Cambodia's progress has been stalled

A ferry service transports passengers and vehicles across the Bassac River in Phnom Penh earlier this month. Over the past three decades, the once civil war-torn country has become a force to be reckoned with in the region. (Photo: AFP)

The situation in Cambodia can perhaps be described as straddling a testament and a predicament. The testament is the 30th anniversary of the Paris Peace Agreements (October 1991) which brought peace to the country after a long period of warfare and the "recent tragic past". It established a pivotal framework for human rights, democracy and sustainable development in the country.

Yet, those aspirations are far from being fulfilled due to an all-pervasive predicament, namely, the monopolisation of power by the ruling elite and constraints imposed, particularly on civil and political rights, undermining the quest for democracy, most evidently in the past decade.