NEWS ANALYSIS : In Cambodia, a Family Feud Influences Future : Asia: Sihanouk’s son takes his father to task. He picks apart failed plan to share power with longtime regime.

Cambodian politics, full of blood and treachery, have always seemed reminiscent of a Shakespearean tragedy. But Friday, the collapse of efforts to form a coalition government was more suggestive of a television soap opera rich in family psychodrama.

The central characters have remained the same for the past five years: Prince Norodom Sihanouk, the unpredictable leader of Cambodia since the 1940s; his son Prince Norodom Ranariddh, the leader of the royalist opposition party, and Hun Sen, prime minister of the Phnom Penh regime.

Many Cambodians had been overjoyed Thursday when Sihanouk announced that he had formed a national unity government with the two main parties. He would be prime minister, he said, and Ranariddh and Hun Sen would be his deputies. Cambodians had “suffered greatly and unjustly” for 23 years, and no one had the right to make them suffer more, the prince declared.

The announcement surprised many foreign and Cambodian observers because it seemed to preempt the results of six days of national elections conducted by the United Nations last week. Nearly final returns show that Ranariddh’s FUNCINPEC party won 45.3% of the vote while the Phnom Penh regime received only 38.7%. Placing the two parties on an equal footing in the new government seemed to run counter to the votes.

The new government lasted only six hours. Sihanouk issued a statement Friday morning apologizing to the nation for having to renounce his new government and warning that responsibility for any “bloody and tragic consequences” would fall on Ranariddh and Hun Sen.

It became clear Friday that Ranariddh had been as surprised as anyone else when his father announced the new government Thursday. In a letter released by his party, Ranariddh called Sihanouk “my very venerated Papa” but then proceeded to pick apart the agreement negotiated by Sihanouk and leaders of the Phnom Penh regime. While supporting Sihanouk’s decision to form a government of national reconciliation, Ranariddh seemed to be saying that his father had given away too much, too soon.

Describing leaders of the Phnom Penh government as “killers of innocent members of FUNCINPEC during the whole electoral process,” Ranariddh said it would “not be morally possible for me to sit next to senior personalities” of the Phnom Penh government.

He added that Prince Norodom Chakrapong, his half-brother who deserted FUNCINPEC to join the Phnom Penh government, wanted to see him “destroyed or even killed.”

Ranariddh, who mysteriously remained out of the country, said that before forming a coalition, the Phnom Penh government should clearly endorse the election results. The government had raised the possibility of rejecting the results earlier in the week.

Ranariddh also objected to Sihanouk’s proposal to have “co-ministers” in the government, one from FUNCINPEC and one from the Phnom Penh side, sharing responsibilities. He said it would be impossible to avoid bottlenecks and corruption. Instead, he said, the Cabinet posts should be apportioned according to the percentage each party received in the election.

“The beloved and very respected people would be disconcerted to know that the same people from the well-known past are still in power,” he wrote.

While it was clear that Ranariddh still supports the national unity government concept, he was demanding a major revision of the pact that Sihanouk reached with Chea Sim, leader of the government’s Cambodian People’s Party.

The Phnom Penh regime controls the army, the largest armed force in the country, as well as the civil administration, and it is doubtful that FUNCINPEC could take control without the Phnom Penh government’s concurrence. FUNCINPEC’s forces are based in a remote corner of northwestern Cambodia.

The U.N. Transitional Authority in Cambodia, which conducted the elections last week and reacted coolly to Sihanouk’s proposal, seemed concerned Friday that the agreement had fallen apart.

“Cambodians, whoever they chose during the past elections, have clearly shown that they want (Sihanouk) at the center of their national life,” the U.N. group said in a statement Friday. “In this period of transition, it is natural that arrangements are sought to avoid conflict and it is critical that the prince be at the heart of the solution.”

It now appears likely that a new round of negotiations will have to occur before Ranariddh agrees to join a coalition government. It remains unclear whether the Phnom Penh regime is prepared to accept a subordinate role in the next government that reflects its second-place finish in the voting.

U.N. officials expect to take at least another week tabulating absentee ballots before declaring the final results of the voting for the 120 seats of a new constituent assembly. Under the October, 1991, peace agreement that paved the way for the elections, the new assembly will draft a constitution for Cambodia and then is supposed to form a new government.