Cheng Heng was a Cambodian politician who was the country's Chief of State from 1970 to 1972, and was a relatively prominent political figure during the Khmer Republic period.
11 Facts About Cheng Heng
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Cheng Heng went on to become a prosperous businessman and landowner.
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Cheng Heng served in the civil service of colonial Cambodia, eventually reaching the grade of Oudom-Montrey by the mid-1950s.
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Cheng Heng was elected as the Sangkum deputy for Takhmau in 1962, but lost in the 1966 elections to a rival candidate, a young Sihanoukist doctor called Keo Sann.
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Cheng Heng subsequently returned via a 1967 by-election in Phnom Penh, and by 1970 was serving as President of Cambodia's National Assembly.
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Immediately subsequent to the Cambodian coup of 1970, in which the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister, General Lon Nol and Prince Sisowath Sirik Matak, engineered Sihanouk's removal, Cheng Heng was made Head of State until elections could be arranged.
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Apart from giving press conferences, State Chief Cheng Heng was called on to receive visiting foreign politicians: William Shawcross relates an incident during Spiro Agnew's July 1970 visit to Phnom Penh, in which that President Cheng Heng was forced to contend with United States Secret Service personnel training their guns on him while he was attempting to welcome Agnew to the Royal Palace.
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In 1973, after American pressure on Lon Nol to broaden political involvement, Cheng Heng was made vice-chairman of a 'High Political Council' set up to govern the country.
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In 1975, with the Khmer Rouge forces surrounding the capital, Cheng Heng's name was published on a list of "Seven Traitors" who were threatened with immediate execution in the event of a Communist victory.
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Cheng Heng returned to Cambodia after the UN-brokered 1991 political settlement and had some further involvement in politics, founding the Republican Coalition Party which unsuccessfully took part in the 1993 elections.
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Cheng Heng died on 15 March 1996 at the age of 86 in Portland, Oregon, the United States.