Hun Sen, the long-serving prime minister of Cambodia, made a strong suggestion on Tuesday that he intends to step down when a new administration is put in place following the general election in July.
Hun Sen, 70, has ruled Cambodia with an iron fist for 38 years and promised to hold onto power for two more terms, or until 2028, during the most recent election in 2018. Since then, though, he has frequently mentioned wanting his eldest son, Hun Manet, to succeed him and has given him several prominent and significant jobs.
In December 2021, he made it clear that he was in favor of Hun Manet, the West Point-trained army commander of Cambodia, succeeding him, but only through elections.
Hun Manet, 45, currently holds a number of other important security positions and was de facto admitted into his father’s political inner circle in 2018 after being promoted from the 37-member Standing Committee of the ruling Cambodian People’s Party from its 865-member Central Committee.
Prior to his defection to Vietnam in the 1970s, Hun Sen held a middle-ranking command position in the extreme communist Khmer Rouge. He quickly rose to the top of the new Cambodian government that Hanoi imposed after Vietnam overthrew the Khmer Rouge in 1979.
Hun Sen, a cunning and occasionally brutal politician, has maintained his autocratic rule within an ostensibly democratic framework. With a firm grip on power, his Cambodian People’s party will undoubtedly win the upcoming elections. After the court ordered the dissolution of the only credible opposition party, the Cambodia National Rescue Party, for allegedly plotting the unconstitutional overthrow of the government, it won every seat in the National Assembly in the 2018 election. The judiciary is frequently viewed as one of the ruling party’s political tools.
The time had come for a new generation to take over, Hun Sen said in remarks delivered to villagers on Tuesday at a hydropower project in the western province of Pursat.
In remarks broadcast on his social media and television stations, he said that although a fortune teller had predicted his death at the age of 93, no one should work until they pass away.
Hun Sen dubbed himself the world’s longest-serving prime minister and claimed that his 44-year career as a national leader, which also includes his time as foreign minister and deputy prime minister, “long enough already.
“We have now identified the new generation that will take our place. We should better hand over to them and just stay behind them,” he said.
Hun Sen promised he would support the new prime minister even after he resigned. With experienced, recently-retired politicians like himself by its side, he claimed the new Cabinet will be powerful.
According to Hun Sen, the new post-election government will probably be established in September.
