An apparently complete list of top-ranked ministry officials in the new government has been released by pro-government media, showing a top-heavy and male-dominated bureaucracy.
The set of royal decrees, signed by the king and distributed by Fresh News, contains 1,422 total secretaries and undersecretaries of state in 29 ministries — an average of 49 per ministry, skewing heavily male. Overall, just 15% of the top ministry officials are women, with Defense at the bottom with 4.7% and all but two ministries below 25%.
In what could only be surmised as a tokenistic gesture in a male-dominated bureaucracy, the Women’s Affairs Ministry has 93% senior officials who are women, but are entrusted with the second-lowest budget to tackle Cambodia’s misogynistic society.
The numbers of top-ranked bureaucrats roughly follow the ministries’ budget sizes, though with some outliers: the Education Ministry has the eighth lowest number of secretaries and undersecretaries of state (34) despite having the largest annual budget of $895 million.
The Information Ministry has the fourth highest number of top-ranked officials (69), despite having the sixth lowest budget of $20 million.
Outside the ministries, just one of 29 minister delegates attached to the prime minister is a woman, while only three out of 24 chiefs and deputy chiefs in the prime minister’s cabinet are women.
Among 125 lawmakers, only 16 are women, or 13%, while among 54 cabinet ministers, only three are women — 5.6%.
Kamnotra is indexing the names of the top government officials, and will be releasing the data and highlighting notable individuals on the Succession 2023 page.
| Ministry | Secretaries | Undersecretaries | Women (combined) | % |
| Defense | 44 | 42 | 4 | 4.7% |
| Religion | 33 | 12 | 3 | 6.7% |
| Transport | 30 | 31 | 5 | 8.2% |
| Civil Aviation | 12 | 11 | 2 | 8.7% |
| Planning | 23 | 21 | 4 | 9.1% |
| Interior | 42 | 62 | 10 | 9.6% |
| Agriculture | 25 | 35 | 6 | 10.0% |
| Council of Ministers | 54 | 35 | 9 | 10.1% |
| Industry | 20 | 19 | 4 | 10.3% |
| Finance | 23 | 23 | 5 | 10.9% |
| Education | 14 | 20 | 4 | 11.8% |
| Rural Development | 32 | 26 | 7 | 12.1% |
| Environment | 18 | 23 | 5 | 12.2% |
| Water Resources | 11 | 13 | 3 | 12.5% |
| Tourism | 26 | 16 | 6 | 14.3% |
| Land | 18 | 27 | 7 | 15.6% |
| Information | 30 | 39 | 11 | 15.9% |
| Telecommunications | 21 | 29 | 8 | 16.0% |
| Justice | 16 | 14 | 5 | 16.7% |
| Social Affairs | 31 | 38 | 12 | 17.4% |
| Mines and Energy | 19 | 13 | 6 | 18.8% |
| Civil Services | 22 | 29 | 10 | 19.6% |
| Foreign Affairs | 19 | 16 | 7 | 20.0% |
| Health | 35 | 19 | 11 | 20.4% |
| Culture | 14 | 15 | 6 | 20.7% |
| Labor | 32 | 23 | 12 | 21.8% |
| Commerce | 36 | 17 | 13 | 24.5% |
| National Assembly-Senate Relations | 18 | 9 | 8 | 29.6% |
| Women’s Affairs | 15 | 12 | 25 | 92.6% |
| Total (29 ministries) | 733 | 689 | 218 | 15.3% |