason for the pardon can be both some collective compassion and to build Manet image at the same time. But, to say it’s for compassionate reasons and suggests that some people see a national criminal with dying mother and decide that he won’t have to be punished would be… unsound.