by Derek Kai and Jonathan Head, Singapore and Bangkok
ReutersThe eldest son of Cambodia’s longtime ruler has been confirmed as the country’s next prime minister in a process that formally marks a transition of power.
Cambodia’s king issued a royal decree on Monday announcing that Hun Manet will succeed Hun Sen, who has ruled for 38 years.
With the main opposition parties barred from voting, his party won all but five seats in parliament.
Hun Manet, 45, who until recently served as commander in chief of the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces, had long been groomed for a leadership role.
His appointment must be approved by parliament on Aug. 22 but is expected to be approved by the National Assembly, where Prime Minister Hun Sen’s Cambodian People’s Party controls 120 of the 125 seats.
The appointment follows a dynastic succession plan that Hun Sen has outlined for several years.
Hun Manet’s new cabinet is expected to include some younger faces, as many of the men who rose to power alongside him through the Khmer Rouge revolution and civil war of the 1970s and 1980s have resigned, some handing over to their own children.
The move was first flagged up in 2021, but it was unclear until July when it would happen.
However, Prime Minister Hun Sen said, Resign The election comes just three days after he became one of the world’s longest-serving leaders, having ruled the Southeast Asian nation of 16 million for nearly four decades.
At the time, he said he was stepping down to ensure stability in Cambodia.
But Hun Sen will remain leader of the ruling Cambodian People’s Party, a position that political analysts say still holds ultimate power.
Since coming to power in 1985, his rule has become increasingly authoritarian, silencing opponents through jailing or exile.
Over the weekend, Hun Sen marked his 71st birthday and confirmed his party’s landslide victory in July’s general elections that the United States, European Union and other Western countries say were neither free nor fair.
Hun Manet celebrated Saturday’s election results by posting a photo on Instagram of his son presenting Prime Minister Hun Sen with a bouquet of flowers, captioning it: “Happy Birthday to my respected and beloved father.”
Cambodia has shut down all significant opposition parties in recent years, so Hun Manet will face few threats from outside the ruling party, but he will find it difficult to maintain the complex alliances his father forged with other powerful and wealthy families.
Hun Sen has given them political and business perks to please potential rivals and grow the economy, but he has also imposed seditious levels of corruption and inequality on Cambodia that could spell trouble for his inexperienced son.
Some speculate that Hun Manet, who attended the U.S. military academy at West Point and the University of Bristol, could lead a less repressive government and be more attuned to Western demands for human rights than his father.
But there is little evidence that he will be any more open. Hun Sen has also made clear that he will retain significant influence over the running of the country for at least the next decade.
“This is not the end yet. He will continue to serve in his other roles until at least 2033,” Prime Minister Hun Sen wrote in a cable on Monday about his son’s appointment.