PHNOM PENH: Cambodia on Wednesday closed a prominent American NGO and ordered its foreign staff to leave the country, the latest salvo by Prime Minister Hun Sen against perceived critics before a general election next year.

The order comes a day after the strongman premier threatened The Cambodia Daily, one of the country’s few remaining critical newspapers, with closure over an alleged unpaid tax bill of $6.3 million, calling them “thieves”.

In a statement on Wednesday the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said foreign employees of the National Democratic Institute (NDI) have seven days to leave after the group allegedly failed to formally register or pay correct taxes.

In recent weeks a string of foreign-funded organisations including the NDI have been named in Cambodia’s pro-government press or by officials as facing tax or regulatory probes.

Analysts say the cascade of legal cases is straight from the political playbook of Hun Sen, who has cornered opponents throughout his three-decade rule, in the run-up to elections. Cambodians are due to go to the polls in just under a year in a poll which many expect to be a close-run affair.

Apart from The Cambodia Daily, which is owned by an American, the US-funded Radio Free Asia and Voice of America have also been legally targeted. All have denied wrongdoing and said they are being selected for their independent reporting.

Two Khmer-language radio stations — Maha Nokor and Voice of Democracy — were also ordered to close on Wednesday by the Ministry of Information.

The NDI, which says it works to strengthen democratic institutions worldwide, has been operating in Cambodia since 1992.

In recent weeks pro-government media have accused the organisation of helping Cambodia’s opposition party to try to topple the government.

The NDI, chaired by former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

But they have previously declared themselves as “strictly non-partisan”, adding they also trained many members of Hun Sen’s ruling party.

Published in Dawn, August 24th, 2017