Hello friends!
A nice long one from the Mekong region today. It’s sans Thailand again, with an election update coming to your inbox Friday. Leading PM candidate Paetongtarn Shinawatra gave birth this week, which is amazing to think about given how hard she had been campaigning until baby Prutthasin Sooksawas was born! But this Friday we’ll chat less tiny cuties, and more policy and plotting.
I’ve kept the Cambodia portion of today’s newsletter free for all readers, primarily as a prompt to get as many people as possible to sign up for
. We know a lot about the ever-tightening media landscape in Cambodia I think we must support outlets where we can and this is an easy way to do so.Stay cool out there!
Erin Cook
🇰🇭 The new school is getting ready for class
Beautiful timing on Nikkei Asia’s publication this morning of this comprehensive look at succession plans in the Hun clan and the party. All of it is quotable so I do encourage everyone to click through and read in full. We’ve read a lot of succession coverage in recent months but this is a great deeper look.
As Jack Brook and Phin Rathana note, the Cambodian People’s Party is ‘playing down the hype’: “His Excellency Hun Manet is the candidate for the future, the future means not now,” party spokesperson Sok Eysan said. Still, concerns about Hun Sen’s health means son Hun Manet is already getting to work securing the backing of CPP cadres.
Interestingly, the pair looks at other “CPP princelings” set to take over from older family members and patrons in the higher ranks in the coming years. And yeesh there’s a lot coming up. It feels almost moot to say but this type of bulk generational shift in an authoritarian regime is a prickly endeavour and will be fascinating, if not potentially dangerous, to watch. But this bevvy of plans shows the CPP hedging its bets.
Elsewhere in the CPP, cadres from smaller parties are defecting to the ruling party ahead of the July election, RFA reports. At least nine officials have cut ties with their political homes to join CPP since November, the American outlet reports. On Sunday, Suong Sophorn, a former critic of Hun Sen and leader of the small Khmer Win Party, was named secretary of state of the Council of Ministers.
“I love my nation and love my people dearly. However, being in the opposition, I appear to think that I have contributed so little to the nation and our homeland, so I have made a clear decision to join the government so that I may use my abilities to serve our people directly,” he said in a video statement posted to Hun Sen’s Telegram channel.
In Cambodia-China news the Phnom Penh Post reports the two militaries are planning their sixth joint exercise near the middle of the year. The ‘Cambodia-China military humanitarian health exercise, Angel of Peace 2023’ will “demonstrate to the world that the unbreakable ironclad friendship between China and Cambodia is growing and being nurtured by the leaders of both countries. It will grow stronger through our diplomatic ties and will show a new path for international relations,” General Ith Sarath, deputy commander-in-chief of the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces, told the paper.
The announcement followed a meeting between China’s Minister of Public Security Wang Xiaohong and Cambodian Deputy Prime Minister and Interior Minister Sar Kheng over the weekend. According to CGTN, the meet marked the success of the Year of Law Enforcement Cooperation between agencies on both sides of the border.
Friend of the Letter Darathtey Din took to her Campuccino this week with some reflections on Khmer New Year as well as preparations ahead of Cambodia’s hosting of the Southeast Asia Games. Her ability to write with love, humour and intellect is second to none! She also noted that Kiripost, one of the few decent remaining media outlets in the country, has just signed up to Substack so chuck them a subscribe and support their work.
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