Prime Minister Hun Sen yes- terday rebuffed a Thai journalist who called the recent visit to Thailand of Cambodia’s top military brass—including Mr. Hun Sen’s son, Lieutenant General Hun Manet—a “charm offensive” intended to “show off his country’s future leader.”
The analysis piece by Kavi Chongkittavorn, published in Monday’s edition of The Nation newspaper, wrote at length about the Defense Ministry’s diplomat- ic visit to Bangkok last week and interpreted the presence of Mr. Hun Sen’s 37-year-old son as a sure sign that he was the anointed next-in-line.
“Make no mistake,” the article says, “it is at the Thai capital that the anointed future leader of Cambodia is making his presence felt. It was a calculated move by his father.”
In a speech Wednesday at the University Scholars Leadership Symposium in Phnom Penh, Mr. Hun Sen vehemently disagreed.
“Throughout the world, dem- ocratic countries elect leaders through elections, so how is it possible to promote my children to succeed me?” Mr. Hun asked an audience of several hundred students.
The prime minister went on to list three countries where children have succeeded their fathers as leaders—Syria, the Democratic Republic of Congo and North Korea—but said that in Cambodia the electorate chooses who will govern.
He also said that despite Lt. Gen. Manet’s abundant academic credentials, he could never place his son—who is deputy commander of the army, deputy commander of the Prime Minister’s Bodyguard Unit and head of the Anti-Terror- ism Unit—in an appointed post lest he be accused of nepotism.
“My son was the first Cambodian person to graduate from West Point Military Academy in the United States of America and he studied for his master’s degree at New York University and after that obtained his Ph.D. at Britain’s University of Bristol,” he said. “But I cannot prepare him [for a ministerial position] while his father is in charge.”
Mr. Hun Sen said he could, however, promote the scion of other high-ranking officials so long as they were suitably qualified for the job, such as 34-year-old Environment Minister Say Sam Al, who was present at Wednesday’s symposium and is the son of Say Chhum, CPP secretary general.
“I called [Mr. Sam Al] and said I am planning to make you environment minister because you are a doctor of ecology and he responded: ‘Uncle, I can’t do it because I am too young,’ but I told him that no, I became prime minister when I was only 32 years old, younger than Say Sam Al or anyone else,” he said.
Mr. Hun Sen said it was prudent to promote younger lawmakers to senior ministerial positions because so many government officials were 70 or 80 years old.
“The youngsters do not regard the seniors as weak, while the seniors do not regard the youngsters as useless students with no experience who got all their theory from school,” he said.
