Status Update: Hun Sen Asserts Control Over Facebook Page

Status Update: Hun Sen Asserts Control Over Facebook Page
Khmer Times/Pav Suy
Monday, 21 September 2015

PHNOM PENH (Khmer Times) – In an effort to take control of Prime Minister Hun Sen’s online profile, the leader’s cabinet released a statement saying his Facebook page is run and organized officially by the man himself.

In June 2013, the leader denied having a Facebook page at all, and said the Facebook pages claiming to come from the Prime Minister were actually run by his supporters.

“So far, there appear to be, throughout social media and especially on Facebook, a number of accounts claiming to belong to Samdech Akka Moha Sena Padei Techo Hun Sen, prime minister of Cambodia,” the cabinet statement said.

Government spokesman Phay Siphan said: “First, the announcement is to inform the public of the official Facebook page of the prime minister. Second, it indicates that the prime minister is close to the citizens and the ministers.”

“This Facebook page allows the prime minister and ministers to communicate with the people to do their work more effectively,” he said.

As of yesterday, the prime minister’s page had 1,068,587 likes, while the page of opposition party leader Sam Rainsy had 1,686,112 likes. The page mostly posted pictures of development projects with comments congratulating Mr. Hun Sen’s achievements.

“The prime minister announced it’s his official Facebook this time because social media is entrenched in Cambodian society. So now, it means that if any politician is popular on Facebook, they can also be popular in politics,” said Em Sovannara, a social and political analyst.

Many ‘Likes’

“Another reason [that he created an official page] is that he was not sure about how much support he could gain from it. Now, it is the best opportunity to announce the official one because his page attracts a large number of likes,” he said.

“In the 5th legislature, the government did not care about the power of social media, and the opposition party supporters used this platform to slam the government’s policies. As a result, the ruling party lost a lot of seats to the opposition. Now, it is about time the government has to work on it to challenge with the opposition.”

According to Xinhua, social media, specifically Facebook, is very popular in Cambodia, where over 5 million of the country’s nearly 15 million people have access to the Internet.  About 30 percent of people own a smartphone, according to a study by the Open Institute for the Asia Foundation and USAID.