Cambodia: Hun Sen's dynasty consolidates grip on power

After Cambodia's ruling party won 55 of the 58 available seats in the Senate following elections on February 25, former prime minister Hun Sen is expected to make his return to front-line politics as the upper chamber's new president, according to preliminary results announced on Monday by the National Election Committee.

Hun Sen's Cambodian People's Party (CPP) now controls almost all seats in both chambers of parliament, as well as all but four of the country's 1,652 commune chiefs.

Senate elections are indirect, with 58 senators elected by more than 11,000 commune councilors and National Assembly lawmakers. National Assembly lawmakers and King Norodom Sihamoni appoint two more senators each.

Hun Sen resigned as prime minister last year after almost four decades in the role and handed over power to his eldest son, Hun Manet, a military chief. The majority of the new cabinet are children or relatives of former ruling grandees.

Hun Sen remained as CPP president and took up the post of head of the Supreme Privy Council after his resignation — a rank on par with the prime minister. But it appears Hun Sen felt the need to also take on the Senate presidency.

A move to control the monarchy?

CPP spokesperson Sok Eysan confirmed on Sunday that Hun Sen will return as president of the upper chamber when it reconvenes in April.

This would make him "de facto head of state" as well as de jure head of state when King Norodom Sihamoni is out of the country, explained Sophal Ear, associate professor with the Thunderbird School of Global Management at Arizona State University.

"Hun Sen wants this post in order to insert himself in an official capacity in Cambodian politics," Ear added. "This continues his influence over Cambodian politics as some folks might wonder why, even now, he remains nearly as ubiquitous as he once was."

Yet questions have been raised why Hun Sen, 71, wanted the Senate presidency since the move seemingly goes against the spirit of his generational succession process.

One contention is that he wants to more firmly establish the power dynamic between the CPP and the monarchy, the only Cambodian institution not yet fully controlled by the ruling party or the Hun family.

Although Hun Sen has the king's ear as head of the Supreme Privy Council, the Senate presidency will allow Hun Sen to control the king's actions more closely.

King Sihamoni, 70, often leaves the country for his regular health checkups in China when the CPP government wants to pass a controversial law, sparing the monarch's blushes and allowing the Senate president to sign the bills into law.

More importantly, the Senate presidency also means that Hun Sen, as well as Hun Manet, will now sit on the Royal Council of the Throne, a body that selects the Cambodian monarch.

A return to international politics

Some analysts believe that Hun Sen also sought the position because it will allow him to return to international politics, since his other roles have no official capacity to travel abroad or meet with visiting dignitaries.

"Given his long tenure as Cambodia's Prime Minister until recently and his extensive experience on the global stage, Hun Sen will leverage this new role to enhance Cambodia's international relations, as well as to pursue his and the CPP's strategic interests," said Ear.

"It will give him diplomatic legitimacy, allow him to make strategic partnerships, will improve his international image and let him engage in soft power, and enable his return to international engagement," he added.

Cambodia's international image was severely tarnished after the CPP launched an authoritarian push in 2017, including the dissolution of the largest opposition party that year.

The European Union responded with partial trade sanctions in 2020, although Hun Sen sought to normalize ties in 2022, including an important state visit in France that year – a trip Hun Manet also made last month.

During Cambodia's 2022 chairmanship of the regional bloc Association of Southeast Asian Nations, "Hun Sen showed a strong ambition to display his diplomatic craftsmanship to the world," said Astrid Noren Nilsson, senior lecturer at the Center for East and South-East Asian Studies at Sweden's Lund University.

However, she told DW, Hun Sen will likely "want to as far as possible let the new generation leadership take the world stage."

Hun family engulf Cambodia's political institutions

What could explain Hun Sen's desire to return to front-line politics is that it completes the Hun family's capture of all of  Cambodia's political institutions.

"It is an unprecedented position of strength for the Hun dynasty and faction," said Noren Nilsson.

Hun Manet is now head of government and rules several of the CPP's powerful social organizations. Hun Many, Hun Sen's youngest son, is Minister of Civil Service, head of the country's largest youth organization, and in mid-February was named the 11th deputy prime minister.

Hun Manith, another son, is head of military intelligence and became deputy army chief last year. Hun Sen's other children and his vast extended family control important sections of the business community and other political institutions.

By becoming Senate president, Hun Sen was also able to remove the incumbent Say Chhum, who represented a rival faction within the CPP, noted Noren Nilsson.

Khuon Sodary, who became president of the National Assembly last year, is considered a relatively unpowerful figure as well as a Hun family loyalist.

A dying opposition

The elections also spell the demise of Cambodia's current crop of opposition parties, which still have not resolved how to effectively compete in politics since the Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) — by far the most proficient opposition party in decades — was forcibly dissolved in 2017 by spurious accusations of plotting a coup.

The Candlelight Party, a successor to the CNRP, won almost 2,200 commune councilors at local ballots in 2022. The party, however, was prevented by competing in last year's general election and this month's Senate elections over the National Election Committee's controversial claim that it cannot produce necessary documents.

In October, the Candlelight Party formed an alliance with three other parties, including the Khmer Will Party.

With the Hun family now in complete control of all political institutions and no election due until 2027, questions will turn to whether opposition politics in Cambodia is now dead or if the current iteration of opposition leaders need to make way for a younger and fresher generation of contenders.

Edited by: Sou-Jie van Brunnersum