Cambodian opposition leader’s daughter named PM’s ‘special envoy’

The daughter of Cambodian opposition leader Kem Sokha was appointed an adviser to prime minister Hun Manet on Monday, a surprise move analysts said will further weaken the government’s opponents.

A royal decree said Kem Monovithya had been appointed as a “special envoy” to the premier at his request, giving her a rank equal to a government minister.

Her father, Kem Sokha, was sentenced to 27 years in prison in 2023 after being convicted of trying to topple the government of Hun Sen – Hun Manet’s father, who remains highly influential.

He was pardoned in May but is still banned from running for office.

Cambodia’s ruling family has a long history of co-opting opponents during its decades in power, with Hun Sen offering government positions to opposition politicians and activists.

The two older men, Hun Sen and Kem Sokha, met for three hours over the weekend, while last week Hun Manet said he met with Kem Monovithya.

“Kem Sokha has been neutralised” by the latest move, political analyst Ou Virak told AFP.

“This will definitely undermine already a very weakened opposition,” he said. “You will see the opposition split even further,” he added.

The royalist Funcinpec party, which won Cambodia’s UN-sponsored election in 1993, has been weakened after years as part of Hun Sen’s government.

Hun Sen stepped down as Cambodia’s prime minister in 2023 and handed the job to Hun Manet, his eldest son.

Ou Virak said the latest appointment was “part of the ruling party’s playbook”.

It would ensure Kem Sokha was seen as “too close to the ruling party”, he added, disillusioning opposition supporters.

Kem Sokha first ran for parliament in the 1993 poll, the country’s first election since emerging from years of civil war and the genocide of the Khmer Rouge period in the 1970s.

He left politics in 2002 to found the Cambodian Center for Human Rights.

Five years later, he rejoined the political fray with his newly established Human Rights Party, which later merged with opposition figurehead Sam Rainsy’s grouping to form the Cambodia National Rescue Party.

It was dissolved by court order in 2017.

Rights groups have long accused Cambodian authorities of using legal cases as a tactic to silence opposition voices and legitimate political dissent.

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