PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) — Hun Sen has been Cambodia's autocratic prime minister for nearly four decades, during which the opposition has been stifled and the country has grown increasingly close to China.
With his Cambodian People's Party virtually guaranteed another landslide victory in Sunday's election, it's hard to imagine dramatic change on the horizon. But the 70-year-old former communist Khmer Rouge fighter and Asia's longest-serving leader says he is ready to hand the premiership to his oldest son, Hun Manet, a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point who heads the country's army.
Tens of thousands of supporters packed a central square in the capital before daybreak on Friday to hear the 45-year-old's 7 a.m. kick-off to the CPP's final day of campaigning before the vote.
With a warm smile and soft tone, a stark contrast to his father's stern look and military-like cadence, Hun Manet said the CPP had brought peace, stability and progress to the Cambodian people.
“Voting for the Cambodian People's Party is voting for yourselves,” he told the cheering crowd, promising to return Cambodia's national pride to a “greater level than the glorious Angkor era” of the Khmer Empire, centuries ago.
After he cast his ballot Sunday, Hun Manet told reporters that he just came to vote “as an ordinary citizen,” then left without other comment.
With the only credible challenge to the CPP
