Hunsenomics and Its Discontents - Hun Sen's Cambodia - page 135

Meanwhile, the CRC's board of directors is packed to the brim with crony tycoons
closely linked to the CPP, and Bun Rany has even been known to openly stump for the
CPP during Red Cross charity drives. 14 In May 2013, to mark World Red Cross Day,
the CRC held a pre-election fundraising event in Phnom Penh at which oligarchs and
politicians pledged $14 million in charitable donations. The biggest donation ($3 million)
came from the Booyoung Group, a South Korean development firm. Phnom Penh gov-
ernor Kep Chuktema donated $300,000. Sok An, whose wife serves alongside Bun Rany
as the CRC's second vice-president, donated $15,000. At the same ceremony, Bun Rany
was also awarded the title samdech , the first time it had been awarded to a woman, and
appended it to her pre-existing title, “Most Glorious and Upright Person of Genius.” In
bestowing the title, Royal Palace Minister Kong Sam Ol (a samdech himself) announced
that Rany is “a great leader, is highly respected by people, and deeply honors the mon-
archy.” 15
Hun Sen is unabashed about the extent of his family's wealth, which he trumpets as
a sign of karmic legitimacy that reinforces his status as a neak mean bon —a man of
merit. In one barnstorming March 2013 speech Hun Sen bragged about spending “hun-
dreds of millions” of his own money on charity projects—an inconceivable sum in rur-
al Cambodia. “I don't even use the national budget,” he said. 16 On another occasion he
channeled the trickle-down bromides of Reaganomics, urging his audience to “make the
bosses rich.” “If a country has no millionaires,” he argued, “where can the poor get their
money from?” 17
Hun Sen's rise over the past two decades has been accompanied by the rise of what
might be termed Hunsenomics—a blend of old-style patronage, elite charity, and pred-
atory market economics. Since the transition to the free market in 1989, Hunsenomics
has succeeded in forging a stable pact among Cambodia's ruling elites, but has otherwise
done little to systematically tackle the challenges of poverty and development. As Cam-
bodia emerges from an era of conflict and enters an era of globalization, it does so not on
the basis of individual rights or representative government, but, as ever, at the whim of
powerful men and women.
From the viewing deck on the thirty-second floor of the Canadia Tower, Cambodia's first
skyscraper, Phnom Penh spreads outward toward a ribbon of smog and dust lining the ho-
rizon. Far below, the Central Market, a yellow Art-Deco ziggurat built by the French in
1937, extends its four arms at the center of radiating boulevards. Ant-like traffic crawls
along in the heat, bottlenecking at the major intersections. Like Siem Reap, Cambodia's
once-sleepy royal capital is a boomtown, marching along the same dynamic path trodden
three decades ago by Bangkok, Jakarta, and other groaning Asian megacities. As if to
dramatize its emergence, Phnom Penh is starting to rise. The Canadia Tower, completed