Cambodia in 2022: An Era Nears its End, A New One Dawns

Cambodia in 2022 was at the crossroads of the past and the future. Preparations were under way for the imminent power handover to a new generation of Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) leaders, most of whom are scions of the incumbent government. The era of the military fighter generation of CPP leaders led by Prime Minister Hun Sen was drawing to an end, which necessitated the reflection on and the construction of their legacy. Cambodia’s first parliamentary term (2018–23) under the one-party rule of the CPP was also approaching its closure, raising questions surrounding the future competitiveness of electoral politics. The resurrection of the Candlelight Party, which gained 22 per cent of the vote in local elections in June, raised the prospect of a return to limited electoral competition. The year 2022 also marked a feat by the CPP leadership: it had successfully turned what had been an unpopular government at the start of the electoral term into a widely accepted one towards the end of the term. Fortified by what was largely seen as its successful COVID-19 management and ASEAN chairmanship, the government had earned much political capital domestically and internationally. The CPP leadership thus came out of a year of mass trials and convictions of political opponents with its legitimacy significantly bolstered.