As dawn broke over the multi-story stone domes of Angkor Wat, Hun Sen joined prayers with 5,000 Buddhist monks in a ceremony touted as a celebration of peace and stability on the symbolic heart of Khmer power.
Graceful apsara dancers, fingers curled in the standard art, performed their moves as hundreds of individuals gathered for the event on the sprawling Angkor complex – the centerpiece of the Khmer empire, which dates back to the ninth century.
Hun Sen, who saw himself as a figure of stability in a rustic ravaged by the genocidal Khmer Rouge regime, headlined a fastidiously choreographed morning.
Kneeling together with his hands folded in prayer, he received blessings from monks who chanted Buddhist mantras and scattered flower petals.
“Under the prime minister’s rule, we live in peace,” said Prum Seab, 49, in the gang. “I’m glad.”
Tourism Minister Thong Khon eagerly approached this topic.
“We perform this ceremony for continued prosperity… we pray for continued peace and stability,” he said, dismissing the problem of the country’s political crisis.
“We do not have a crisis, but there are politicians who’re experiencing it themselves,” he said.
Analysts predicted Hun Sen would pose a serious challenge in next yr’s elections after the 2013 youth vote gave the opposition Cambodia National Salvation Party (CNRP) its best electoral result.
But within the meantime, Hun Sen has rallied, boosting his public profile through Facebook, systematically using the dominion’s compliant courts to attack the CNRP, in addition to critics of civil society and the media.
Cambodia’s predominant opposition party was finally disbanded this month amid accusations of conspiring with the United States in high treason.
The case was deemed baseless by Washington, while human rights groups said it accelerated the country’s transformation right into a de facto one-party state.
Hun Sen resorted to anti-American rhetoric to justify the unprecedented crackdown, which included shutting down critical media outlets with fabricated tax levies or arresting journalists on espionage charges.
He has step by step deepened Cambodia’s engagement with regional China, whose low-interest loans and infrastructure programs are fueling a boom in certainly one of Southeast Asia’s poorest countries.
This article appeared within the print edition of the South China Morning Post as: Hun Sen receives a blessing during a peace prayer ceremony
