Fully Authoritarian
World’s Population
Population
HRF classifies Cambodia as ruled by a fully authoritarian regime.
Strongman Hun Sen led Cambodia for 38 uninterrupted years between 1985 and 2023. As one of the world’s longest-ruling dictators, he oversaw multiple crackdowns on political opponents, the significant erosion of civic space, and rampant corruption. His Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) has won multiple local and national elections virtually unopposed, including general elections in 2018 and 2023. This latest victory cleared the path for Hun Sen to hand over power to his son Hun Manet in 2023, marking the beginning of dynastic autocracy in Cambodia.
Elections are a sham, to the point where the real, mainstream political opposition does not have a realistic chance to meaningfully compete and possibly win. The regime has imprisoned and forced into exile most opposition figures, leaving the mainstream opposition entirely defunct. It has passed laws that substantially restrict the opposition’s ability to organize. The regime also exerts tight control over the election management body and employs large numbers of bogus election monitors to endorse the results of its undemocratic elections.
Independent media, political leaders, civil society, and regular people face overt and systematic retaliation if they openly criticize the regime. The regime resorts to a slew of tactics to silence dissent, including verbal threats, forced shutdowns, spurious prosecutions, extrajudicial killings, and transnational repression. Independent media is rapidly dwindling in the wake of the regime’s decisions to close several well-known outlets. The regime has taken drastic measures to respond to dissenting protests and obstructed the work of civil society through overbroad laws and Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation (SLAPP) cases.
Institutions largely or completely fail to serve as independent checks on the regime. Courts rubber-stamped regime decisions to disqualify the regime’s main opponents from contesting elections and delivered stiff punishments in mass trials of opposition leaders and activists. The executive and CPP-dominated legislature enjoy sweeping powers to control judicial appointments, removals, and disciplinary actions against judges. The domestic law limits the ability of the general populace to directly challenge the regime’s most controversial laws through the courts. The regime has leveraged its uninterrupted control over the legislature to pass constitutional amendments undermining checks and balances in the formation of government.
Elections are a sham, to the point where the real, mainstream political opposition does not have a realistic chance to meaningfully compete and possibly win. The regime’s systematic crackdown has crippled the main opposition and enabled the regime to contest elections unopposed since 2018.
The regime has unfairly barred real, mainstream opposition parties and candidates from competing in elections. Ahead of the 2018 general election, the regime swiftly signed into effect a legislative amendment that prohibited political parties from associating with or featuring criminally convicted persons in their “activities,” a term left without clearly defined parameters (2017 amendment). Violators are subject to being banned from political activities and participating in elections. The regime used this law to disqualify the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) from participating in the 2018 election, after the party’s leader, Kem Sokha, was arrested on charges of treason. The law was further used to prevent former CNRP leader Sam Rainsy from campaigning for the party from exile, due to an earlier conviction on politically motivated charges. The regime also banned 118 senior CNRP members from politics, including from holding a political office, for five years. Prior to this legal maneuver barring the party and its leaders from contesting the election, the CNRP was poised to be the CPP’s leading contender in the 2018 polls, having nearly won a parliamentary majority in the election four years prior. As a result, CPP ran in the 2018 parliamentary election without any credible opposition and ultimately won all 125 seats in the National Assembly, the parliament’s lower house.
Ahead of the 2023 general election, the regime amended the Law on the Election of Members of the National Assembly 2015 (LEMNA) to bar those not voting in the election from running for office. This amendment further impinges on the opposition’s ability to contest elections, given that most opposition figures are imprisoned or exiled and were thus unable to vote. The regime also disqualified the Candlelight Party, a splinter of the CNRP, just as it was gaining traction among the electorate. Although 17 other parties ended up contesting the election, they were either too small or had expressed support for the regime to be considered a viable opposition. The CPP subsequently won uncontested. Many opposition politicians remaining in Cambodia have chosen to defect and join the CPP.
The regime has seriously undermined independent electoral oversight. The National Election Committee (NEC) is responsible for election administration. While legislation passed in 2015 allowed the ruling CPP and the opposition to nominate equal numbers of election commissioners to sit on the NEC, the regime has replaced all of the individuals nominated by the opposition over the years with loyalists. The NEC has sided with the regime in various aspects of the electoral process, going as far as endorsing the regime’s threats against its political opponents. In the run-up to the 2023 election, for instance, it issued a statement claiming that the June 2023 regime amendment to the LEMNA could be used to impose a 20 million riel (US$5,000) fine and prosecute anyone who encouraged voters to spoil their ballots in protest. The NEC has also enabled the regime by accrediting thousands of partisan and fake election monitors to endorse the results of the election.
Incumbent Prime Minister Hun Manet inherited Cambodia’s highest political office from his father without popular support. His administration has not taken steps to improve the electoral landscape, and key opposition forces have remained defunct since he came to power in 2023. Prime Minister Manet oversaw senatorial and local elections in February and May 2024, respectively, which resulted in a sweeping victory for the CPP and excluded major opposition parties such as the Candlelight Party. The polls were held in a significantly restricted civic space, marked by the continued arrests of opposition politicians.
Independent media, political leaders, civil society, and regular people face overt and systematic retaliation if they openly criticize the regime. The Hun Manet administration has perpetuated similar patterns of repression seen under his father’s rule, stifling critical media and civil society alike. An escalating trend of violent attacks against Cambodian dissidents abroad reinforces concerns regarding the deterioration of the civic space.
The regime has shut down major independent media outlets. One of them was The Cambodia Daily, which ceased operations in 2017 after 24 years of operation, after being accused of not paying its tax debt. Along with the Daily, the regime also shut down 15 independent radio stations that aired programs by Radio Free Asia (RFA), Voice of America (VoA), and Voice of Democracy (VoD), all major sources of alternative views on the regime at the time. Ultimately, the regime revoked the operating license of VoD, one of the few remaining independent media, a few months ahead of the 2023 election, after it published a story about Hun Manet that the regime claimed to have “hurt” its reputation. Several local internet service providers (ISPs) blocked access to the outlet’s Khmer- and English-language websites.
The regime has seriously and unfairly obstructed the work of independent, dissenting media, political leaders, civil society leaders, organizations, and regular people. In addition to the forced closure of independent media outlets, journalists face surveillance and threats of criminalization in the course of their work. The Cambodian Journalists Alliance Association (CamboJA) reported 151 harassment cases affecting 281 journalists and media workers between 2020 and 2023. In October 2024, military police arrested award-winning journalist Mech Dara on incitement charges over social media posts he had made exposing alleged corruption by the regime. He was released on bail three weeks later, after a pro-regime media outlet published a video of him asking for the country’s forgiveness. He subsequently announced his intention to quit journalism altogether. Civil society faces similar challenges. The Law on Associations and Non-Governmental Organizations (LANGO), passed in 2015, obliges all foreign and domestic NGOs operating within Cambodia to maintain “political neutrality,” an overbroad term that may expose politically engaged organizations to criminal penalties. In November 2024, a court sentenced human rights defender Koet Saray, president of a local student association that advocates for social development and good governance, to four years’ imprisonment in relation to his visit to a group of villagers evicted from their homes due to a government-backed plantation project. He had faced similar harassment under the Hun Sen administration.
The regime engages in transnational repression against dissidents abroad. Opposition leaders such as Sam Rainsy and CNRP vice president Mu Sochua have been denied entry to Cambodia’s neighboring countries based on explicit regime orders to the relevant governments. Cambodian refugees hiding in Bangkok have reported experiencing increasing levels of surveillance and intimidation by unidentified individuals they believe to be connected to the regime. In January 2025, Lim Kimya, a former opposition lawmaker, was shot dead by a gunman on a motorcycle upon arriving in Bangkok from Siem Reap with his wife and uncle. Thai officials issued arrest warrants for two Cambodian nationals, including a former advisor to Hun Sen, in the aftermath of the assassination.
The regime has seriously and unfairly repressed dissenting protests. Between July and August 2024, Prime Minister Hun Manet oversaw the arrest of more than 94 individuals ahead of planned protests against the Cambodia-Laos-Vietnam Development Triangle Area (CLV-DTA), a trilateral economic agreement criticized by Cambodian civil society for favoring foreign interests above Cambodians. Prime Minister Hun Manet and Senate President Hun Sen leveled threats against organizers of the protests on multiple occasions. Hun Sen also claimed he had “spies” monitoring a Telegram group used by protest organizers. Four activists who livestreamed their criticism of the agreement on Facebook in July were arrested on the same day. The military high command also issued threats against participants through Facebook. The protests nevertheless succeeded in pushing the regime to withdraw from the controversial economic agreement.
Institutions largely or completely fail to serve as independent checks on the regime. All three branches of government are captured and incapable of providing reliable accountability avenues.
The judiciary fails to serve as a check on the regime. Courts have significantly undermined electoral competition by rubber-stamping the dissolution and disqualification of mainstream opposition parties, the CNRP and Candlelight Party. They also meted out harsh sentences and imposed lengthy bans that prevented party members and supporters from carrying out political activities. Following the CNRP’s dissolution, for example, the Supreme Court banned 118 of the party’s members from politics for five years. In cases against prominent opposition figure Sam Rainsy alone, the courts delivered multiple convictions amounting to 47 years’ imprisonment before sentencing him in absentia in October 2022 to life in prison on charges of attempting to cede Cambodian territory to a foreign state. Similarly, at the end of a protracted pre-trial detention and a three-year trial fraught with irregularities, the Phnom Penh Municipal Court sentenced Kem Sokha to 27 years of house arrest in March 2023 for alleged treason. The court ruling further stripped him of his right to stand for election and vote indefinitely. Between November 2020 and December 2022, five mass trials were held for 158 CNRP members and activists. At least four ended in convictions.
Courts have frequently and unfairly failed to check regime attempts to repress criticism or retaliate against those who express open opposition to its most prominent, widely publicized policies. A case in point is Cambodian-American activist and vocal regime critic Theary Seng, who was tried on charges of incitement to create social disorder and conspiracy to commit treason. The prosecution never pinpointed the specific offenses Seng allegedly committed, although the charges were seemingly tied to her online advocacy to preserve Cambodian democracy. Seng’s trial was repeatedly postponed, and judges in the case prohibited her from accessing her case files until she agreed to a court-appointed lawyer. The proceedings dragged on for nearly two years and were marred with other procedural violations, including the abrupt replacement of one of the assigned judges and both the bench and prosecutor repeatedly harassing Seng by banning her foreign counsel from entering the country and forcing her to remove her makeup and symbolic attire while appearing in court. On June 14, 2022, the court sentenced her to six years in prison; her subsequent appeals have been unsuccessful. In July 2024, a court sentenced 10 youth activists from the now-defunct environmental NGO Mother Earth Cambodia to prison terms ranging from six to eight years on charges of “plotting against the government” and insulting the king for their activism. Half of the defendants were convicted in absentia. Mother Earth Cambodia and its members had faced a series of attacks in the past, culminating in its forced closure and its founder, Spanish activist Alejandro Gonzalez-Davidson, being deported and banned from returning to Cambodia.
The regime has subjected judicial, executive, and legislative institutions to reforms that seriously weaken their independence. The Supreme Council of the Magistracy (SCM), a body charged with making judicial appointments, transfers, removals, and disciplinary actions, has long been packed with senior CPP members. In 2014, the regime passed a law that empowers the Minister of Justice to replace the King as chair of the SCM, further undermining its independence. Moreover, the SCM and CPP-controlled National Assembly appoint six of the nine members of the Constitutional Council, which handles all constitutional reviews of legislation. Citizens cannot challenge laws through the Council: only the King, the legislature, and the prime minister may directly request a review of the constitutionality of laws before they are promulgated. All of them, with the addition of courts, may also do so after promulgation. Conversely, according to the Law on the Organization and Function of the Constitutional Council 1998, citizens who wish to challenge the constitutionality of a law must submit their application through a member of the legislature or the President, meaning both parties enjoy considerable latitude to influence how those applications are presented to the Council, which in turn affects the likelihood of their succeeding.
The ruling CPP has near-absolute control over the National Assembly, the bicameral legislature. Over the years, the National Assembly has served to legislate various repressive political agendas that the regime espouses. Most recently, in July 2025, it approved a constitutional amendment that allows the regime to revoke the citizenship of individuals accused of colluding with foreign forces. Prime Minister Hun Manet has indicated that the amendment will be used against those who “oppose the interest of the country,” “conspire with foreign powers,” or “plot to destroy the country.”
A series of constitutional amendments passed by the National Assembly in July 2022 reduced checks and balances in the formation of government and afforded the incumbent prime minister unfettered powers to install a successor of his choosing. Prior to these amendments, the authority to nominate a candidate for prime minister rested with the President and the First and Second Vice-Presidents of the National Assembly—officials themselves elected by an absolute majority—after which the King would invite the nominee to form a government. The changes empower the political party with the most seats to now directly propose the prime minister to the king, while the National Assembly leadership only needs to be notified and not consulted. This new, truncated procedure was introduced amid Hun Sen’s plan to nominate his son Hun Manet as his successor.
HRF classifies Cambodia as ruled by a fully authoritarian regime.
Strongman Hun Sen led Cambodia for 38 uninterrupted years between 1985 and 2023. As one of the world’s longest-ruling dictators, he oversaw multiple crackdowns on political opponents, the significant erosion of civic space, and rampant corruption. His Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) has won multiple local and national elections virtually unopposed, including general elections in 2018 and 2023. This latest victory cleared the path for Hun Sen to hand over power to his son Hun Manet in 2023, marking the beginning of dynastic autocracy in Cambodia.
Elections are a sham, to the point where the real, mainstream political opposition does not have a realistic chance to meaningfully compete and possibly win. The regime has imprisoned and forced into exile most opposition figures, leaving the mainstream opposition entirely defunct. It has passed laws that substantially restrict the opposition’s ability to organize. The regime also exerts tight control over the election management body and employs large numbers of bogus election monitors to endorse the results of its undemocratic elections.
Independent media, political leaders, civil society, and regular people face overt and systematic retaliation if they openly criticize the regime. The regime resorts to a slew of tactics to silence dissent, including verbal threats, forced shutdowns, spurious prosecutions, extrajudicial killings, and transnational repression. Independent media is rapidly dwindling in the wake of the regime’s decisions to close several well-known outlets. The regime has taken drastic measures to respond to dissenting protests and obstructed the work of civil society through overbroad laws and Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation (SLAPP) cases.
Institutions largely or completely fail to serve as independent checks on the regime. Courts rubber-stamped regime decisions to disqualify the regime’s main opponents from contesting elections and delivered stiff punishments in mass trials of opposition leaders and activists. The executive and CPP-dominated legislature enjoy sweeping powers to control judicial appointments, removals, and disciplinary actions against judges. The domestic law limits the ability of the general populace to directly challenge the regime’s most controversial laws through the courts. The regime has leveraged its uninterrupted control over the legislature to pass constitutional amendments undermining checks and balances in the formation of government.
Elections are a sham, to the point where the real, mainstream political opposition does not have a realistic chance to meaningfully compete and possibly win. The regime’s systematic crackdown has crippled the main opposition and enabled the regime to contest elections unopposed since 2018.
The regime has unfairly barred real, mainstream opposition parties and candidates from competing in elections. Ahead of the 2018 general election, the regime swiftly signed into effect a legislative amendment that prohibited political parties from associating with or featuring criminally convicted persons in their “activities,” a term left without clearly defined parameters (2017 amendment). Violators are subject to being banned from political activities and participating in elections. The regime used this law to disqualify the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) from participating in the 2018 election, after the party’s leader, Kem Sokha, was arrested on charges of treason. The law was further used to prevent former CNRP leader Sam Rainsy from campaigning for the party from exile, due to an earlier conviction on politically motivated charges. The regime also banned 118 senior CNRP members from politics, including from holding a political office, for five years. Prior to this legal maneuver barring the party and its leaders from contesting the election, the CNRP was poised to be the CPP’s leading contender in the 2018 polls, having nearly won a parliamentary majority in the election four years prior. As a result, CPP ran in the 2018 parliamentary election without any credible opposition and ultimately won all 125 seats in the National Assembly, the parliament’s lower house.
Ahead of the 2023 general election, the regime amended the Law on the Election of Members of the National Assembly 2015 (LEMNA) to bar those not voting in the election from running for office. This amendment further impinges on the opposition’s ability to contest elections, given that most opposition figures are imprisoned or exiled and were thus unable to vote. The regime also disqualified the Candlelight Party, a splinter of the CNRP, just as it was gaining traction among the electorate. Although 17 other parties ended up contesting the election, they were either too small or had expressed support for the regime to be considered a viable opposition. The CPP subsequently won uncontested. Many opposition politicians remaining in Cambodia have chosen to defect and join the CPP.
The regime has seriously undermined independent electoral oversight. The National Election Committee (NEC) is responsible for election administration. While legislation passed in 2015 allowed the ruling CPP and the opposition to nominate equal numbers of election commissioners to sit on the NEC, the regime has replaced all of the individuals nominated by the opposition over the years with loyalists. The NEC has sided with the regime in various aspects of the electoral process, going as far as endorsing the regime’s threats against its political opponents. In the run-up to the 2023 election, for instance, it issued a statement claiming that the June 2023 regime amendment to the LEMNA could be used to impose a 20 million riel (US$5,000) fine and prosecute anyone who encouraged voters to spoil their ballots in protest. The NEC has also enabled the regime by accrediting thousands of partisan and fake election monitors to endorse the results of the election.
Incumbent Prime Minister Hun Manet inherited Cambodia’s highest political office from his father without popular support. His administration has not taken steps to improve the electoral landscape, and key opposition forces have remained defunct since he came to power in 2023. Prime Minister Manet oversaw senatorial and local elections in February and May 2024, respectively, which resulted in a sweeping victory for the CPP and excluded major opposition parties such as the Candlelight Party. The polls were held in a significantly restricted civic space, marked by the continued arrests of opposition politicians.
Independent media, political leaders, civil society, and regular people face overt and systematic retaliation if they openly criticize the regime. The Hun Manet administration has perpetuated similar patterns of repression seen under his father’s rule, stifling critical media and civil society alike. An escalating trend of violent attacks against Cambodian dissidents abroad reinforces concerns regarding the deterioration of the civic space.
The regime has shut down major independent media outlets. One of them was The Cambodia Daily, which ceased operations in 2017 after 24 years of operation, after being accused of not paying its tax debt. Along with the Daily, the regime also shut down 15 independent radio stations that aired programs by Radio Free Asia (RFA), Voice of America (VoA), and Voice of Democracy (VoD), all major sources of alternative views on the regime at the time. Ultimately, the regime revoked the operating license of VoD, one of the few remaining independent media, a few months ahead of the 2023 election, after it published a story about Hun Manet that the regime claimed to have “hurt” its reputation. Several local internet service providers (ISPs) blocked access to the outlet’s Khmer- and English-language websites.
The regime has seriously and unfairly obstructed the work of independent, dissenting media, political leaders, civil society leaders, organizations, and regular people. In addition to the forced closure of independent media outlets, journalists face surveillance and threats of criminalization in the course of their work. The Cambodian Journalists Alliance Association (CamboJA) reported 151 harassment cases affecting 281 journalists and media workers between 2020 and 2023. In October 2024, military police arrested award-winning journalist Mech Dara on incitement charges over social media posts he had made exposing alleged corruption by the regime. He was released on bail three weeks later, after a pro-regime media outlet published a video of him asking for the country’s forgiveness. He subsequently announced his intention to quit journalism altogether. Civil society faces similar challenges. The Law on Associations and Non-Governmental Organizations (LANGO), passed in 2015, obliges all foreign and domestic NGOs operating within Cambodia to maintain “political neutrality,” an overbroad term that may expose politically engaged organizations to criminal penalties. In November 2024, a court sentenced human rights defender Koet Saray, president of a local student association that advocates for social development and good governance, to four years’ imprisonment in relation to his visit to a group of villagers evicted from their homes due to a government-backed plantation project. He had faced similar harassment under the Hun Sen administration.
The regime engages in transnational repression against dissidents abroad. Opposition leaders such as Sam Rainsy and CNRP vice president Mu Sochua have been denied entry to Cambodia’s neighboring countries based on explicit regime orders to the relevant governments. Cambodian refugees hiding in Bangkok have reported experiencing increasing levels of surveillance and intimidation by unidentified individuals they believe to be connected to the regime. In January 2025, Lim Kimya, a former opposition lawmaker, was shot dead by a gunman on a motorcycle upon arriving in Bangkok from Siem Reap with his wife and uncle. Thai officials issued arrest warrants for two Cambodian nationals, including a former advisor to Hun Sen, in the aftermath of the assassination.
The regime has seriously and unfairly repressed dissenting protests. Between July and August 2024, Prime Minister Hun Manet oversaw the arrest of more than 94 individuals ahead of planned protests against the Cambodia-Laos-Vietnam Development Triangle Area (CLV-DTA), a trilateral economic agreement criticized by Cambodian civil society for favoring foreign interests above Cambodians. Prime Minister Hun Manet and Senate President Hun Sen leveled threats against organizers of the protests on multiple occasions. Hun Sen also claimed he had “spies” monitoring a Telegram group used by protest organizers. Four activists who livestreamed their criticism of the agreement on Facebook in July were arrested on the same day. The military high command also issued threats against participants through Facebook. The protests nevertheless succeeded in pushing the regime to withdraw from the controversial economic agreement.
Institutions largely or completely fail to serve as independent checks on the regime. All three branches of government are captured and incapable of providing reliable accountability avenues.
The judiciary fails to serve as a check on the regime. Courts have significantly undermined electoral competition by rubber-stamping the dissolution and disqualification of mainstream opposition parties, the CNRP and Candlelight Party. They also meted out harsh sentences and imposed lengthy bans that prevented party members and supporters from carrying out political activities. Following the CNRP’s dissolution, for example, the Supreme Court banned 118 of the party’s members from politics for five years. In cases against prominent opposition figure Sam Rainsy alone, the courts delivered multiple convictions amounting to 47 years’ imprisonment before sentencing him in absentia in October 2022 to life in prison on charges of attempting to cede Cambodian territory to a foreign state. Similarly, at the end of a protracted pre-trial detention and a three-year trial fraught with irregularities, the Phnom Penh Municipal Court sentenced Kem Sokha to 27 years of house arrest in March 2023 for alleged treason. The court ruling further stripped him of his right to stand for election and vote indefinitely. Between November 2020 and December 2022, five mass trials were held for 158 CNRP members and activists. At least four ended in convictions.
Courts have frequently and unfairly failed to check regime attempts to repress criticism or retaliate against those who express open opposition to its most prominent, widely publicized policies. A case in point is Cambodian-American activist and vocal regime critic Theary Seng, who was tried on charges of incitement to create social disorder and conspiracy to commit treason. The prosecution never pinpointed the specific offenses Seng allegedly committed, although the charges were seemingly tied to her online advocacy to preserve Cambodian democracy. Seng’s trial was repeatedly postponed, and judges in the case prohibited her from accessing her case files until she agreed to a court-appointed lawyer. The proceedings dragged on for nearly two years and were marred with other procedural violations, including the abrupt replacement of one of the assigned judges and both the bench and prosecutor repeatedly harassing Seng by banning her foreign counsel from entering the country and forcing her to remove her makeup and symbolic attire while appearing in court. On June 14, 2022, the court sentenced her to six years in prison; her subsequent appeals have been unsuccessful. In July 2024, a court sentenced 10 youth activists from the now-defunct environmental NGO Mother Earth Cambodia to prison terms ranging from six to eight years on charges of “plotting against the government” and insulting the king for their activism. Half of the defendants were convicted in absentia. Mother Earth Cambodia and its members had faced a series of attacks in the past, culminating in its forced closure and its founder, Spanish activist Alejandro Gonzalez-Davidson, being deported and banned from returning to Cambodia.
The regime has subjected judicial, executive, and legislative institutions to reforms that seriously weaken their independence. The Supreme Council of the Magistracy (SCM), a body charged with making judicial appointments, transfers, removals, and disciplinary actions, has long been packed with senior CPP members. In 2014, the regime passed a law that empowers the Minister of Justice to replace the King as chair of the SCM, further undermining its independence. Moreover, the SCM and CPP-controlled National Assembly appoint six of the nine members of the Constitutional Council, which handles all constitutional reviews of legislation. Citizens cannot challenge laws through the Council: only the King, the legislature, and the prime minister may directly request a review of the constitutionality of laws before they are promulgated. All of them, with the addition of courts, may also do so after promulgation. Conversely, according to the Law on the Organization and Function of the Constitutional Council 1998, citizens who wish to challenge the constitutionality of a law must submit their application through a member of the legislature or the President, meaning both parties enjoy considerable latitude to influence how those applications are presented to the Council, which in turn affects the likelihood of their succeeding.
The ruling CPP has near-absolute control over the National Assembly, the bicameral legislature. Over the years, the National Assembly has served to legislate various repressive political agendas that the regime espouses. Most recently, in July 2025, it approved a constitutional amendment that allows the regime to revoke the citizenship of individuals accused of colluding with foreign forces. Prime Minister Hun Manet has indicated that the amendment will be used against those who “oppose the interest of the country,” “conspire with foreign powers,” or “plot to destroy the country.”
A series of constitutional amendments passed by the National Assembly in July 2022 reduced checks and balances in the formation of government and afforded the incumbent prime minister unfettered powers to install a successor of his choosing. Prior to these amendments, the authority to nominate a candidate for prime minister rested with the President and the First and Second Vice-Presidents of the National Assembly—officials themselves elected by an absolute majority—after which the King would invite the nominee to form a government. The changes empower the political party with the most seats to now directly propose the prime minister to the king, while the National Assembly leadership only needs to be notified and not consulted. This new, truncated procedure was introduced amid Hun Sen’s plan to nominate his son Hun Manet as his successor.
