Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
before the door snapped squarely shut. Then the great beast whined, rose on a new storm
of dust, and bore the Peasant King, retinue and all, back to Olympus.
As Hun Sen marked his twentieth year in power in January 2005, few real sources of op-
position remained. His rivals were cowed and his grip on the levers of power was secure.
At the CPP's annual congress that month, when the party expanded its Central Commit-
tee from 153 to 268 members, Hun Sen filled the vacancies with a new batch of loyalists
who shored up his position in the party. The same happened later in the year when the
party added eight new seats to the Politburo, making it a body of 28 members mostly loy-
candidate for the 2008 national election. Unlike in 2003 and 2004, when rumors swirled
that the party might choose a different candidate, Hun Sen was now the undisputed party
leader.
By now, Cambodia's prime minister was an all-pervading presence in the media, his
ribbon-cuttings and rural speeches cramming the airwaves. At donor fora he used the
buzz words of “sustainability” and “capacity building.” On his rural speaking-tours he
threatened opponents, dispensed folktales, lambasted the UN, and kept farming com-
munities up to date on his political feuds and other passing obsessions. “I know all,” he
warned opponents in a 2006 address. “Even if you farted, I would still know. You cannot
hide from me.”
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The core of Hun Sen's power was the Council of Ministers, run with many-armed ef-
fectiveness by Senior Minister Sok An, who had worked under Hun Sen at the Foreign
Ministry during the 1980s. With the decline of Funcinpec, Sok An was given control of
so many authorities, committees, and commissions that he was likened to a Hindu god
rural electrification, and the management of the Angkor temples. He was silver-tongued
during the donor aid conferences. He controlled the national petroleum authority, a tech-
nological development body, and the task force for the trial of surviving Khmer Rouge
leaders. If something was important, Sok An had a hand in it.
With Sok An running the government, Hun Sen focused on the wider political game.
When not overseas, he remained at the Tiger's Lair, obsessively plotting the downfall of
those who still dared defy him. In this he suddenly found an unlikely ally in Sam Rainsy.
In March 2006, during the short period of reconciliation that had followed Rainsy's return
from exile, the SRP sponsored a constitutional amendment reducing the two-thirds ma-
jority required to form government to a simple majority of 50 percent. Rainsy explained
that the amendment would remove an outdated restriction and hopefully put victory with-
in closer reach of his own party. But there was also another motive. “I wanted to get rid
of Funcinpec,” he told me. “The CPP used Ranariddh to create problems for me … They
