PHNOM PENH: Future Prime Ministerial Candidate, Lt. Gen. Hun Manet, has addressed some “emotional” analysts and asked them to look deeper into examples from around the world when analyzing the succession of politicians and the continuation of political families.
Lt. Gen. Hun Manet posted a clip from a speech he delivered at a 3 September ceremony on his official Facebook page on Tuesday morning, 27 September, where he says that “emotional analysts are the ones who make analysis through their emotions and without science.” He implored such analysts to better understand the turn of politicians in Cambodia.
Lt. Gen. Hun Manet provided some examples of political families to illustrate how many politicians come from the same family lines. In the ASEAN region, there is Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong in Singapore, who is the son of former Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew, and President Bongbong Marcos of the Philippines, who is the son of former President Ferdinand Marcos Sr. Former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was also the grandson of a prior Japanese Prime Minister.
He added that even when looking at democracies like the United States, the 43rd President, George W. Bush, was the son of the 41st President, George Bush Sr. This also does not include examples of the line of politicians in parliament.
“What is wrong with people who grew up in families of politicians, pursuing careers as politicians?” he said. “What is wrong with those in families of businessmen and economists, pursuing careers as economists? What is wrong with having a father who is a soldier and a policeman, so you want to join the police and want to join the army, what is wrong with that? We follow such procedure as long as it is in accordance with [national] principles.”
The eldest son of Prime Minister Hun Sen, Hun Manet, was elected by the CPP Central Committee on 24 December 2021 as the future Prime Ministerial Candidate. Some analysts have said this purely an example of a father-to-child succession, to which Lt. Gen. Hun Manet has responded by saying there is nothing in the laws and regulations of Cambodia that say this is wrong.
"The first thing is [being in accordance with] internal party principles. I [was voted as] the [future prime ministerial] candidate following support from two meetings held by the Central Committee of the CPP on 24 December 2021,” he said. “Secondly, it is based on the principle of democracy, to nominate me as the candidate for the Prime Minister, not elect me as the Prime Minister itself! ‘Candidate’ means just standing for the people to vote, there is nothing wrong with that. So considering this, there is nothing wrong with democracy."
Lt. Gen. Hun Manet has stated that democracy is based on the will of the people, and whether a candidate comes from a line of politicians or not does not matter, as at the end of the day, it is down to the people’s vote.
