Under Construction: Southeast Asia's Struggle for Democracy
Manila - 20 September 2006: The military action against Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra has raised questions about political stability and the state of democracy in Southeast Asia. Once coup prone, Thailand had been free of such purges for 15 years. Thaksin’s overthrow has emboldened the opposition in the Philippines, where President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo has been dogged by controversy since she came to power in January 2001 after demonstrations dislodged predecessor Joseph Estrada. Arroyo retained the presidency after elections in 2004, but critics accused her of cheating. She has survived two impeachment motions. Arroyo supporters insist she will not face the same fate as Thaksin.
With political crises in two countries considered to be among the most democratic in Southeast Asia, is stability in the region under threat? Or is the turmoil a sign of real democracy emerging?
Politics in some Southeast Asian countries have been remarkably volatile in recent years. In the Philippines in 1986, the original “people power” forced the departure of Ferdinand Marcos into exile. Indonesia, the largest country in ASEAN, is on its fourth president since strongman Suharto stepped down eight years ago. Malaysia had its own burst of excitement in 1998 with the sacking and subsequent jailing of then-prime minister Mahathir Mohamad’s deputy, Anwar Ibrahim. Mahathir retired in 2003 and was replaced by Abdullah Badawi, but the former PM has recently been openly critical of his successor. In Cambodia, persistent strains between Prime Minister Hun Sen and his opponents have resulted in tension and violence.
In some ASEAN countries, of course, stability has been the rule. Singapore’s formidable People’s Action Party has stayed in power for decades by delivering good governance and impressive economic results, while facing a feeble and disadvantaged opposition. Other regimes have maintained order through patently brutal means. In Myanmar, the ruling military junta has held opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi under house arrest for years, while Laos and Vietnam have tight controls on political activity. In all three, however, there have been occasional episodes of unrest.
Southeast Asian democracy is still a work in progress. As U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice put it on a recent visit to Indonesia, “every young democracy in Southeast Asia now faces a challenge: building democratic institutions that function transparently and accountably.” Says Donald Emmerson, director of the Southeast Asia Forum at the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center of Stanford University: “The most liberal-democratic country in the region is Indonesia. In future, disillusionment with the leaders and actions of elected governments could engender mass protests in Jakarta along the lines of what we have seen in Bangkok and Manila. Weaknesses in Indonesia’s economy are of particular concern. But for now at least, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s domestic opposition is not strong enough to unseat him from the streets.”
Few Southeast Asia watchers are ready to connect the dots between Thailand and the Philippines. “One should be careful about finding a common pattern,” warns economist Manu Bhaskaran, CEO of Centennial Asia Advisors, the Singapore arm of Washington-based policy and strategic advisory firm Centennial Group. Ideally, says Bhaskaran, the coup in Thailand should have been avoided, but such turbulence should be seen as “part of the maturing process of politics. The elite and middle class found some of the previous government’s practices unacceptable and were taking a stand so that their democracy can function better. They want a democracy in which checks and balances are effective enough to ensure that even a popularly elected prime minister plays by the rules. If the current troubles eventually produce a system with strengthened independent institutions, then it would have produced a good result for the longer term.” The coup is different from those that have typically plagued African and Latin American countries in the past, Bhaskaran argues. The Philippines, he reckons, “has an unfinished revolution to see through and until that happens and produces a system less dominated by a narrow and rapacious elite, there will be continuous instability.”
Could instability be contagious? No, says Michael Yeoh, CEO and Director of the Asian Strategy and Leadership Institute in Kuala Lumpur. “If the crises linger, there could be a possible decline in business or investor confidence in the specific countries.” But Southeast Asia, Yeoh insists, is moving “towards democratization and liberalization, with the exception of Myanmar. The political trend is definitely towards improved governance, and good governance contributes to political maturity and stability in the region.”
Bhaskaran agrees. “The overall picture is not all bad,” he argues. Indonesia has gone through an admirable transition to democracy, however imperfect. Malaysia is reviving democratic practices under its popular prime minister. Vietnam, meanwhile, has been very stable, with a political system that is improving gradually. While corruption may be widespread, the government has pushed through reforms and is trying its best to improve the lot of its citizens. “A country which has seen through a remarkable freeing of economic activity and which has created massive new opportunities for its people while still maintaining peace and order can’t be that bad in terms of governance, can it?” asks Bhaskaran.
Stanford’s Emmerson is willing to consider a brewing trend. “The turbulence that Thais and Filipinos are experiencing cannot be understood except in the context of an already fairly longstanding electoral democracy whose results have disappointed a significant portion of its capital-city constituency, which is demographically a minority but politically influential.” The lesson to be learned, he believes, is that “so-called people power is not something that only an authoritarian regime need worry about. It can threaten seemingly corrupt leaders in relatively democratic systems. If it worsens and drags on, instability in Thailand and the Philippines may also, in the larger region, undercut the legitimacy of democracy conceived in terms of procedure rather than performance. Especially sobering in this context is the irony of a military coup in Thailand undertaken ostensibly to prevent the abuse of power.”
There is another key lesson that applies to Southeast Asia and elsewhere – Iraq, the Ukraine, Lebanon and Russia spring to mind – where institutions may be in place, but democracy has only begun to grow: lower expectations. “We may need to give up the idea that democracy and democratic institutions promise to be a silver bullet and to resolve conflict,” explains Southeast Asia specialist Vince Boudreau, director of the Colin Powell Center for Policy Studies at the City College of New York. “Democratic institutions in fact make explicit and public fights over the distribution of political and economic resources. If we give up the illusion, we won’t be surprised when a deeply divided Philippine elite use and subvert democratic institutions as a way of struggling with one another.”
Indeed, Southeast Asia’s struggle to shape working, balanced societies amid longstanding political, ethnic, social and clan divisions and rivalries will continue for some time. That is democracy – under construction.
With political crises in two countries considered to be among the most democratic in Southeast Asia, is stability in the region under threat? Or is the turmoil a sign of real democracy emerging?
Politics in some Southeast Asian countries have been remarkably volatile in recent years. In the Philippines in 1986, the original “people power” forced the departure of Ferdinand Marcos into exile. Indonesia, the largest country in ASEAN, is on its fourth president since strongman Suharto stepped down eight years ago. Malaysia had its own burst of excitement in 1998 with the sacking and subsequent jailing of then-prime minister Mahathir Mohamad’s deputy, Anwar Ibrahim. Mahathir retired in 2003 and was replaced by Abdullah Badawi, but the former PM has recently been openly critical of his successor. In Cambodia, persistent strains between Prime Minister Hun Sen and his opponents have resulted in tension and violence.
In some ASEAN countries, of course, stability has been the rule. Singapore’s formidable People’s Action Party has stayed in power for decades by delivering good governance and impressive economic results, while facing a feeble and disadvantaged opposition. Other regimes have maintained order through patently brutal means. In Myanmar, the ruling military junta has held opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi under house arrest for years, while Laos and Vietnam have tight controls on political activity. In all three, however, there have been occasional episodes of unrest.
Southeast Asian democracy is still a work in progress. As U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice put it on a recent visit to Indonesia, “every young democracy in Southeast Asia now faces a challenge: building democratic institutions that function transparently and accountably.” Says Donald Emmerson, director of the Southeast Asia Forum at the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center of Stanford University: “The most liberal-democratic country in the region is Indonesia. In future, disillusionment with the leaders and actions of elected governments could engender mass protests in Jakarta along the lines of what we have seen in Bangkok and Manila. Weaknesses in Indonesia’s economy are of particular concern. But for now at least, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s domestic opposition is not strong enough to unseat him from the streets.”
Few Southeast Asia watchers are ready to connect the dots between Thailand and the Philippines. “One should be careful about finding a common pattern,” warns economist Manu Bhaskaran, CEO of Centennial Asia Advisors, the Singapore arm of Washington-based policy and strategic advisory firm Centennial Group. Ideally, says Bhaskaran, the coup in Thailand should have been avoided, but such turbulence should be seen as “part of the maturing process of politics. The elite and middle class found some of the previous government’s practices unacceptable and were taking a stand so that their democracy can function better. They want a democracy in which checks and balances are effective enough to ensure that even a popularly elected prime minister plays by the rules. If the current troubles eventually produce a system with strengthened independent institutions, then it would have produced a good result for the longer term.” The coup is different from those that have typically plagued African and Latin American countries in the past, Bhaskaran argues. The Philippines, he reckons, “has an unfinished revolution to see through and until that happens and produces a system less dominated by a narrow and rapacious elite, there will be continuous instability.”
Could instability be contagious? No, says Michael Yeoh, CEO and Director of the Asian Strategy and Leadership Institute in Kuala Lumpur. “If the crises linger, there could be a possible decline in business or investor confidence in the specific countries.” But Southeast Asia, Yeoh insists, is moving “towards democratization and liberalization, with the exception of Myanmar. The political trend is definitely towards improved governance, and good governance contributes to political maturity and stability in the region.”
Bhaskaran agrees. “The overall picture is not all bad,” he argues. Indonesia has gone through an admirable transition to democracy, however imperfect. Malaysia is reviving democratic practices under its popular prime minister. Vietnam, meanwhile, has been very stable, with a political system that is improving gradually. While corruption may be widespread, the government has pushed through reforms and is trying its best to improve the lot of its citizens. “A country which has seen through a remarkable freeing of economic activity and which has created massive new opportunities for its people while still maintaining peace and order can’t be that bad in terms of governance, can it?” asks Bhaskaran.
Stanford’s Emmerson is willing to consider a brewing trend. “The turbulence that Thais and Filipinos are experiencing cannot be understood except in the context of an already fairly longstanding electoral democracy whose results have disappointed a significant portion of its capital-city constituency, which is demographically a minority but politically influential.” The lesson to be learned, he believes, is that “so-called people power is not something that only an authoritarian regime need worry about. It can threaten seemingly corrupt leaders in relatively democratic systems. If it worsens and drags on, instability in Thailand and the Philippines may also, in the larger region, undercut the legitimacy of democracy conceived in terms of procedure rather than performance. Especially sobering in this context is the irony of a military coup in Thailand undertaken ostensibly to prevent the abuse of power.”
There is another key lesson that applies to Southeast Asia and elsewhere – Iraq, the Ukraine, Lebanon and Russia spring to mind – where institutions may be in place, but democracy has only begun to grow: lower expectations. “We may need to give up the idea that democracy and democratic institutions promise to be a silver bullet and to resolve conflict,” explains Southeast Asia specialist Vince Boudreau, director of the Colin Powell Center for Policy Studies at the City College of New York. “Democratic institutions in fact make explicit and public fights over the distribution of political and economic resources. If we give up the illusion, we won’t be surprised when a deeply divided Philippine elite use and subvert democratic institutions as a way of struggling with one another.”
Indeed, Southeast Asia’s struggle to shape working, balanced societies amid longstanding political, ethnic, social and clan divisions and rivalries will continue for some time. That is democracy – under construction.
posted by globophobe at 28.10.06
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