PHNOM PENH - PRINCE Norodom Ranariddh, a key leader in post-civil war Cambodia, has been appointed as chief adviser to his half brother, the king, the prince's office said on Monday.

King Norodom Sihamoni appointed Prince Ranariddh as president of the Supreme Privy Advisory Council on Dec 6, giving him a rank formally equivalent to that of prime minister, the prince's office said in a statement.

Prince Ranarridh is unlikely to wield much political power, which is largely monopolised by Prime Minister Hun Sen and his party.

In early October, Prince Ranariddh resigned as his party's chief and quit politics just days after returning home from 18 months in exile in Malaysia, after the king pardoned him for an embezzlement conviction.

Prince Ranariddh is a son of retired King Norodom Sihanouk, from whom he inherited Funcinpec - formed as an armed resistance movement against the Vietnamese-installed government in the 1980s.

Prince Ranariddh converted Funcinpec into a royalist party that won United Nations-sponsored elections in 1993. The elections were part of a peace process aimed at ending three decades of civil war in Cambodia.

Since then, his political popularity has nose-dived and he was sacked as president of Funcinpec in 2006 for alleged incompetence.

The prince formed a new party - the Norodom Ranariddh Party - which won only two of 123 seats in the National Assembly in July elections. -- AP