Dynastic change in Cambodia: Prime Minister Hun Sen has handed over the office to his son Hun Manet – and other ministers have also been replaced by their children. Nevertheless, experts see this as an opportunity for change.
It is a transfer of power from father to son that has been carefully planned over years. As early as 1996, the “Phnom Penh Post” reported that Cambodia’s ruler Hun Sen – then 44 – had told his eldest son, who was 19 at the time: “You’ll get on with it once I’m gone.” In 2021, Hun Manet was presented as the future prime ministerial candidate. At the beginning of July this year, the now 71-year-old father handed his son the flag of the Cambodian People’s Party in a symbolic gesture during the election campaign. Shortly after the parliamentary elections, he then officially announced that the now 45-year-old Hun Manet would soon take over his post.
But for the father it is more of a step aside than a resignation from power. He wanted to remain in high political office for at least ten more years, he announced on his Telegram channel. In doing so, he wanted to keep his son free in the background and protect him from political attacks. “Hun Manet’s legitimacy comes from his strong father,” says David Hutt, columnist and research fellow at the Central European Institute of Asian Studies. “As long as his father is present, it is very unlikely that anyone will turn against him.”
Hun Manet trained in the west
Hun Manet’s upbringing and journey to power were very different from his father’s. He grew up in wealthy circumstances and was the first Cambodian to graduate from the West Point Military Academy in the USA. He later studied economics in New York and earned his doctorate in Great Britain from the University of Bristol – all while getting promoted in the military. Recently, the Secretary of Defense pinned the fourth star to his uniform. “He is praised above all for his discipline and is considered to be more reserved in public,” says Jason Chumtong, head of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation’s office in Cambodia.
Hun Manet has so far only been active in the military and in the party, never in an elected office. He lacks political experience. As head of the party’s youth wing, he has been making public speeches more frequently since at least 2020. He is married to the daughter of a prominent Cambodian politician and has three children.
Hun Sen has ruled since 1985
Father Hun Sen comes from a humble background. At 18 he joined the Khmer Rouge, became a commander and lost an eye a few weeks before the communists took Phnom Penh in 1975. During Pol Pot’s reign of terror, which left millions dead, he broke with the regime and fled to Vietnam in 1977. He helped when the Vietnamese army invaded Cambodia in 1979 to overthrow the regime.
As a result, Hun Sen was appointed foreign minister at the age of 26 before becoming prime minister in 1985. To this day, he sees himself as a hero who brought stability and security to his country. Oppositionists, human rights activists and international observers tend to see a man who ruled the country with an iron hand and has recently become increasingly authoritarian.
In the July election, the 71-year-old won 120 out of 125 seats with his Cambodian People’s Party. The long-term ruler did not have to fear real competition, since the largest opposition party, the Candlelight Party, was not allowed to vote because of an alleged formal error. Critics were arrested or fled abroad beforehand. Hun Sen dismissed international criticism that the elections were neither free nor fair. He justified the transfer of power to his son by saying that this would avoid bloodshed should he die in office. In fact, there has never been such a peaceful change of power in Cambodia. And despite all the criticism, the transfer of power was constitutional, emphasizes Jason Chumtong.
Power and money remain with elites
Hun Sen wants to be elected president of the Senate next year, remain party leader and represent the king as head of state when he is abroad. Some of the citizens are resigned to it. They fear nothing will change under Hun Manet as his father continues to pull the strings. “I think that the new government will continue to implement the old political plan drawn up by the former prime minister,” wrote Rong Chuun, vice-chairman of the Candlelight Party, when asked. The opposition will remain under pressure. As the saying goes: like father, like son.
In fact, Hun Manet has so far attracted attention by repeating his father’s slogans and by being similarly aggressive towards critics. Still, some Khmers have hope. “I think he’s better than his father. His father brought Cambodia forward economically, but slowly turned it into a dictatorship,” says 21-year-old student Sieng Reaksa. Manet is more commonly seen posing for photos with young Cambodians and imitating their typical hand gestures. “I think that with his education in the USA and as a representative of the young generation, he can shape Cambodia’s future,” says another young woman, who asked not to be named.
The population has seen that change via elections is hopeless, since the opposition is suppressed – and is now hoping for change from within. The transfer of power from Hun Sen to Hun Manet is not the only dynastic change that is currently taking place in Cambodia: Not only is Hun Sen handing over his office to his son, but the interior minister and defense minister are also being replaced by their sons. Hun Sen’s youngest son and one of his nephews will also hold important posts in the new government: Minister of Public Service and Deputy Prime Minister. This emerges from a draft for the new cabinet. Only a few weeks ago, the head of the central bank handed over his post to his daughter. Power in the country is thus passed down within less influential families – as is wealth.
Possible rapprochement with the West?
The European Chamber of Commerce in Cambodia is “with good hope” that the change of power will enable a rapprochement with the West. But first you have to wait. Cambodia is important because it is strategically located between Vietnam and Thailand – two countries with which Germany maintains close economic ties. China is Cambodia’s most important ally. The Chamber of Commerce believes that the current economic weakness in the People’s Republic could help Europe and the USA, since Cambodia could try to compensate for this with partners from other countries.
Jason Chumtong from the Konrad Adenauer Foundation in Cambodia is cautiously optimistic that the new cabinet is much younger and many of the new ministers, like Hun Manet, were educated in the West. This alone does not guarantee rapprochement: North Korea’s dictator Kim Jong-Un, Syria’s ruler Bashar al-Assad or the leader of the Khmer Rouge, Pol Pot, also went to school or university in the West. Nevertheless, the wording of the five strategic goals of the new Cambodian government is based on Western values.
The new cabinet is also characterized by more economic competence, says Cambodia expert David Hutt. Most importantly, Manet is from a younger generation and hasn’t had the bad experiences in the US that his father did. When the US dropped bombs on Cambodia during the Vietnam War, Hun Manet was not yet born. He was still a child in the 1980s when the US and the West at times supported the Khmer Rouge. “So I think he doesn’t have that instinctive skepticism about the West that his father did,” says Hutt. Basically, however, the question is to what extent the son can break away from his father’s politics and influence in order to pursue a different policy at all.