LIKE many old people new to social media, Hun Sen, Cambodia’s longtime strongman, has swiftly gone from sceptic to oversharer. Visitors to his Facebook page see him not only praying at temples and gravely shaking hands with world leaders; he also mugs for selfies with adoring crowds, plays with his grandchildren and hacks his way around a golf course. Scarcely a moment of his recent tour of the provinces went undocumented.
Politicians everywhere use social media to humanise themselves and connect directly with voters. Mr Hun Sen faces local elections next year and a national contest in 2018. On his recent provincial swing he pressed flesh, announced local infrastructure projects as though they were acts of personal largesse and even freed birds from captivity—a ritual good deed in local Buddhist practice. But in case his efforts to win hearts and minds fall short, he appears to have a contingency plan: intimidate the opposition and civil society.
At a meeting of the UN Human Rights Council this week, Samol Ney, Cambodia’s ambassador, insisted: “The judiciary is…an...Continue reading
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