Hun Xen the Only Leader of Cambodia?

By Pang Sokheoun
Originally posted at: The Son of the Khmer Empire

Hun Sen is the only PM candidate for the Cambodian People´s Party (CPP). Xinhua:

The ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) reassured Thursday that Prime Minister Hun Sen is the only candidate for the prime minister from its party for the next elections.

Giving speech at the party’s commemoration of the 31st anniversary of the downfall of the Democratic Kampuchea (DK) regime, Chea Sim, president of the CPP and president of the Senate said that “Hun Sen will be the only candidate from his party for prime ministerial position in next general election.”

It doesn't need Chea Xim to reassured this to us this time at all, because Hun Xen himself has many times said that he is the only person who can lead Cambodia and he will lead Cambodia until he dies or he is 90 years old.

In Siem Reap on 26 -01-2005, Pin Sisovan and Lor Chandara of Cambodia Daily has it about Hun Sen, who thought that Cambodia must have him and he must be the candidate for the Prime Minister for life, said during a school inauguration speech in Siem Reap and broadcast on Apsara radio.

“If the prime minister is safe, the people are also safe. If the prime minister dies or resigns, a new prime minister cannot ready be picked, and the whole [government] Cabinet will be dissolved,” he said.

“If I died today… [deputy prime ministers and ministers] will automatically be terminated from their posts,” he added. “There will be chaos…. It is not a funny issue.”

Hun Sen said someone had suggested it was “time for Hun Sen to resign.”

Asia Time Craig Guthrie on his article: Towards Hun Sen´s Cambodia , also raised Hun Sen´s intention to rule Cambodia until he is 90. Hun Said this in 2007.

“In the past he has said he has no intention of standing down as prime minister until he is at least 90 years old. This would be a remarkable run: he became the Vietnamese-backed premier of Cambodia in 1985, when he was 33.”

Ron Glukman in his article: Cambodia Building Boom, also reaffirmed the will of Hun Sen to grip on power as long as he can that:

“Asia’s longest serving leader, and victor of several coups, Hun Sen has regularly sided with development. In June 2007, the folksy PM, vowing to keep power until he’s 90, claimed credit for a property boom that sent prices of bare land to $1 million.

“Without me, without my rule, it would be worth only $500,” he told reporters.

A. Gaffar Peang-Meth, Ph.D., in his article: Giving Up Freedom to Settle for Peace, clearly pointed out that:

“Ironically, no Cambodian is in a better position than Sen himself to redress the imbalance of values and principles, and stability and order. But he is the man who said he would stay in power until he’s 90, and would not leave power even if he would not win the elections.”

Politically, Hun Xen who is a power-crazy man will never leave the power to others due to his crimes and his personal greed for power. Khiev Kanharith once said that it was not the first time that Hun Sen kept saying about the PM candidate for Cambodia.

Though Hun Sen’s latest come just days before the CPP’s annual party congress on Friday and Saturday,the CPP has no plans to talk about Hun Sen’s leadership at the meeting, said government spokesman and Information Minister Khieu Kanharith.

“We don’t think about that yet,” he said.

During the congress, the CPP plans to appoint more members to the party’s permanent committee, Khieu Kanharith said, but declined to elaborate. ​​​​​​​He added there ​​​was nothing unusual in Hun Sen to speculating about the future of the premiership.

“I think more than 50 times now he has brought up the issue“, Khieu Kanharith said.

Practically and politically, we would never care whether Hun Xen is to lead Cambodia until he is 90 or he dies if he is a good and competent leader. But the problem is that Hun Xen is a criminal leader who is even a puppet of other country- Vietnam. In The New York Time, Seth Mydans wrote:

“Still only 45 years old, Mr. Hun Sen has been his nation’s leader in one capacity or another for more than a decade, but until now he has never held complete power on his own.”

“From 1985 to 1993 he was Cambodia’s leader in an administration installed and controlled by Vietnam. From 1993 until last Sunday,July 1997, he shared the premiership with a man he clearly despises as effete and incompetent. People who know him say he has yearned for the stature he believes he deserves.”

Today, at a news conference that followed the Cabinet meeting, he was able to say, ”I am the captain alone.”

But do we belive that Hun Xen today is the alone capitain of Cambodia? I think many of us will say “NO“. Because Hun Xen is always a puppet of Hanio.

Other concern is that Hun Xen is not a leader for all Cambodians, but he is the leader who forgets his root, is corrupt, and has no vision for the future of the nation at all. Best to say he is a leader of his family, his CPP and his master – Hanoi. Tom Fawthrop from Guardian News wrote in his article: The Leader who goes on and on that:

“It is strange that Hun Sen, who shares his humble beginnings with Brazil’s Lula and Bolivia’s Evo Morales, has no agenda for the poor, no instinct to curb the grotesque excesses of the ruling elite, and has made no attempt to protect the small farmers that he is descended from. For all his intelligence and political skills, Hun Sen’s success was based on survival, not a vision of the future. Bolstered by the recent discovery of offshore oil, the CPP has no development model other than the prescriptions of the IMF and World Bank, which are easily grafted onto the corruption and get rich-quick mentality of his business cronies, military generals and his police chiefs.”

Through this, I hope that all Cambodians who dearly love our country and the people of Cambodia will come together and united in order to by all means topple him or vote him out of power if we are to protect our nation from danger towards real peace, independence, development, democracy, and justice. WE MUST NOT LET HIM LEAD OUR COUNTRY ANY LONGER!

Notice: To vote him out of the power must be not easy because he controls everything(see here). Moreover, he has also illegal Viets to help vote for him including many other tactics like vote buying, threat, and even killing.