Sebastian Strangio writes: In late November, Cambodia’s government offered the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) some concessions. One was that the parliament would formally recognize the CNRP’s president, Sam Rainsy, as leader of the opposition, with a “rank equal to the prime minister.”
Most Cambodians know only Hun Sen who marks his 30th anniversary in power. In that time, the Cambodian leader has been one of the world’s great political Houdinis, passing unscathed through repeated cycles of his country’s turbulent history.
Hun Sen now faces perhaps the greatest challenge of his career: to win back Cambodian voters without undermining the tycoons who have bankrolled his long reign. Does an aging strongman have the energy for another rebranding before elections due in 2018? Whatever happens, Cambodia’s singular leader has made it clear he isn’t going anywhere. After the January 2014 garment protest crackdown, Hun Sen showed no remorse for those killed, warning that he would meet further protests with even bigger demonstrations of his own. “If Hun Sen comes out to do something,” he said, “it’s not going to be small.”
Hun Sen’s remarkable career has tracked the tumults of modern Cambodia. Throughout the 1970s Hun Sen fought for those “Khmers Rouges,” or Red Khmers, as Sihanouk dubbed them. After taking power in April 1975, the Khmer Rouge established a network of brutal labor camps in the Cambodian countryside, which led to the death of an estimated 1.7 million Cambodians — nearly a quarter of the population.
After 2013’s election, Hun Sen promised change. Ministries have been reshuffled; reforms have been launched in education and environmental policy. At the same time, the government has ruled out any possibility of a new administration. After opposition supporters and unions took to the streets in December 2013 calling for Hun Sen’s resignation, security forces fired at striking garment workers on Phnom Penh’s outskirts on Jan. 3, 2014, leaving five dead. Politicians and protesters have since been hauled into court on spurious charges. Hun Sen of Cambodia
