Current:Home > MyCambodia’s Hun Sen, Asia’s longest serving leader, says he’ll step down and his son will take over-DB Wealth Institute B2 Expert Reviews
Cambodia’s Hun Sen, Asia’s longest serving leader, says he’ll step down and his son will take over
View Date:2024-12-23 16:12:46
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) — Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen said Wednesday he will step down in August and hand the position to his oldest son, though Asia’s longest-serving leader is expected to continue to wield significant power.
The widely anticipated move comes after the autocratic Hun Sen’s Cambodian People’s Party secured a landslide victory on Sunday in elections that Western countries and rights organizations criticized as neither free nor fair, partially because the country’s main opposition was barred from competing.
The rise to power of Hun Sen’s son — 45-year-old Hun Manet, who won his first seat in Parliament just days ago and is chief of the country’s army — is part of a larger generational shift: Many younger lawmakers are expected to take up ministerial positions, including Hun Sen’s youngest son and others related to other older party members.
Other news US announces punitive measures over concerns that Cambodia’s elections were ‘neither free nor fair’ Cambodia’s longtime ruling party is lauding its landslide victory in weekend elections as a clear mandate for the next five years. Cambodian leader’s son, a West Point grad, set to take reins of power — but will he bring change? Hun Sen has been Cambodia’s autocratic prime minister for nearly four decades, during which the opposition has been stifled and the country has moved closer to China. Hun Sen’s ruling party claims landslide win in Cambodian election after opposition was suppressed The ruling party of Cambodia’s longtime Prime Minister Hun Sen has claimed a landslide election victory that was virtually assured after the suppression and intimidation of the opposition. Cambodian leader’s son, a West Point grad, set to take reins of power — but will he bring change? Hun Sen has been Cambodia’s autocratic prime minister for nearly four decades, during which the opposition has been stifled and the country has moved closer to China.Many were educated in the West, like Hun Manet, who has a bachelor’s degree from the U.S. Military Academy West Point, a master’s from New York University and a doctorate from Bristol University in Britain, all in economics.
That could herald a change in tone from Cambodia’s leaders, said Ou Virak, president of Phnom Penh’s Future Forum think tank, but he does not expect any major policy shifts.
“There will be an obvious change in style of leadership,” he said in a telephone interview. “The shift to the younger generation just makes the conversations on policy potentially a little more vibrant.”
Still, he said it represented a critical moment. “He won’t let go, he can’t let go,” he said of Hun Sen. “But I think once you go into semi-retirement, there’s no turning back.
Hun Sen — who has progressively tightened his grip on power over 38 years in office while also ushering in a free-market economy that has raised the standards of living of many Cambodians — is expected to retain a large amount of control, as his party’s president and president of the senate.
He suggested as much himself in his televised address to the nation announcing when he would be stepping down.
“I will still have the ability to serve the interests of the people and help the government oversee the country’s security and public order, as well as joining them on guiding the development of the country,” he said.
Hun Sen was a middle-ranking commander in the radical communist Khmer Rouge regime, which was blamed for the deaths of an estimated 1.7 million Cambodians from starvation, illness and killing in the 1970s, before defecting to Vietnam.
When Vietnam ousted the Khmer Rouge from power in 1979, Hun Sen quickly became a senior member of the new Cambodian government installed by Hanoi and eventually helped bring an end to three decades of civil war.
Over the decades, Hun Sen has used strongarm tactics to stifle opposition and has also steadily moved Cambodia closer to China. That is unlikely to change radically, Ou Virak said, though the new generation may be “wary of overdependence on China.”
Under Hun Sen, Cambodia was elevated from a low-income country to lower middle-income status in 2015, and expects to attain middle-income status by 2030, according to the World Bank.
But at the same time the gap between the rich and poor has greatly widened, deforestation has spread at an alarming rate, and there has been widespread land grabbing by Hun Sen’s Cambodian allies and foreign investors.
After a challenge from the opposition Cambodian National Rescue Party in 2013 that the CPP barely overcame at the polls, Hun Sen responded by going after leaders of the opposition, and eventually the country’s sympathetic courts dissolved the party.
Ahead of Sunday’s election, the unofficial successor to the CNRP, known as the Candlelight Party, was barred on a technicality from running in the election by the National Election Committee.
Following the election, the European Union criticized the vote as having been “conducted in a restricted political and civic space where the opposition, civil society and the media were unable to function effectively without hindrance.”
The United States went a step further, saying that it had taken steps to impose visa restrictions “on individuals who undermined democracy and implemented a pause of foreign assistance programs” after determining the elections were “neither free nor fair.”
Cambodians in general, however, seem to think Hun Manet is qualified to take over from his father, Ou Virak said.
“The Cambodian people, while some of them might be upset that this is basically a dynastic kind of succession, most have not known any other way,” he said.
___
Rising reported from Bangkok.
veryGood! (18123)
Related
- California voters reject proposed ban on forced prison labor in any form
- Unlocking desire through smut; plus, the gospel of bell hooks
- 2024 NFL schedule: Super Bowl rematch, Bills-Chiefs, Rams-Lions highlight best games
- Jared Kushner, former Trump adviser, defends business dealings with Saudi Arabia
- FBI raids New York City apartment of Polymarket CEO Shayne Coplan, reports say
- Black cemeteries are being 'erased.' How advocates are fighting to save them
- Beyoncé surprises with sparkling appearance at Luar show during NYFW
- Robert Plant & Alison Krauss announce co-headlining tour: Here's how to get tickets
- Military veteran gets time served for making ricin out of ‘curiosity’
- Maple Leafs' Morgan Rielly suspended five games for cross-check to Senators' Ridly Greig
Ranking
- The Office's Kate Flannery Defends John Krasinski's Sexiest Man Alive Win
- Migratory species at risk worldwide, with a fifth in danger of extinction, landmark U.N. report says
- Chiefs guard Nick Allegretti played Super Bowl 58 despite tearing UCL in second quarter
- Mental health emerges as a dividing line in abortion rights initiatives planned for state ballots
- Tesla issues 6th Cybertruck recall this year, with over 2,400 vehicles affected
- Valentine's Day history: From pagan origins to endless promotions, with a little love
- Hiker kills rabid coyote with bare hands following attack in Rhode Island
- Here's why you shouldn't have sex this Valentine's Day, according to a sex therapist
Recommendation
-
Bluesky has added 1 million users since the US election as people seek alternatives to X
-
Police confirm identity of 101st victim of huge Maui wildfire
-
Biden urges House to take up Ukraine and Israel aid package: Pass this bill immediately
-
Fortune 500 oil giant to pay $4 million for air pollution at New Mexico and Texas facilities
-
NFL Week 10 winners, losers: Cowboys' season can no longer be saved
-
Fall In Love With Hollywood's Most Inspiring LGBTQIA+ Couples
-
Recent gaffes by Biden and Trump may be signs of normal aging – or may be nothing
-
Gun violence killed them. Now, their voices will lobby Congress to do more using AI