Cambodia, one of Asia's fastest-growing economies, is at a tipping point, amid an environment of volatile politics that threaten to disrupt the country's move to democracy and put its key industry in the firing line. At the center of events is the July murder of a popular political commentator.

 

Government critic and analyst Kem Ley was gunned down in broad daylight at a Phnom Penh coffee shop. A suspect was quickly arrested and confessed to the crime, but speculation has remained high that it was a political assassination. Kem Ley was known for criticizing both sides of Cambodia's polarized political landscape, which is dominated by the ruling Cambodian People's Party (CPP) and the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP), but the lion's share of his reproval was aimed at the former.

 

Widespread protests erupted following his murder, and human rights groups such as Transparency International have called for an independent investigation. "Cambodia's politics have veered dangerously out of control," Joshua Kurlantzick, senior fellow for Southeast Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations, warned in a note last week. "The government's brutal tactics of the 1990s and early 2000s, when political activists were routinely murdered and opposition parties nearly put out of business, have returned."

 

Nyshka Chandran

 

read more http://www.cnbc.com/2016/08/27/kem-lays-murder-puts-cambodia-politics-economy-at-risk-as-unrest-looms.html

  R.I.P. the deceased!