Hun Sen's son: Cambodia's rising star

Handsome, cheerful, educated in the US and very popular with voters, Hun Many - son of Prime Minister Hun Sen - is the new rising star of the Cambodian government. Although Hun Sen's youngest son, Hun Many will be the first of the Prime Minister's five children to officially enter politics.

Mr. Hun Many meets with Cambodian voters (Source: EPA)

The mild-mannered 30-year-old politician, already a senior official in his father's cabinet and head of the ruling party's youth wing, will now run for a parliamentary seat in the southern province of Kampong Speu in Sunday's general election.

He also showed that he will follow in his father's footsteps when he said he will "serve the people by carefully studying what the CPP (Cambodian People's Party) has done so far."

That tactic is working. “Hun Sen led the country into development without any formal education. His children, who have received formal education in the best universities in the world, will do even better,” Hay Vanna, a supporter, told AFP. “They will follow in their father’s footsteps and lead the country to prosperity.”

From politics to the media, the military and the police, Hun Sen has placed his children in strategic cabinet positions, experts say. His two other sons are generals in the army who were recently promoted. A son-in-law is head of the police. At least seven children of senior CPP officials are running in Sunday’s election.

“Family ties are part of the political culture here,” said political expert Lao Mong Hay, a former researcher for the Asian Human Rights Commission. “We are repeating what happened in the Philippines.”

The CPP also rejected allegations of nepotism, insisting that the candidates it put forward were the most qualified.

“People can criticize the prime minister… but they never attack his children. His children are not at fault,” said Chea Vannath, an independent political analyst. “He has five children and none of them are in trouble… They may not like him, they may not like his wife, but not his children.”

According to (Vietnam+) - DT