Prime Minister Hun Sen on Thursday threw his support behind the Republican candidate for the US presidency, Donald Trump, saying he hoped the controversial real estate mogul would “bring peace to the world.”
Hun Sen, the head of the ruling Cambodian People’s Party, who has been in power for more than 30 years, said a Trump presidency would help usher in world peace by bringing the United States closer to China and Russia, avoiding a potential future conflict.
Speaking at a police academy in the capital, Phnom Penh, Hun Sen said: “For me, frankly speaking, I totally want Trump to be elected.”
“If Trump is elected, the world will change and be in a better situation, because Trump is a businessman, and business doesn’t want to wage war,” he said. “This is the truth!”
He went on to say that if Hillary Clinton, the Democrats candidate, is elected on November 8, “relations between the US and Russia will be difficult.”
“However, if Trump is elected, he will make friends with Russia.”
Many opposition politicians, however, are backing Clinton.
Eng Chhay Eang, a senior Cambodia National Rescue Party lawmaker, said he preferred Clinton’s experience over Trump’s “emotion” and decried the overly personal nature of many of the exchanges on the campaign trail.
“I don’t like Donald Trump, frankly speaking,” he said. “He’s a politician who makes decisions based on his feelings rather than his thought.”
The race between the two candidates has tightened in recent days following FBI Director James Comey’s announcement last week that a new probe into Clinton’s emails was on the horizon.
Nheb Bunchin, a member of the Royalist Funcinpec party, said he thought Clinton was of higher “quality” than Trump.
Similarly, Yeng Virak, president of the newly formed Grassroots Democracy Party, said Trumps foreign policy – particularly an assumed warming of relations with Russia – was of concern.
“It is likely to create violence and it would also impact the [global] economy,” he said.
Hun Sen Says a Vote for Trump Is a Vote for World Peace
- VOA Khmer
- Neou Vannarin
Speaking at a police academy in the capital, Phnom Penh, Hun Sen said: “If Trump is elected, the world will change and be in a better situation, because Trump is a businessman, and business doesn’t want to wage war,” he said. “This is the truth!”
PHNOM PENH —
