People watching as Hun Sen speaks during a special statement on television at a restaurant in Phnom Penh.
Prime Minister Hun Sen, one of the world’s longest-serving leaders, said he will resign and hand power to his eldest son after almost four decades of hardline rule.
The former Khmer Rouge cadre has run the kingdom since 1985, eliminating all opposition to his power, with opposition parties banned, challengers forced to flee and freedom of expression stifled.
His Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) won a landslide victory in an election on Sunday with no meaningful opposition, taking 82% of the vote, paving the way for a dynastic succession to his eldest son that some critics have compared to North Korea.
“I would like to ask for understanding from the people as I announce that I will not continue as prime minister,” the 70-year-old said in a special broadcast on state television.
Election authorities disqualified the only serious challenger, the Candlelight Party, on a technicality in advance of the election, and the CPP is expected to win all but five lower house seats.
The government hailed the 84.6% voter turnout as evidence of the country’s “democratic maturity” but Western powers including the United States and European Union condemned the poll as neither free nor fair.
Hun Sen said Hun Manet, a 45-year-old four-star general, would take over as prime minister at the head of a new government on the evening of Aug 22.
“I ask people to support Hun Manet who will be the new prime minister,” he said.
Hun Sen gesturing during a press conference, issuing a stern warning to Asean against interfering in Cambodia’s internal affairs, in Phnom Penh on July 10, 1997.
Hun Sen has trailed the handover to his son for a year and a half, and the 45-year-old played a leading role in campaigning for Sunday’s vote.
But the outgoing leader has made it clear that he still intends to wield influence, even after he steps down, scotching the notion the country could change direction.
In his announcement on Wednesday, he said he would become president of the senate and act as head of state when the king is overseas.
Under Hun Sen, Cambodia has tacked close to Beijing, benefiting from huge Chinese investment and infrastructure projects, including the redevelopment of a naval base that has alarmed Washington.
China welcomed Sunday’s election, with President Xi Jinping sending Hun Sen a personal message of congratulations.
But the flood of Chinese money has brought problems, including a rash of casinos and online scam operations staffed by foreign workers, many trafficked and toiling in appalling conditions.
Critics say his rule has also been marked by environmental destruction and entrenched graft.
Cambodia ranks 150th out of 180 in Transparency International’s corruption perception index. In Asia, only Myanmar and North Korea rank lower.
Rights groups accuse Hun Sen of using the legal system to crush any opposition to his rule – including critical activists and troublesome union leaders as well as politicians.
Scores of opposition politicians have been convicted and jailed during his time in power and the law was changed ahead of Sunday’s election to make it illegal to call for voters to spoil ballots.
Hun Sen meeting villagers on the outskirts of Phnom Penh after opening an irrigation project on July 3, 1998. — AFP
Five days before polling day, authorities banned exiled opposition figurehead Sam Rainsy from running for office for 25 years for urging people to void their ballot papers.
Opposition leader Kem Sokha was in March convicted of treason and sentenced to 27 years in prison over an alleged plot to topple Hun Sen’s government. He is currently serving his sentence under house arrest.
Before he was Cambodia’s long-serving prime minister, Hun Sen was a cadre in the Khmer Rouge, an ultra-Maoist organisation that overthrew the US-backed government of Lon Nol and killed an estimated quarter of the population from 1975 to 1979.
But to escape ever-deeper purges he defected to Vietnam, returning as their army toppled the Khmer Rouge and taking credit as Cambodia’s saviour.
The ambitious former fighter was installed as prime minister in 1985, aged just 32.
Hun Sen lost the first election he contested in 1993, with the UN-sponsored vote meant to usher in a new era of democracy after the mass atrocities and civil war.
But he seized control in a bloody 1997 coup, a year before the death of Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot.
His party won every election from 1998 onwards, including most recently Sunday’s – a vote that was widely dubbed a sham by international observers and described by the United States as “neither free nor fair”.
Chip off the old block: Hun Sen and his son Hun Manet during election campaign rallies in Phnom Penh. — Reuters
The most serious political challenge Hun Sen faced was mounted by the Cambodian National Rescue Party (CNRP).
Formed in 2012, the CNRP capitalised on the diaspora’s hunger for change and the young domestic population’s frustrations with corruption.
The generation born after the Khmer Rouge had no memory of the horrors Hun Sen would typically evoke in long speeches riddled with warnings that without him Cambodia would crumble.
The CNRP won more than 44% of the vote in 2013 and almost the same in local elections in 2017.
But their emerging threat was quickly snuffed, out with the courts dissolving the party and convicting its figureheads.
Opposition leader Kem Sokha remains under house arrest, serving 27 years for treason, while self-exiled Sam Rainsy has been in France since 2015 to avoid jail on a number of convictions he says are politically motivated.
Since then, Hun Sen has presided over what has effectively become a one-party state, with all 125 seats in the National Assembly currently occupied by his CPP. — Agencies
