Kingdom’s democracy rank slips

Cambodian democracy regressed last year, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit’s 2015 Democracy Index, which indicates that the Kingdom is “on the cusp of the ‘authoritarian regime’ category”. The index measures five categories – electoral process and pluralism; civil liberties; the functioning of government; political participation; and political culture – none of which saw an improvement over the Kingdom’s 2014 scores.

Cambodia’s ranking, meanwhile, dropped 10 places, to 113 out of 167 countries. EIU attributed the fall to the breakdown of the “culture of dialogue” – the uneasy, short-lived detente between opposition leader Sam Rainsy and Prime Minister Hun Sen – which had boosted the country’s score in 2014. “In Cambodia a 2014 deal between the ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) and the opposition broke down when the government began a crackdown on the opposition in October 2015, prompting a sharp fall in the country’s score and ranking,” according to the report.

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