46 Asia The Economist April 30th 2022
racked by three decades of violence that in
cluded civil war, American carpet bombing
and the grotesque bloodletting of the
Khmers Rouges. Yet he has centralised
power not by building institutions but by
personalising them.
In Mr Hun Sen’s Cambodia, govern
ment positions are handed out as sine
cures to the offspring of ageing comrades
in the ruling Cambodian People’s Party
(cpp). Favoured tycoons get the right to im
port and distribute tobacco, booze and
more. They chop down forests or grab land
from subsistence farmers. Alliances
among the elite are cemented with spec
tacular weddings. The economy has grown
fairly briskly. But Hunsenomics has
broughtenvironmental destruction, mon
eylaundering, capital flight and gross in
equality. Cambodia comes 157th out of 180
countries ranked by Transparency Interna
tional for perceived corruption.
Even as the old fox demands almost un
questioned obedience within the cpp, he
has attempted to demolish the opposition.
The Cambodia National Rescue Party came
close to winning a general election in 2013.
In late 2017 the courts agreed that the party
was part of a foreign plot to overthrow the
cppand ordered it disbanded. Of its two
former leaders, one, Kem Sokha, faces a
drawnout trial for treason while the other,
Sam Rainsy, leads an upholstered life in ex
ile in Paris.
Given Mr Hun Sen’s tight grip on power,
the endorsement of Mr Hun Manet is as
good as a coronation for the 44yearold. A
topscoring graduate of America’s West
Point military academy with a doctorate in
economics from a British university, Mr
Hun Manet has risen fast through Cambo
dia’s security services. He currently serves
as army chief, head of counterterrorism
and number two in his father’s allimpor
tant presidential guard. Modest and per
sonable, he does not appear to have very
many enemies.
Yet if his elevation is almost guaran
teed, a smooth transition is not. The secre
tive cppis more factionalised and diverse
than it appears from the outside. Differ
ences might only grow under Mr Hun Ma
net, especially between the party’s moder
nisers and those who think of the cppas a
vehicle for patronage and personal net
works of power. A related challenge for the
next ruler is the generational change his el
evation implies. For Mr Hun Sen has made
it clear that when he steps back so must the
other oldtimers.
This breeds two potential problems.
One is that some of the old guard will re
sent the whippersnapper’s unearned pro
motion, which has dashed their own
dreams of higher power. A bigger problem
is the sense of entitlement among their
progeny. Mr Hun Manet has been meeting
some of his contemporaries for tea at thecapital’s Hyatt Regency hotel, presumably
to thrash out quite how power will be doled
out in future. But with so much honour
and profit at stake there are surely not
enough plum posts to go around. Genteel
machinations at afternoon tea could yet
descend into nastier struggles.
A last challenge to Mr Hun Sen’s no
tions of a smooth transition might come
from outside the ruling party. For all his
political repression, and his cosying up to
authoritarian China, the prime minister
seems to care too much about what the
West thinks of him to snuff out all opposi
tion for good. ngos and other actiongroups cling on, and occasionally bounce
back—a sharp contrast to neighbouring
Vietnam or Laos.
A new party, the Candlelight Party, has
grown out of Mr Sam Rainsy’s movement.
To the dismay of the cpp, it has managed to
field candidates for nearly all of the seats
on the councils of the country’s 1,652 local
communes that are being contested in ear
ly June. The ruling party still has the mon
ey, the organisation, the thuggery and, in
some places, the popularity to prevail. But
plenty of ordinaryCambodians feel they
should have a sayinwriting Mr Hun Sen’s
succession script. nT
he jeepneys of the Philippinesareat
once a national treasure and a dirty
menace. When American troops went
home in 1946, they left behind hundreds
of military jeeps. Filipinos fitted them
with benches, daubed them with gaudy
illustrations and began charging com
muters for lifts around town. The origi
nals have now mostly been scrapped, but
jerryrigged replicas remain the most
common way for people without cars to
navigate big cities. They outnumber
buses roughly ten to one.
This is far from ideal. Ancient diesel
engines sputter beneath most jeepneys’
garish bodywork. Transport of all kinds
produces close to onethird of the Philip
pines’ energyrelated carbon emissions.
By one estimate jeepneys cough out 15%
of all the pollution from road vehicles.
Riders must often scurry into the street
to clamber into the back of one. Jeepney
passengers are said to be ten times more
likely to experience a road accident than
someone in a private car.
The government would like to see
them zoom off into the sunset. In 2017 it
decreed that most jeepney drivers would
be given three years to swap their bang
ers for cleaner, safer vehicles that look
suspiciously like minibuses. They were
promised cheap loans to help buy these
machines, which are supposed to come
with cctvand WiFi and which were, at
the time, predicted to cost about 1.5m
pesos ($28,700) each. But jeepney drivers
and operators honked furiously. They
said the plans would saddle them with
debt while also pushing up fares.
In the years since then the project has
trundled ever further off course. By July
2019 it was being reported that only
about 2% of old jeepneys had been up
graded. Not long after that covid19 beganbatteringdrivers’livelihoods, providing
the government with an excuse not to
start punishing slowcoaches. In March it
declined once again to put its foot down.
It said it would start offering jeepney
drivers oneyear permits allowing them
to keep their jaunty jalopies on the road.
Unless authorities plan to issue end
less extensions, they will probably have
to conjure up new carrots and sticks.
Eric, a jeepney driver in Manila, speaks
for many when he says he cannot ever
imagine swapping his bright red vehicle
for a spiffy new bus. The soupedup
replacements have ended up costing
more than was expected. And the 300
400 pesos he earns each day is already
too little to get by on. The clanking trucks
occasionally break down. But he says
they are much easier than the new
fangled ones to fix.TransportinthePhilippinesNot so fast
M ANILA
Jeepneys refuse to give wayMy other car is electric