The leader who goes on and on

Guardian.co.uk
17 Aug 2008
Tom Fawthrop

With yet another election victory in the bag, Cambodia's prime minister, Hun Sen, is now entering his thirty-fourth year in power. Hun Sen draws his inspiration not from south-east Asia's more democratic leaders, but from Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew, who used dictatorial methods to build a modern, prosperous but tightly-controlled island city-state. Still only 57, Hun Sen has now served two years longer than Lee Kuan Yew – and even muses that he could still be premier at 90 if the Cambodian People's Party (CPP) keeps winning elections. It is this prospect, however fanciful, that alarms many educated Cambodians.

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