Hun Sen’s Successor Must Keep Up His Chess Game

Within days of winning Cambodia’s general election in July, then-Prime Minister Hun Sen announced plans to hand the reins to his son Hun Manet. The succession plan was not a surprise. Hun Sen had deployed authoritarian tactics to hold on to power for 38 years, including banning the only legitimate political opposition to the ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP). His West Point-educated son had served as the deputy commander in chief of the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces for five years before being fast-tracked to four-star general in April, paving the way for him to take power. It is clear Hun Sen will still pull some strings: He remains the head of the CPP and will remain in office as Senate president until 2033.

Nonetheless, the speed of the Hun Manet’s succession was unexpected. Just before the election, Hun Sen abruptly began to float the idea of making his son prime minister soon after the CPP’s win, and he was appointed on Aug. 22. Hun Manet immediately replaced a swath of ministers from Hun Sen’s generation with young blood. (His father had long suggested it would be “impossible” to install his 45-year-old son in a position above the old guard.) But politically, this won’t amount to much change. Many CPP stalwarts were replaced by their children, a compromise that allows Cambodia’s most powerful families to retain some influence while aiming to keep that influence contained.

Hun Manet has inherited not only his father’s position, but also the interparty factions and rivalries that he managed for decades. CPP leaders who had waited in the wings for years, namely longtime Cambodian Interior Minister Sar Kheng and Defense Minister Tea Banh, seem to be brought to heel; their own sons have taken their former positions in Hun Manet’s government. There are signs that Cambodia’s other influential families are focused on consolidating their power. But Hun Manet’s biggest challenge will be to replicate his father’s realpolitik in managing these families, giving them space to keep profiting from the country’s endemic corruption without granting them too much power.

While Hun Sen spent decades purging his enemies, Hun Manet may have to take a more consensus-based approach to keep party power brokers onside, said Josh Kurlantzick, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. “I think there will eventually be not only resistance among the population, which is obvious, but also among the military and other senior figures,” he said.

Members of these powerful families also have overlapping links with other notorious power brokers who dominate illicit industries, such as Try Pheap, a former personal advisor to Hun Sen and a major player in Cambodia’s multibillion-dollar illegal logging business. In 2018, Global Witness accused Try Pheap of running his logging racket with the involvement of both Ly Yong Phat and Lao Meng Khin, another Cambodian senator and businessman. Hun Sen maintained control by carefully managing these complex allegiances, ensuring that rival actors can only generate wealth by remaining reliant on one another.

“There have long been factions within the CPP who have wanted a greater share of power and the wealth that is created through that power,” said Sebastian Strangio, author of Hun Sen’s Cambodia. “The term ‘factions’ is a little bit misleading because it tends to suggest a sort of political or ideological difference. I think this is mostly a question of the distribution of resources.”

Hun Sen spent years coup-proofing Phnom Penh, Cambodia’s capital, building up his own bodyguard unit as a force that reports directly to the prime minister. Inheriting that authority may be difficult. “Obviously, the new leader will be tested both within and without the party,” said Sophal Ear, an associate professor at Arizona State University who has written extensively on Cambodian politics. “Credentials alone won’t mean a thing—the question will always be: How will he react? Will he have the mettle?” he said of Hun Manet.

The Hun family is Cambodia’s most powerful, and it has secured its position by balancing its influence across the government, the private sector, and the armed forces. Under Cambodia’s complicated patronage system, major businesses must pay off high-ranking politicians or military and police chiefs to succeed. Meanwhile, oknhas—the honorific given to those who donate at least $500,000 to the CPP—need patrons in government, plus military or police heavyweights for protection, especially if they transport illegal goods.

For years, Hun Sen has played an elaborate game to prevent his rivals from superseding him, keeping others dependent on his patronage rather than becoming entirely dependent on any one family’s support.

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Still, some families have managed to amass broad power across all three bases, too. Tea Banh—who is of Thai descent—was a diplomatic asset to Hun Sen, sent to Bangkok during moments of tension between the neighbors. His son, Tea Seiha, was made the governor of Siem Reap in 2018. A MongaBay investigation alleged that the Tea brothers have used their influence to accumulate swathes of land along Cambodia’s coast, including concessions from supposedly protected forest; others have documented the family’s involvement in illegal logging for decades. The United States sanctioned Tea Vinh in 2021, accusing him of skimming funds from the construction of the Chinese-funded Ream Naval Base near Sihanoukville, Cambodia. Perhaps more than any other family, the Tea family has managed to replicate the strategy that has bolstered the Hun family. Hun Manet will have to balance the risk of letting the Tea family continue to build their power base versus the risk of making them enemies by trying to rein them in.

“A weaker leader might find it more difficult to keep these people on a short leash,” Strangio said. “[Hun] Manet might have to give powerful people more ability or more freedom of maneuver within their spheres of interest, and that might actually lead to greater corruption and extraction, illegal logging, and scam operations.”

Another major challenge for Hun Manet is former Interior Minister Sar Kheng, who thrived in the CPP despite being a thorn in Hun Sen’s side. Often seen as a moderating force, Sar Kheng has did not always align himself with the longtime leader, and he never explicitly supported the choice of Hun Manet as successor. The interior minister also recognizes the importance of amassing power through the armed forces: His son Sar Sokha married the daughter of the then-commander of Cambodia’s military, who was later demoted by Hun Sen.

As interior minister, Sar Kheng also oversaw an ammunition production factory on the border of Koh Kong and Preah Sihanouk provinces. The factory claims to make ammunition for “civil engineering” purposes; under Cambodia’s strict gun laws, the production of explosives used for engineering falls under the Ministry of the Interior rather than security forces. Without the protection of senior military leaders, it’s possible the Sar family has cultivated its own gun supply as an insurance policy.

Although Sar Kheng has resisted directly voicing his support for Hun Manet as leader, his son Sar Sokha has been vocal in this regard. Sar Sokha replaced his father as interior minister and appears keen to cement his position; he likely poses less of a threat to Manet’s leadership. Some of his business dealings also mean that Sar Sokha does not enjoy the reputation his father has cultivated as a comparatively honest broker. Along with Chinese investor Chen Zhi, Sar Sokha set up the JinBei casino group, which is implicated in hosting online financial scam companies that rely on labor from human trafficking. His wife was also listed as the chairperson of an investment firm later found to be an FX trading Ponzi scheme.

Giving Sar Sokha the space to advance his political ambitions may appease the Sar family in the short term, but if he is able to exploit his position to grow his fortunes while assuming his father’s power, he could present a future headache for Hun Manet.

The CPP claims it won by a landslide in July with an overall election turnout of 84 percent, but in the weeks before the election, the government tried to outlaw nonparticipation by threatening to arrest nonvoters and making it a crime to spoil ballot papers. Just before the election, opting to spoil the ballot or call for a boycott were both made offenses. Given these threats, the fact that nearly half a million people spoiled their ballots regardless is a significant act of resistance. But few observers believe there will be a popular uprising against the Hun family; any change in power would have to come from the top.

Hun Manet’s refresh-and-replace policy could ease tensions between him and the old guard in the short term, but it’s unlikely to change the underlying logic of Cambodia’s politics. The question is whether Hun Manet and his peers can maintain the delicate ecosystem their parents created without any serious power struggles.

Knowing the risks of such conflict, these powerful families will probably keep ruling from the wings as long as they can. “Nobody will dare mess with Hun Manet as long as Hun Sen doesn’t exit stage right,” Sophal Ear said. “Everything Hun Sen has done for years has led to this moment. Why would he leave it to chance if he can still exert influence? … Now, when he does go, that’s when everything will truly be tested.”