Anlong Veng, Cambodia ? Kung Thoeun and his brother-in-law Yin Dy used to hunt monkeys together. They were soldiers side by side in the dreaded Khmer Rough guerrilla army. Now they are estranged and don’t speak bitter political rivals in today’s first ever local elections.

Long habits of fear, widespread illiteracy and just plain lack of interest hamper this first attempt to empower local people and to bring former guerrillas into a budding democracy.

Kung Thoeun, a candidate with the ruling Cambodian Peoples' Party, sits at his party's office recently in Anlong Veng, Cambodia, the former Khmer Rouge stronghold. Thoeun is running against his brother-in-law in Cambodia's first ever local elections, scheduled today.

From 1975 to 1979, Cambodia was ruled by fear as despot Pol Pot used Khmer Rouge fighters to make the country an agrarian concentration camp. At least 1.7 million people were executed or died of starvation, disease or overwork.

After Pol Pot lost control of the center to the invading Vietnamese, his Khmer Rouge guerrillas fled to the countryside and fought on until he died in 1998.

While many villagers pay little attention to the coming elections, former guerrilla fighters men like Kung Thoeun and Yin Dy have taken to the contest with enthusiasm. Their town, Anlong Veng, was a bastion of radical communism for 20 years. Pol Pot died here, finally prompting the last defiant remnants of the Khmer Rouge to give up their 30-year insurgency.

The brothers-in-law and 32 other candidates from three parties are contesting five seats on the council in Lum Toeung commune, home to 700 families and 3,000 people. Most of them grow rice, and the lucky ones have links to the timber trade. Lum Toeung is the smallest of five communes in Anlong Veng, population 25,000.

Kung Thoeun, 39, left the Khmer Rouge in 1998 to join the powerful Cambodian People’s Party of Prime Minister Hun Sen.

Yin Dy, 30, is running under the banner of Prince Norodom Ranariddh’s Funcinpec party, which is the CPP’s junior coalition partner on the national level but competing separately in the local polls.

In Khmer days, Yin Dy recalled sharing meals with his brother-in-law, remembered hunting trips in the jungle with Kung Thoeun bent double under the weight of the sack of monkeys and birds they had killed.

Deep ties ruptured in November 2000, and the two haven’t spoken since. Yin Dy said Kung Thoeun, armed with an AK-47 rifle, kidnapped him and held him captive 13 days as punishment for joining Funcinpec.

“I only wanted to educate him and warn him, but he refused to join our (CPP) meetings,” King Thoeun said.

Yin Dy said the past will be hard to forget.

“I hope our lives will go forward peacefully after this election, but I still worry sometimes he may try to kill me,” Yin Dy said.

Today’s vote will elect 1,621 councils to govern village clusters or communes. Elected members will take over from government-appointed commune chiefs.

But in the run-up to these first council elections, most residents interviewed could not name even one candidate and did not understand the concept of democratic local government group leadership instead of a government-dictated chief.

“The people here are … hard to educate, especially about elections,” said Thon Kuth, an election committee official. “They are not used to making their own decisions.”

Thon Kuth said he went door to door encouraging residents to register to vote, assuring them there was “no trick” and they had nothing to fear.

Fear was the overriding force in Anlong Veng, where residents had known only warlords for years.

After the Khmer Rouge were run out of Phnom Penh, the capital, and made Anlong Veng their de facto headquarters, land mines and heavily armed soldiers kept outsiders away, and residents in.

The people lived in isolated self-sufficiency, drawing from the rich, surrounding forests and abundant rice crops. There was no television, radio, legal system or currency. No one could travel, marriages were arranged by bosses.

The fear began to lift and freedom seeped slowly in after Pol Pot died. U.N.-supervised national elections were held the same year. Now, local voting is at hand.