Ranariddh: Between politics, throne

By Hillary Jackson

PHNOM PENH (Reuters): Prince Norodom Ranariddh, touted as a possible successor to Cambodia's King Norodom Sihanouk, is torn between a passion for politics and the throne.

In a new biography, Warrior Prince, due out this month, the prince touches on the taboo topic of succession and describes Prime Minister Hun Sen as "brutal", underscoring the uneasy nature of their coalition government.

"Of course, as a human being I am facing a great dilemma," biographer Harish Chandra Mehta quotes Ranariddh as saying.

"I don't want to praise myself that everyone acknowledges that among the members of the royal family, maybe I am the only one," he said, in a reference to his prospects of succeeding his father as constitutional monarch.

But Ranariddh, 57, who served as prime minister from 1993 until he was ousted by Hun Sen in 1997, added: "As Buddhists, we cannot talk about the succession because we will have to talk about death and we must not."

There is no clear successor to the Cambodian throne and Ranariddh's father King Sihanouk, who will turn 79 in October, suffered a minor stroke last year and has been treated for diabetes, high blood pressure and colon cancer in recent years.

He travels to Beijing regularly for medical treatment from a team of doctors he retains there.

Only a male member of one of three branches of the royal family may succeed to the Cambodian throne.

The constitution requires a nine-member Royal Council of the Throne to choose a new king within seven days of his predecessor's death.

While there are believed to be at least 20 potential successors, a smaller number are considered serious contenders.

Besides Ranariddh, the king's son and Ranariddh's half-brother Prince Norodom Sihamoni and Sihanouk's half-brother and former foreign minister Prince Norodom Sirivudh are seen as possible successors.

Sihanouk's wife, Queen Monineath, is also talked about as a possible successor, but the constitution would have to be amended if she were to take the throne.

Some political analysts say the powerful Hun Sen, who as prime minister would be on the Royal Council of the Throne, is expected to hold sway over five of its nine members, and is thus likely to be king-maker.

Ranariddh said for the time being his royalist FUNCINPEC party needed his leadership and he planned to lead it into general elections scheduled for July 2003, challenging his coalition partner Hun Sen.

"The party that wins the election, its leader will be appointed prime minister," he was quoted saying.

Ranariddh is president of FUNCINPEC, as well as Cambodia's lower house of parliament. He is the most politically active of Sihanouk's 14 children, many of whom died during the Khmer Rouge reign of terror in the late 1970s while the king remained under palace arrest.

Bearing a striking resemblance to his father, Ranariddh is popular among Cambodia's 11.5 million people.

"For me, it is a big burden," he said of his resemblance to his father.

"People used to tell us it would be very easy for me to succeed because I am the son of Sihanouk. People adore the king and I look like him. It is not my achievement they are remembering, but the deeds of my father," he said.

"On the contrary, if I fail the people would say, 'Oh, you are the son, but you are not like your father'. It's rather a burden."

An academic in France before returning to the region in the 1980s, Ranariddh was elected prime minister in a 1993 UN- organized election but was forced into a power-sharing agreement with his arch rival Hun Sen, who took the title second prime minister.

Hun Sen then ousted Ranariddh in a bloody July 1997 coup d'etat, but the prince returned home after a period of exile in Bangkok to challenge him in a July 1998 election.

Hun Sen narrowly defeated Ranariddh, who became president of the National Assembly when a coalition government was formed in late 1998 after several months of post-election turmoil.

"For me, Hun Sen has to be accepted ... He learned very fast from (Khmer Rouge dictator) Pol Pot to kill, but also to be a chief," Ranariddh said.

"He learned very fast from the Vietnamese to be a Communist, but also to be a politician. He is brutal. Hun Sen is a man who doesn't hesitate to use any means possible to grab power and stay in power."

Hun Sen was a low-level Khmer Rouge commander who fled to neighboring Vietnam in the late 1970s amid a leadership purge by Pol Pot.

He returned in 1979 and became foreign minister in a government installed by Vietnam's army of occupation. His Cambodian People's Party officially renounced communism after the withdrawal of Vietnamese troops in September 1989.

Mehta, a Bangkok-based journalist, has also published a biography of Hun Sen, entitled Hun Sen: Strongman of Cambodia, and Cambodia Silenced, a history of the struggle for press freedom in Cambodia.