Twenty years after the Permanent Five Members of the United Nations Security Council, joined by Australia, Japan, and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), crafted the 1991 Paris Agreements compelling their Cold War Cambodian proxies to commit themselves to a political solution to an ultimately genocidal armed conflict with roots in the 1940s and which led to Cambodia's occupation by Vietnam, Cambodia was almost a normal country. A period of transformation of Cambodia into a politically sovereign, thriving capitalist part of Asia with a formally democratic political regime had succeeded, and was indeed deeply entrenched under the leadership of Prime Minister Hun Sen, who had first ascended that post in 1985, when Cambodia was still dominated by Vietnam. However, whereas the original implementation by the UN of the Paris Agreements had created the conditions making it possible for it to be imagined that Hun Sen could be voted out of power via free and fair elections, he has ensured that Cambodia is not a properly functioning liberal democracy, and there was little reason to think that a political transition could occur as long as Hun Sen continued to hold office. The year 2011 set the scene for new Hun Sen triumphs in the local and national elections scheduled for 2012 and 2013, respectively.

Hun Sen Dominates the Political Scene

There was certainly no sign of any weakening of or challenge to Hun Sen's domination of Cambodian politics. Belying rumours that he was suffering from a serious illness was not only the premier's vociferous denial, but his intensification of a gruelling schedule of public speaking events during which he projected an image of himself as a man of the people by visiting rural areas, a man of military prowess by addressing army audiences, a man of education by presiding over university graduation ceremonies, and a man of money by appearing with aid donors and investors, especially but not only Chinese. These public displays of power furthered the political reinvention of Hun Sen as a magical God-King, towering over the frail, abdicated Norodom Sihanouk and his son, King Norodom Sihamoni.