Norodom Sihanouk

Sihanouk became king in 1941 at the death of his grandfather, while Cambodia remained a French colony. He secured independence in 1953, then abdicated two years later so his father could reign while he ran for prime minister - his party Sangkum swept the elections, and he governed through one-party rule and suppressed dissent. After his father died in 1960, he took the title Chief of State, leaning closer to the communist bloc despite official neutrality. The 1970 coup ousted him; he fled to China and North Korea, formed a government-in-exile, and urged Cambodians to back the Khmer Rouge in the civil war. He returned as figurehead after their 1975 victory, resigned the next year, and was placed under house arrest until the Vietnamese invasion in 1979. He spent the 1980s in exile again, formed the resistance party FUNCINPEC, and led a UN-recognized coalition government while the country bled. The Paris Peace Accords and UN-supervised elections in 1993 restored him to the throne; he abdicated for good in 2004 and died in Beijing in 2012.