Phnom Penh - the atmosphere felt electric on June 4, 2017. Life halted when all public activities were suddenly canceled by a government decree, as the national elections marked the opposition party's first chance of overruling Cambodia's utterly undemocratic and authoritarian regime in four decades. Prime Minister Hun Sen, who has been in power since 1985--making him the world's longest-serving Prime Minister--has ruled the small and poor nation of South East Asia with a hand of steel. Violence, oppression and political repression have become the norm in what has been three decades of aggravating authoritarian rule. 

With the opposition party facing its first true opening to regain traction and political power (accompanied by wide and strong political support across the nation), the government's response has proved to be more reactionary and tyrannical than ever before. Hun Sen would claim shortly before the elections, that any political successes in the opposition would warrant an all-out war, maybe leading to the death of thousands. 

Marked by a history of genocide and mass murder committed by the state, Cambodia sees the concerning regression of its social and political apparatuses in what is an increasingly authoritarian regime. Some of those most affected by this are also the most disregarded. In the slums of Phnom Penh, a heritage of the Khmer Rouge regime, inhabitants take the brunt of this uncertainty.