Sihanouk Sees Communist as Cambodia Vote Winner : Southeast Asia: The prince says he is ready to name Hun Sen as prime minister.

Hun Sen, the Communist leader whose reign was imposed by the bayonets of an invading Vietnamese army, probably will win Cambodia’s first free and fair election, Prince Norodom Sihanouk told President Bush on Tuesday.

Sihanouk, tapped to be head of state as part of a compromise settlement of Cambodia’s complex civil war, told Bush that he is ready to name Hun Sen the prime minister of the elected regime, the same post Hun Sen now holds in the Vietnamese-installed government.

Richard H. Solomon, the assistant secretary of state who attended Bush’s 40-minute meeting with Sihanouk, said the prince “indicated that popular sentiment is such that he thinks Hun Sen will be the predominant political force.” Bush and Sihanouk were both at the United Nations to attend the opening of the General Assembly.

Solomon gave no indication that Bush raised any objection to the expected victory of a leader Washington has been trying to oust for more than a decade.

Instead, Bush “expressed our on-going concern” about the possibility that the murderous Khmer Rouge might once again dominate Cambodian politics. The Communist Khmer Rouge is blamed for the deaths of more than 1 million Cambodians when it held power between 1975 and 1978.

The Vietnamese invasion in the closing weeks of 1978 ousted the Khmer Rouge. Vietnam withdrew its troops in 1989, but the Hun Sen government survived.

Sihanouk’s comments seemed to signal a new rapprochement between the mercurial prince and the leader of the Vietnamese-backed government that he opposed by both political and military means since the day it took power.

An alliance between Sihanouk, leader of the largest non-Communist faction vying for power in Cambodia, and Hun Sen is apparently intended to prevent the Khmer Rouge from regaining power. Sihanouk and Hun Sen had been moving closer for several months, but this was the first time that Sihanouk seemed to concede election victory to Hun Sen.

“Hun Sen and Sihanouk seem to have overcome all the problems they have,” said an Asian diplomat based in Washington. “The feedback we have from the Chinese is that they want to wash their hands of this and let Sihanouk work it out.”

Solomon said Sihanouk told Bush that a comprehensive political settlement is approaching completion. The prince said he expects free, fair elections to be held soon under the supervision of the United Nations, which is expected to dispatch peacekeeping troops to maintain order until a new government can be installed.

The Asian diplomat said that Sihanouk has asked the United Nations to send at least 200 observers to Cambodia by Nov. 1 to monitor the cease-fire and prevent a resumption of arms shipments to competing factions. But the diplomat said U.N. officials have expressed doubts that they can move that quickly.

Sihanouk wants to ensure that a security umbrella is in place before he returns to Phnom Penh.

The Cambodian civil war was fought by four factions, two Communist and two non-Communist. For years, the Khmer Rouge joined the non-Communist factions in an alliance against the Hun Sen regime. The United States provided assistance to the non-Communist factions, despite complaints by some in Congress that the aid would also help the Khmer Rouge.