[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index ][Thread Index ]

NEWS - MORE AND MORE, THE PEOPLE GE



Subject: NEWS - MORE AND MORE, THE PEOPLE GET THEIR SAY : Democracy in Asia

will become increasingly deep-rooted
To: burmanet-l@xxxxxxxxxxx
X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Pro Version 4.0.2 
X-Sender: strider@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

MORE AND MORE, THE PEOPLE GET THEIR SAY

Democracy in Asia will become increasingly deep-rooted

By Anastasia Stanmeyer ASIAWEEK  -  Aug. 20/27 edition

ANCIENT ATHENS HAD THE world's first democracy. Everybody had a vote.
Except women,
slaves, beggars and people below 30. Clearly, the Greek model could use
some fixes. The same
goes for modern-day Asia, many of whose nations are still a long way
from establishing genuinely
democratic cultures. Democracy gives people not only the right to vote,
but also political and civil
rights to fulfill their needs. It allows rich and poor, weak and strong,
equal priority and justice.

By those yardsticks, will Asia become truly, deeply democratic? Not in
the next decade or two, say
political pundits. Take a look. India's democracy is vigorous and
rambunctious, but also extremely
volatile. It has produced three governments in three years, as well as
one of Asia's more corrupt
societies. The Philippines and Thailand still must deal with military
and land-owning interests that
keep many people poor. Singapore and Malaysia have the form, but not the
essence, of democracy.
Like Japan, they have returned the same parties to power virtually
uninterrupted since
Independence, and one key reason is that the opposition has been kept
weak. Indonesia? It has
taken a baby step toward rule of the people. Myanmar hasn't even begun
to crawl. Nor is Cambodia
much better off. There, a virulent civil war and Khmer Rouge savagery
have badly eroded the
political and economic institutions "without which one cannot even begin
to talk of democracy," notes
Joel Rocamora of Manila's Institute for Popular Democracy.

Even so, indications are that democracy will ultimately bloom in Asia.
The region has taken great
strides toward liberalization in recent decades, and the pace is likely
to quicken in the new
millennium. Despite early Greek theorizing, only in the 20th century has
democracy come to be
considered the "normal" form of government, argued Nobel laureate and
economist Amartya Sen at a
World Bank conference on democracy in Seoul earlier this year. Suffrage
became universal just this
century, as women in newly independent Asian countries like India, the
Philippines and Malaysia got
the vote.

Some experts believe that one person, one vote will spread even to
China, spurred by economic
progress. The communist nation will become a representative democracy
around 2015, predicted
Henry Rowen of Stanford University's Hoover Institute. Citing Rowen's
theory, former Philippine
presidential security adviser Jose Almonte has said that Beijing's
efforts to build a rule of law as the
basis for doing business, and the erosion of its control of information
organs, are crucial changes
spurring political transformation. "That the state still penalizes
individual dissent so heavily seems a
sign of how shaky the foundations of central control have become,"
Almonte adds. Other analysts
disagree. They believe that while Beijing will allow the Chinese more
freedoms, it will always counter
threats to stability.

The prognosis for Indonesia is a bit clearer and more positive,
especially after the country's June 7
polls. As a democratic exercise, the elections were a small, if
historic, step. But the new government
is under great pressure to install liberal institutions. Megawati
Sukarnoputri's Indonesian Democratic
Party of Struggle finished first with 34% of the votes, though it must
work with other parties to form a
coalition government. The new president is supposed to be chosen in
November, and Muslim parties
have major reservations about a woman leader. But the real test -and the
key to democracy's future
in Indonesia - is how well the new government can deliver a better
standard of living.

In Malaysia, the government of Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad is more
powerful than that of
President B.J. Habibie in Indonesia. "Although more of a mess, Indonesia
is now much more
democratic," argues Rocamora. The sacking and jailing of former deputy
premier Anwar Ibrahim for
abuse of power has raised doubts about political freedom in Malaysia.
The reformasi movement that
has surged with Anwar's tribulations could herald a livelier democracy.
And the upcoming general
election could provide pointers to the prospects for liberalization.
However the polls go, once
Mahathir leaves, his successors will have a harder time keeping the lid
on reform.

For Thailand and the Philippines, the challenge isn't in maintaining
formal democracies, but freeing
them from elitist control. In the Philippines, the ruling powers are
able to exert pressure on the mass
media and maybe rewrite the Constitution to serve their own ends.
Thailand has moved beyond its
military regime with tight control over the provinces, to a democracy
giving them greater autonomy.
Yet the provinces are still run by corrupt warlords wielding much
economic power. Thailand's
constitutional reforms are laudable, but its democratic paradoxes will
not be removed until Thai
society becomes more egalitarian and its wealth is more evenly
distributed. That is not likely to
happen anytime soon.

So what is spurring democracy in Asia? Global trends aside, it's the
economic crisis. U.S. political
scientist Francis Fukuyama believes that the region is being drawn into
convergence with Western
liberalism because of economic turmoil. Fukuyama, author of The End of
History and the Last Man, a
seminal work on democracy's triumph after the Cold War, argued at the
Seoul conference that the
Crisis "has led to the unconditional defeat of the Japanese economic
model of state-led
development." It has also cast doubts on the growth-boosting credentials
of Asian authoritarianism -
long its main claim to legitimacy.

It is a sobering lesson for countries that sacrificed democratic
principles in the pursuit of
development. For others, the chances for political freedom have
increased as they have become
wealthier. According to Pei Minxin, a China analyst and former Princeton
University professor, rising
affluence tends to make countries remain free longer. So while
Thailand's democracy may be
immature, at least it is there to stay, Pei believes. With a per-capita
income of $6,000 in
purchasing-power parity, Thailand is unlikely to see its democracy
reversed. (PPP provides a more
comparable measure of wealth.) By the same calculation, the Philippines,
with a per-capita PPP of
$2,000-$3,000, is ensured democracy for another 26 years, while
Cambodia, with $1,000, can hope
for at least eight years.

Poverty alleviation has become the buzzword of liberal politics. Leading
the movement are
non-government organizations, or NGOs - local or foreign groups offering
humanitarian aid or empowering individuals. Their
numbers are growing, and their key role in democratic development has
only recently been recognized. They're clenching
fists for women's rights, battling big business to ban logging, and
teaching AIDS awareness to migrant workers. Over the
next decade and beyond, the relationship between government and civil
society will continue along current trends.
Throughout Asia, governments are ceding power to the private sector,
including NGOs, sometimes by choice, often by
necessity, states Peter Geithner of the Asia-Pacific Philanthropic
Consortium. Government's declining role is opening up
space for both business and the non-profit sector to expand. The market,
not the government, is seen as the engine of
development.

Most important is the prospect of pulling the government's sticky
fingers out of certain pies, as that would diminish the
proclivity for corruption. In the Philippines, for example, the opening
up of major sectors such as banking and
telecommunications has reduced the scope for graft. If democratic
principles had been followed in Indonesia, cronyism may
not have taken such a deeply rooted and menacing hold. And if India's
government had kept its nose out of business and
trade, petty corruption may not have so blighted that country's
democracy. But there is hope. More public participation
should heighten Asia's sense of the common good and democratic justice.
And greater economic rewards should make it all
the more worthwhile.

                                               VOTING VIA THE INTERNET

You are already late for work. You quickly log into your computer to
check messages. A memo appears on your desktop that
it's election day for Hong Kong's legislature, so you click into the
voting website, pull up a ballot, mark your vote and add
your signature, all electronically. Two minutes later, you're out the
door. When you return home that evening, you log in
again and check the government website for final election results. They
were calculated swiftly, accurately - and with an
80% voter turnout.

Governments are now considering computerized voting. Its convenience is
bound to boost the votes cast in an election,
says a spokesman for Hong Kong's constitutional affairs bureau. In North
America, people are already registering to vote by
computer. U.S.-based Election Systems and Software Inc. says that
besides Internet voting, people will eventually be
casting ballots by telephone and interactive TV. Constituents can be
virtually anywhere in the world and not miss an
election.

Such new technologies can also be used to conduct electronic referendums
on key issues. But some problems remain to be
ironed out, notably authenticating ballots and maintaining
confidentiality. Maybe a special pin number could be used for
each individual, or "smart cards" issued with a magnetically encoded
strip or hologram. There has been talk about using
biometrics for authentication, including fingerprints, voice and eye
scans. Solutions are likely to be found before long,
certainly early in the new millennium.