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On Sunday, Cambodia will vote to elect a brand new Senate – and amongst these placing themselves ahead for a seat is none aside from former Prime Minister Hun Sen, who handed the reins of energy to his son final yr after almost 4 a long time in workplace.
Hun Sen has beforehand introduced that he’ll stand for a Senate seat in Kandal province, the place he has held a Nationwide Meeting seat since 1993. The expectation is that he’ll then be appointed as president of the physique, changing the incumbent Say Chhum, who is ready to retire.
Cambodia’s Senate elections are tightly circumscribed, even by native requirements. They’re solely open to Nationwide Meeting lawmakers and members of the nation’s 1,652 commune councils, an voters totaling simply 11,747 individuals. As such, they merely replicate the make-up of those our bodies, that are unsurprisingly dominated by the ruling Cambodian Individuals’s Social gathering (CPP). (Fifty-eight of the 62 Senate positions are elected by these teams; the King appoints two senators and two are elected by the Nationwide Meeting.)
Eventually yr’s nationwide election, the CPP gained 120 of the 125 seats within the Nationwide Meeting. On the commune council elections in 2022, it gained 74.3 % of the vote, which translated into 1,648 of the nation’s 1,652 commune chief positions and 9,376 of the 11,622 accessible commune council seats. Whereas the Candlelight Social gathering, which gained 2,198 commune council positions, would possibly handle to elect one or two of its candidates to the Senate, it’s secure to deal with the results of Sunday’s election, and Hun Sen’s subsequent appointment because the president of the Senate, as a foregone conclusion.
The place of the Senate president is ceremonial. The physique was created not out of any urgent legislative want, however as a part of the power-sharing negotiations that adopted the 1998 election. After Chea Sim, the late president of the CPP, was pressured to relinquish his place as Nationwide Meeting president to make approach for a frontrunner from the royalist get together Funcinpec, the Senate was created to provide him a brand new private energy base. Whereas the Senate has the facility to overview and request modifications to legal guidelines handed by the Nationwide Meeting, it has just about by no means carried out this operate, merely waving via laws from the decrease chamber.
For that reason, the Senate presidency will merely add to the lengthy roster of honorary positions that the 71-year-old Hun Sen will maintain as he enters the twilight of his profession. These embrace the presidency of the CPP and the presidency of the Supreme Privy Council to the King, a place “with equal rank” to the prime minister.
Nevertheless, the Senate president does have one significant energy, which is to function appearing head of state when the King is overseas. Whereas it’s unlikely that any potential rival might make use of this to undermine the facility of Prime Minister Hun Manet, who took workplace in August, Hun Sen’s occupation of the Senate presidency will act as a safeguard. Whereas final yr’s handover of energy to Manet went easily, there’s all the time the likelihood {that a} problem would possibly emerge from inside the present energy construction. By occupying this place, Hun Sen can cowl his son’s flank and forestall any try to undermine his management of the legislature.
Hun Sen’s ascent to the submit is the newest step within the wider generational succession inside the CPP, which peaked with Hun Sen’s switch of the prime ministership to Manet after final yr’s nationwide election. Earlier this week, Hun Sen’s youngest son Hun Many was appointed as a deputy prime minister. Family members are actually ensconced in key positions throughout the administration, to make sure that the Hun household’s management of Cambodia persists till the tip of Hun Sen’s life – and much past.
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