In a recent speech, for 4? hours he waved his arms and gestured wildly, frequently adjusting his glasses for his one good eye (the other was lost in a war accident) as he proclaimed: 'If Hun Sen does anything it is to win. I do everything to win, not to lose.'

As 11 parties compete for 123 seats in the National Assembly elections late next month, few doubt that Hun Sen's Cambodian People's Party (CPP), which has ruled the country under different governments for most of the past three decades, will win overwhelmingly.

More than 8.1 million of the country's 14 million people are registered to vote and a recent poll showed expectations of a voter turnout of 75 per cent.

The poll, released by the US-funded International Republican Institute in late May found that 77 per cent of Cambodians now believe 'Cambodia is moving in the right direction', citing construction of roads, schools and health clinics. Analysts say the poll is a good indication that they will vote to retain the ruling party.

Those who said they were not happy cited 'corruption' and the 'price of goods'. The Berlin-based Transparency International ranks Cambodia among the world's most corrupt countries. Inflation - running at about 20 per cent - emerged as a serious problem in January.

The opinion poll responses reflect the new Cambodia, where investment from China, Japan, South Korea and other countries in the region is rising rapidly and where the economic growth rate has been in double digits for the past few years, although it is expected to fall to 7.5 per cent this year.

Cambodia is still one of the world's poorest countries and much of the economic boom has failed to penetrate the countryside. But with the discovery of oil off the coast, there is a growing belief the country's fortunes could turn if the government manages the revenues well.

University of Cambodia president Kao Kim Hourn, 43, who also works in the foreign ministry, said people would vote for CPP because it represented stability. 'We want to have a good responsible government in place. For a post-conflict society like Cambodia, we have many competing priorities and that's not easy to create overnight.' He fled to the US in the early 1980s and returned with thousands of others in the 1990s when the UN Transitional Authority in Cambodia sponsored the first elections in 40 years.

Although an opposition newspaper editor was detained on Monday for reporting criticism of a powerful CPP minister, Kao Kim Hourn insists Cambodia's press enjoys greater freedom than Thailand's or Singapore's. In Cambodia, he said , 'you can criticise the prime minister'. The editor has since been released after heavy international pressure.

A sign of the CPP's solidifying control is the number of opposition politicians defecting to the ruling party, many being rewarded with an appointment as 'adviser to the government'.

One, Ahmad Yahya, 54, another one-time refugee who fled to the US, said the CPP was the only effective party. He said within a few months of his defection in January that he could claim several 'achievements' for his constituents in the Muslim community known as Cham, including free air time for a Cham-language radio show that used to cost him US$1,000 an hour, a prayer room at Phnom Penh International Airport and the right of schoolgirls to wear headscarves. 'I know that it is not good to switch parties all the time, but it depends on the situation,' he said.

Director of the US-funded National Democratic Institute, Jerome Cheung, said the opposition parties had practically given up trying to change things in parliament because they couldn't accomplish anything. The CPP's control has grown since it refused to accept defeat after finishing second in the UN-sponsored 1993 election to the Royalist Funcinpec Party led by Prince Norodom Ranariddh, son of abdicated king Norodom Sihanouk.

In the unstable coalition formed after the election, Hun Sen became 'second prime minister', a title he shed after July 1997 when a weekend of urban fighting between the two parties' armies ended with the CPP in charge. Although the coalition has continued - with only one prime minister - the CPP has dominated every election since, national and provincial.

This year the coalition faces the risk of collapse. Prince Ranariddh is in exile in Malaysia and faces jail if he returns, Funcinpec has split and some analysts question whether the party can win even a single seat needed to continue the coalition. Hun Sen has indicated he might consider a coalition with another party, but it is unclear what he means.

Funcinpec party spokesman Ok Socheat said he believed the party would win at least one seat, but warned: 'If Funcinpec collapses then maybe the monarchy will collapse. We need a party to support the king.'

Analysts predict other parties will pick up less than a third of the seats. The Sam Rainsy Party is expected to get about 20 seats, although Sam Rainsy himself expects 31. The party, backed by Cambodians in the US and France, campaigns on an anti-corruption platform.

About 60 per cent of the population is under 30. 'The trends are changing in Cambodia,' Sam Rainsy said. 'The new generation expects more. They want change.'

Many countries including the US and Japan will send monitors to next month's elections, and the information ministry will for the first time allow national assembly candidates to hold TV debates during campaign month in July. But the CPP's everyday dominance of the most important media, and the saturation coverage given Hun Sen's speeches get, make such moves toward openness a 'small drop in the bucket', said Mr Cheung of the National Democratic Institute.

'The pre-election period is ot fair. You have months and months of campaign speeches. Opening of a school, Hun Sen speaks. Opening of a pagoda, Hun Sen speaks.'

The prime minister heads a highly centralised party composed mostly of survivors of the Khmer Rouge period. The party is viewed by most analysts as opaque because little information about its finances and decision making is made public. But some diplomats give Hun Sen credit for bringing stability and keeping foreign aid flowing, despite many donors' concerns about human rights and other problems. The country collects US$500 million to US$600 million annually, about half the national budget last year.

While Japan has been the largest donor, spending millions to build roads and bridges and irrigation projects, many think China - whose loans and grants are not always transparent - probably looms larger now. In the past five years, China has become Cambodia's most influential ally, giving or lending millions of dollars a year. One stunning example is a gift of US$30 million in grants and low-interest loans to construct a council of ministers building. Construction is expected to be finished in August, in time for the new government to move in. A western diplomat calls it 'a symbol of China's putative influence'.

'The one thing [Hun Sen] has not done is say no to China,' the diplomat said. Although it is not always clear what China gets in return, oil companies from China received more exploration licences than from any other country, as well as contracts for power plants and other projects.