AFP
Cambodia’s
strongman leader Hun Sen offered a glimmer of hope to the country’s
opposition yesterday - by saying he would stay in power for at
least another decade.
The 60-year-old, who has ruled Cambodia since
1985, responded to criticism over his tenacious hold on power by
promising to step down when he is 74, a reduction from his previous
vow to lead until he is 90. “I became prime minister when I was 32.
So I started the post when I was young and I am not yet old. It is a
long time, but there is nothing wrong with a long time,” Hun Sen
said in a speech broadcast on national radio.
“I will leave power when I am 74,” he added.
Cambodia has held general elections every
five years since 1993, but Hun Sen has retained power amid a cloud of
accusations that his regime suppresses political freedoms and
mistreats rights campaigners.
The country goes to the polls in July, but
the main opposition leader Sam Rainsy is barred from standing because
of a string of convictions against him and has lived in self-imposed
exile in France since 2009.
Rainsy, who heads the recently-formed
Cambodia National Rescue Party, has branded Hun Sen a “coward” for
stopping him from running.
Hun Sen’s comments suggest the country has
three more elections with him at the helm, but calculating the exact
year of his departure will not be straightforward.
The idiosyncratic leader, who turns 61 in
August, is 62 on his official paperwork, which he continues to use even
though he says a typing error recorded his date of birth a year
early and in April.
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