The Prime Minister of Cambodia, Hun Sen

The Prime Minister of Cambodia is the head of government of Cambodia.

The prime minister is also the chairman of the Cabinet and leads the executive
branch of the Royal Cambodian Government. The prime minister is required to be
a member of parliament and is appointed by the monarch. He is elected for a term
of five years; no term limits are imposed on the office. Since 1945, there have been
36 prime ministers.

The position was first held by King Norodom Sihanouk in March 1945,
during the French colonial era. Cambodia's first parliamentary elections were held
on 1 September 1946. The Democratic Party remained the dominant-party in
Cambodian politics throughout the 1940s until the formation of the Sangkum
Reastr Niyum in 1955. Sangkum was the dominant-party in Cambodia from 1955
to 1970 following a military coup by General Lon Nol. Until 1993, it was not an
elected position. Merely few prime ministers were elected including Sisowath
Youtevong, Norodom Sihanouk, and Lon Nol. In 1993, constitutional monarchy
was restored in Cambodia. The role of the prime minister was officially recognized
in the constitution. Norodom Ranariddh became the first democratically elected
prime minister.

Hun Sen is the 34th and current Prime Minister of Cambodia, President of
the Cambodian People's Party (CPP), and Member of Parliament (MP) for Kandal.
He has served as Cambodia's premier for more than 25 years, making him the
longest serving head of government of Cambodia, Asia’s longest-serving autocrat
and one of the longest serving leaders in the world. From 1979 to 1986 and again
from 1987 to 1990, Hun Sen served as Cambodia's foreign minister. His full
honorary title is Samdech Akeak Moha Sena Padey Techo Hun Sen meaning "Lord
Prime Minister, Supreme Military Commander Hun Sen". Born Hun Bunal, he
changed his name to Hun Sen in 1972 two years after joining the Khmer Rouge.

Hun Sen was born in Kampong Cham, and was the third of six children in a
peasant family. His father, Hun Neang, was a resident monk in a local Wat in
Kampong Cham province before defrocking himself to join the French resistance
and married Hun Sen's mother, Dee Yon in the 1940s. Hun Neang's paternal
grandparents were wealthy landowners of Teochew Chinese heritage. Hun Neang
inherited some of his family assets and led a relatively comfortable life, as they
owned several hectares of land until a kidnapping incident forced their family to
sell off much of their assets. Hun Sen left his family at the age of 13 to attend a
monastic school in Phnom Penh. When Lon Nol usurped power from Sihanouk in
1970 during a bloodless coup, Hun Nal gave up his education to join the Khmer
Rouge. Two years later, Hun Nal changed his name to Hun Sen. In 1974, Hun Sen
met his future wife Bun Rany. He wounded his left eye in battle and had it later
removed in 1975, on the day before the Khmer Rouge captured Phnom Penh. The
following year, Hun Sen married Bun Rany.

Hun Sen has proven to be an extremely durable politician. Now just 62-
years-old, he was the world’s youngest foreign minister at age 26 after Vietnam
invaded Cambodia in 1979 and ejected the Khmer Rouge from power. When the
then prime minister died in office, Vietnam appointed Hun Sen, who had proved
himself intelligent, hard-working, ambitious, and willing to take orders from
Hanoi.

Hun Sen was 32 years, 162 days old when he became prime minister,
making him at that time the world's youngest head of government. One of the
world's longest-serving leaders, with a reputation as a 'wily operator who destroys
his political opponents', Hun Sen is widely viewed as a dictator who has assumed
authoritarian power in Cambodia using violence, intimidation and corruption to
maintain his power base. Hun Sen has accumulated highly centralized power in
Cambodia, including a 'praetorian guard that appears to rival the capabilities of the
country’s regular military units.' The former Khmer Rouge commander has
consolidated his grip on power through a web of patronage and brute military
strength.

Hun Sen came to power with the Khmer Rouge and served as a Battalion
Commander in the Eastern Region of Democratic Kampuchea (the state name
during the Khmer rouge government). In 1977 during internal purges of the Khmer
Rouge regime, Hun Sen and his battalion cadres fled to Vietnam. Hun Sen became
one of the leaders of the rebel army and government that the Vietnamese
government sponsored when they prepared to invade Cambodia. When the Khmer
Rouge regime was overthrown, Hun Sen was appointed Deputy Prime Minister
and Foreign Minister of the Vietnamese-installed People's Republic of
Kampuchea/State of Cambodia (PRK/SOC) in 1979. As the de facto leader of
Cambodia, in 1985, he was elected as Chairman of the Council of Ministers and
Prime Minister, after the death of Chan Sy. As Foreign Minister and then Prime
Minister, Hun Sen played a pivotal role in the 1991 Paris Peace Talks, which
brokered peace in Cambodia. During this period Prince Norodom Sihanouk
referred to him as a "One eyed lackey of the Vietnamese". In 1987, Amnesty
International accused Hun Sen's government of torture of thousands of political
prisoners using "electric shocks, hot irons and near-suffocation with plastic bags."

Some viewed Hun Sen in a sympathetic light: a young leader who worked to
put his devastated country back on its feet and stood up to great powers, including
China and the United States, who backed the murderous Khmer Rouge as they
fought a guerrilla war from their sanctuary in Thailand. Because the country was
largely cut off from the outside world throughout the 1980s and little was known
about its internal workings, when Cambodia signed the Paris Peace Agreements in
1991 many governments and journalists assumed that, because he led the peace
negotiations, Hun Sen was a moderate in his political party, holding communist
hard-liners at bay.

The reality has been very different. Instead of devoting his time as prime
minister to equitably improving the health, education, and standard of living of the
Cambodian people, Hun Sen has been linked to a wide range of serious human
rights violations: extrajudicial killings, torture, arbitrary arrests, summary trials,
censorship, bans on assembly and association, and a national network of spies and
informers intended to frighten and intimidate the public into submission.

In a very bold move after the UN monitored elections he refused to step

down from the post and negotiated a transitional government agreement that
allowed him to remain as co-prime minister but he retained the chairmanship of the
CPP. From 1993 until 1998 he was Co-Prime Minister with Prince Norodom
Ranariddh. In 1997, the coalition was shaken by tensions between Ranariddh and
Hun Sen. FUNCINPEC began to discuss with the remaining Khmer Rouge rebels
(with whom it had been allied against Hun Sen's Vietnamese-backed government
during the 1980s), with the aim of absorbing them into its ranks. Such a rallying
would have rebalanced the military power between Royalists and CPP.

In response, Hun Sen launched the 1997 Cambodian Coup, replacing

Ranariddh with Ung Hout as the First Prime Minister and maintaining his position
as the Second Prime Minister, a situation which lasted until the CPP's victory in
the 1998 election, after which he became the country's sole Prime Minister. During
that year the media broadcast him as the Strong Man of Cambodia which he later
said was premature, and that the July 1997 coup was merely the government taking
action against the paramilitary anarchy that was sponsored and brought to Phnom
Penh by Norodom Ranariddh. In an open letter, Amnesty International condemned
the summary execution of FUNCINPEC ministers and the "systematic campaign of
arrests and harassment " of political opponents.On 6 May 2013, Hun Sen declared
his intention to rule Cambodia until he is 74.

The controversial and widely disputed elections of July 2003 resulted in a

larger majority in the National Assembly for the CPP, with FUNCINPEC losing
seats to the CPP and the Sam Rainsy Party. However, CPP's majority was short of
the two thirds constitutionally required for the CPP to form a government alone.
This deadlock was overcome and a new CPP-FUNCINPEC coalition was formed
in mid-2004. When Norodom Ranariddh was chosen to be Head of the National
Assembly and Hun Sen became again sole Prime Minister of Cambodia.

In August 2013, Hun Sen announced he would continue with his aim to form
a new government, even if the main opposition tried to block the process. The
news came after both sides claimed victory in the 2013 general elections. Also in
August,in New York, a major, but largely unnoticed, demonstration held in front of
the United Nations (UN) on 19 August by Cambodians and Buddhist monks was a
crucial prelude to planned mass demonstrations in Phnom Penh later in September
2013 by opposition groups protesting the July elections and Hun Sen's response.
Cambodians in the United States, Canada and elsewhere, joining hundreds of
Buddhist Monks, to peacefully protest in front of the United Nations in New York
City in opposition to Hun Sen's deployment of tanks and military and security
forces in Phom Phenh and what they believed was his unwillingness to share
political power with opposition groups and seriously address earlier voting fraud
and election irregularities from the July 2013 election.

After the 2013 election results, disputed by Hun Sen's opposition, one
person was killed and others injured during protests in Cambodia's capital, where a
reported 20,000 protesters gathered, some clashing with riot police. Following the
opposition's two weeks in a row protests, in response, Hun Sen declares he will not
step down from his position, nor will there be a re-election; further adding he was
elected constitutionally. On 7 September 2013, tens of thousands of Cambodians,
along with Buddhist monks and opposition groups, including Sam Rainsy's
Cambodian National Rescue Party held peaceful mass demonstrations in Phnom
Penh to protest the 28 July elections results which they claimed were flawed and
marred by voting irregularities and potential fraud. The groups asked the United
Nations to investigate and claimed that the elections results were not free and fair.

On 3 January 2014, military police open fired at protesters, killing 4 people

and injuring more than 20. The United Nations and US State Department have
condemned the violence. US Congressman Ed Royce responded to the report of
violence in Cambodia by calling for Hun Sen to step down and said the Cambodian
people deserve a better leader. On 10 June 2014, Hun Sen made a public
appearance and claimed he has no health problems. He warned that if he were to
die prematurely, the country would spin out of control and the opposition could
expect trouble from the armed forces, saying he is the only person who can control
the army.

Some political opponents of Hun Sen accuse him of being a Vietnamese

puppet. This is due to his position in the government created by Vietnam while
Cambodia was under Vietnamese military occupation and the fact that he was a
prominent figure in the People's Revolutionary Party of Kampuchea (now known
as the Cambodian People's Party), which governed Cambodia as a one-party state
under Vietnamese military occupation from 1979 until elections in 1993. Hun Sen
and his supporters reject such charges, saying that he represented only the
Cambodian people. Hun Sen's government has been responsible for the sale of
45% of the total landmass in Cambodia - primarily to foreign investors - in the
years 2007-08, threatening more than 150,000 Cambodians with eviction. Parts of
the concessions are wildlife protections or national parks even, and the landsales
has been perceived by observers, to be the result of government corruption.
Already thousands of citizens had fallen victims of forced evictions.

Hun Sen was implicated in corruption related to Cambodia's oil wealth and
mineral resources in the Global Witness 2009 report on Cambodia. He and his
close associates were accused of carrying out secret negotiations with interested
private parties, taking money from those who would be grant rights to exploit the
country's resources in return. The credibility of this accusation has been questioned
by government officials and especially Prime Minister Hun Sen, himself. Mr Hun
Sen’s Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) has placed bans on public gatherings,
driven opposition supporters from the site of former protest meetings 'Freedom
Park', and deployed riot police to beat protesters and detain union leaders.

Hun Sen and his political party, CPP, have held near total dominance over
the mainstream media for the majority of their rule. Bayon Television is owned
and operated by Hun Mana Hun Sen's eldest daughter. Apsara TV is joint-owned
by Say Sam Al, CPP Minister of Environment and son of Say Chhum, CPP
secretary and the son of CPP Deputy Prime Minister Sok An. CTN, CNC and
MyTV are all owned by Khmer-Chinese tycoon, Neak Okhna Kith Meng, one of
the State's "Okhna". Okhna is a title granted by the Prime Minister or the Royal
Family to high profile businessmen, and signifies a very close friendship. Okhna
are regularly summoned by the Prime Minister to provide funding for various
projects.

CPP officials claim that there is no connection between the TV stations and
the state, despite the obvious prevalence of Nepotism. However, CPP lawmaker
and official spokesman Cheam Yeap once stated "We pay for that television
[coverage] by buying broadcasting hours to show our achievements," indicating
that those TV stations are pro-CPP because they have been paid for by the state for
what is effectively advertising. A demand for television and radio licences was one
of 10 opposition requests adopted by the Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP)
at its "People’s Congress" in October 2013.

Hun Sen is married to Bun Rany. They have 6 children: Kamsot (deceased),
Manet, Mana, Manith, Mani, and Mali. Hun Manet is a 1999 West Point Academy
graduate and obtained his PhD in Economics at the University of Bristol. In 2010,
Manet was promoted Major General in the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces
(RCAF) and became the Deputy Commander of the Prime Minister's Body Guard
headquarters. All three of Hun Sen's sons play big roles in his regime. His older
brother, Hun Neng, is a former governor of Kampong Cham and currently a
member of parliament. Although Hun Sen's official birthday is 4 April 1951, his
true birth date is revealed to be on 5 August 1952. Hun Sen is fluent in Vietnamese,
in addition to his native Khmer. His fluency in Vietnamese has made him a target
of criticism among anti-Vietnamese detractors. Hun Sen also speaks some English
and began learning the language from the 1990s, but usually converses in Khmer
through interpreters when giving formal interviews to the English-speaking press.

Mg Pyay Thar Lin Maung

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