On the day popularly thought to be his 55th birthday, Prime Minister Hun Sen marked the occasion with predictions of personal longevity, praise for the economy and some lessons on spousal fidelity.
Speaking in his home province of Kompong Cham, Hun Sen reiterated that he was not celebrating his birthday, which is in fact on Aug 5, but was moved to thank all those who have in the past week flooded the nation’s newspapers and radio and television stations with well wishes.
“These wishes are encouraging to me. This encouragement allows me to be a success, my success is not mine alone, it is the success of all Cambodia,” he said in a speech broadcast on radio.
“My brother wished me a long life and I protect my life to live longer,” Hun Sen said, “to at least 109 years old.”
An example of his success writ large and shared by all Cambodians was the recent news that Cambodia’s GDP grew 9.8 percent in 2005, Hun Sen said. He compared the economic forecast to a football score in which Cambodia was the winner.
“We scored 10-0 against the World Bank,” he added.
Hun Sen also took time to reminisce on how he first met his wife, Bun Rany, when he was a Khmer Rouge soldier and she was a nurse working in a revolutionary hospital.
Hun Sen said that soldiers under his command had spotted Bun Rany and thought she would make a good wife for their commander. They were married in 1976.
“She is beautiful. If I don’t admire my wife, who else would I admire? If I admired somebody else [my] wife will hit me,” he added.
In the deluge of color newspaper ads wishing Hun Sen a happy birthday, many of the photographs have focused on personal moments between the prime minister and his increasingly high-profile wife.
The intimate portraits have featured Hun Sen embracing Bun Rany and presenting her with bouquets of flowers; in one particularly popular photograph, he is planting a kiss on his wife’s cheek.
