In 2023, Cambodia's ruling party managed to hand over political power without sparking an intra-regime conflict, something many other authoritarian governments have failed to achieve. It did so via a vast and meticulously planned “generational succession” that saw the ageing grandees of the Cambodian People's Party (CPP) and of state institutions transfer power to their children or younger political elites. Hun Sen, 71, Cambodia's prime minister since 1985, resigned on 26 July, three days after the CPP won by a landslide in general elections. Hun Manet, 45, his eldest son, was officially anointed prime minister on 22 August. Meanwhile, the Council of Ministers, which is the Cambodian cabinet, underwent a significant reshuffling to make way for a hereditary succession of younger leaders—the so-called “second generation” of the CPP, most of whom are in their forties. For instance, Tea Banh, 78, the defence minister since 1987, resigned and gave power to his son Tea Seiha, 43. Sar Kheng, 72, the interior minister since 1992, handed his son Sar Sokha, 42, the ministerial reins. The same process was replicated throughout the bureaucratic apparatus, as a younger generation progressed through the ranks of secretaries and under-secretaries of state.

For more than a decade, Hun Sen has been non-committal over when he would step down. In 2013, he said he would be in power until at least 2025; in 2020, he said for another decade. But the die was cast in December 2021 when the ruling CPP unanimously voted Hun Manet, then the army chief, as its future prime ministerial candidate. Still, analysts were not sure whether Hun Sen would step down immediately after the July 2023 general elections or sometime closer to the subsequent national ballots in 2028. Events in early 2023, however, indicated the process would be fast-tracked. The groundwork was laid via three elements: (1) crushing dissent within society, (2) uniting the CPP behind a vast generational succession, and (3) forcing its opponents to defect. According to Mun Vong, “Regime stability, achieved through the ruthless repression and co-optation of political opposition, gave Hun Sen and the CPP the confidence that a transfer of power could finally occur.”