Cambodia’s political system in 2025 still runs through a single center of power. Human Rights Watch summarizes the reality in one line: “Cambodia remains a single-party state with fixed and controlled elections, with the ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) controlling all state institutions, including the judiciary.” The same report documents continuing harassment and prosecutions of critics, at home and abroad. That is the frame through which to read the year’s major events in the executive, the legislature, the courts, and the media. Inside the executive, titles have changed but authority has not dispersed. Hun Sen’s shift to the Senate did not remove him from the state’s command chain; it rewired the system to keep him close to the levers. As the Associated Press reminds readers, “the Senate President serves as active head of state when the king is absent from the country.” That constitutional fact matters in a state where the monarchy often travels and where political signals from the top still carry great weight. In a letter dated August 4, 2025, King Norodom Sihamini has granted Hun Sen permission to oversee the nation’s armed forces and to communicate with his son- Prime Minister Hun Manet- on the military and national defense matters, amid increasing border tension with Thailand.
The July 2025 border crisis with Thailand made this visible. Reuters reported that Hun Sen, though no longer prime minister, was at the helm of the response, “directing military responses, reviewing battlefield maps, and participating in video calls with military officers.” In a moment of real danger, the public saw where final decisions still flow. Prime Minister Hun Manet later fronted diplomacy, but the crisis confirmed that executive power remains concentrated in the same family network.
In the legislature, the CPP’s dominance, secured after the main opposition party was excluded from the 2023 ballot, has enabled swift passage of laws that narrow political space. On August 25, 2025, parliament approved a measure to strip citizenship from people convicted of treason or collusion with foreign powers. Reuters’ straight description is stark enough, “the law will allow people convicted of treason to be stripped of their citizenship.” Critics warn the language is vague and easily aimed at dissent. The vote count overwhelming in a chamber controlled by one party shows how rule-making follows power rather than public debate.
Courts are supposed to check such moves. Instead, international benchmarks register a judiciary that rarely restrains the ruling party. The World Justice Project’s Rule of Law Index puts Cambodia at 141st of 142 countries in 2024, last in East Asia and the Pacific. The ranking reflects weak constraints on government power, politicized law enforcement, and poor civil justice, precisely the conditions under which political prosecutions move fast and sensitive corruption cases stall. These are not abstract numbers; they are the everyday explanation for why opposition figures and activists face group trials while well-connected defendants face lighter scrutiny.
Civic space and media freedom complete the picture. The CIVICUS Monitor rates Cambodia’s civic space “Repressed,” citing 2025 cases against activists, journalists, and opposition voices. Reporters Without Borders ranks Cambodia 161st of 180 in its 2025 World Press Freedom Index; the country page records fresh incidents of arrest and judicial pressure on reporters. A press that works under threat cannot do the basic job of informing voters and scrutinizing power, and a fearful civil society cannot provide the independent expertise that good policy needs.
Family power is no longer whispered; it is policy. Freedom House’s 2025 report calls the handover from father to son an “undemocratic transfer of power,” adding that Hun Sen “effectively retains most political power in the country.” Earlier, the Associated Press noted the National Assembly’s approval of Hun Manet’s younger brother, Hun Many, as a deputy prime minister, part of a wider pattern in which children and relatives of senior CPP figures step into top roles. Such consolidation does not just boost a family’s profile; it binds the executive, legislative, and administrative chains to the same households, making impartial oversight much harder.
The costs of this one-party, family-centered model are visible across public life. When the same circle writes the laws, runs the security apparatus, and faces few judicial checks, rights become permissions and freedoms become privileges. Press rankings slide because reporters weigh legal risks before publishing. Civic space shrinks because activists expect surveillance or summonses. Elections lose credibility because the competition is filtered before ballots are printed. And when crises strike, from border clashes to economic shocks, the state’s response reflects central command, not open institutional debate.
Defenders of the system argue that Cambodia needs order, not contestation, and that strong continuity has kept the peace. But stability built on silence is brittle. The July fighting on the Thai border, the nationality-revocation law, and the continuing prosecutions of critics show how easily concentrated power defaults to coercive tools. Even when the government secures short-term compliance, it sacrifices the long-term trust that comes from rules applied equally and institutions that can say “no.”
If Cambodia is to widen rights and raise public confidence, the path is no mystery. It begins with allowing genuine competition, restoring opposition parties to the ballot and redrawing election rules to be fair in law and practice. It requires returning parliament to its role as a forum for scrutiny instead of a rubber stamp, including meaningful hearings on laws with rights consequences, such as the new nationality provisions. It depends on a judiciary that is insulated from party control and can adjudicate politically sensitive cases without fear. And it needs a media climate where reporters do not face arrest or ruin for accurate, critical coverage. The benchmarks used by outside observers, World Justice Project, Reporters Without Borders, CIVICUS, Freedom House, are not ends in themselves. They are simple measures of whether institutions restrain power and protect people, or whether power continues to bend institutions to its will. Cambodia’s 2025 record still points in one direction. Power remains tightly held, rights and freedoms are limited, and family networks sit at the top. The quotes are sober and recent: “single-party state and control of all state institutions,” from Human Rights Watch; “Senate President serves as active head of state when the king is absent,” from the Associated Press; “ranks 141st out of 142,” from the World Justice Project; “161st out of 180,” from Reporters Without Borders; and “undemocratic transfer of power,” from Freedom House. None of them describe a system confident enough to spread power or strong enough to be questioned. Until that changes, the title of this essay will continue to describe the country: One-Party Government: Concentrated Power, Restricted Freedoms, and the Exaltation of Family over Law.
