Asia's pickle with people power
By Chietigj Bajpaee
Most of Asia's democracies emerged after waves of "people's-power" struggles -
which often led authoritarian regimes to yield power anyway - but it appears
that these countries have now developed an over-reliance on protest as an
engine for change, rather than trust being placed in the democratic process.
In Thailand, former prime minister Samak Sundaravej was last week forced to
resign for accepting a trivial honorarium for appearing on a weekly cooking
show. He had faced weeks of street protests by the People's Alliance for
Democracy (PAD) against his pledge to amend the military-drafted constitution,
charges of electoral misconduct during the polls in December 2007 and claims
that he and his People's Power Party (PPP) are
puppets for former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra.
Contrast this with the electorates of the United States, United Kingdom and
Australia, which voiced their protest against the costly decision by their
governments to wage war with Iraq through the normal electoral process, rather
than toppling the governments amid a wave of "people's power" protests.
Although placing the blame on people's power for the upheaval in Thailand is to
put aside more specific issues fueling instability - namely the uneasy division
of power between the legislature, judiciary, military and monarchy - Thailand
is only the latest in a string of Asian countries to experience political
instabilities fueled by people's power.
Despite being recently elected with a strong popular mandate, both Taiwanese
President Ma ying-Jeou and South Korean President Lee Myung-bak have faced
protests over issues that appear to have generated more popular discontent than
is warranted.
In South Korea's case, the resumption of US beef imports amid concerns over mad
cow disease, and in Taiwan's case, reviving the economy and Ma's conciliatory
approach toward China. While none of the sources of instability in these
countries are insignificant, the responses appear excessive.
Civilian dictatorships vs precarious coalitions
A second dilemma plaguing Asian democracies is their continued oscillation
between regimes led by leaders seen as dictatorial strongmen, as in the case of
former Japanese prime minister Junichiro Koizumi and former prime minister
Thaksin Shinawatra, and governments that are too weak and prone to collapse,
such as Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda's rule in Japan and Samak's government in
Thailand.
In Japan, Fukuda resigned this month over issues relating to the country's
economic slowdown, a string of scandals over healthcare and pensions, and the
deployment of refueling vessels to the Indian Ocean in support of international
coalition operations in Afghanistan.
Fukuda's resignation after only a year in office follows the resignation in
September 2007 of Shinzo Abe, who was also only in office for a year. This
instability in Japan is fueled by the opposition Democratic Party of Japan
(DPJ)'s control of the parliament's Upper House and the nation's attempts to
emerge as a "normal country" by escaping the shackles of its pacifist
constitution.
On the other hand, states such as Singapore under Lee Kuan Yew, Malaysia
under Mahathir Mohammad and Indonesia under Suharto were regarded as models
of stability, albeit with a lack of accountability and transparency. However,
as we witnessed in the case of Indonesia after Suharto and Malaysia's recent tensions
amid the political comeback of Anwar Ibrahim, the departure of strongmen often
paves the wave for growing instability.
Feudal patronage and dynastic politics
Related to this is the fact that there appears a tendency to either place the
politician on a pedestal, where he or she is deified as a father figure, or
demonize him or her as corrupt and beyond redemption.
Feudal patronage and dynastic politics continue to permeate Asian democracies,
including its more established democracies such as India and Japan. The most
extreme manifestation of this has been in South Asia, where despite military
coups in both Bangladesh and Pakistan - which were partially justified on the
grounds of clamping down on corruption and reforming the political system - the
same political dynasties continue to dominate the political sphere.
The continued prominence of the Sharif and Bhutto families in Pakistan, the
Nehru-Gandhi family in India, the Bandaranaike-Kumaratunga family in Sri Lanka
and the Mujibur Rehman-Sheikh Hasina and Ziaur Rahman-Khaleda Zia families in
Bangladesh, demonstrates the dominance of hereditary politics in Asia.
Rise of 'third fronts'
Attributing these anomalies to particular forms of democracy fails to provide
an adequate explanation, as the region is home to a plethora of democratic
systems ranging from presidential to parliamentary, and everything in between.
Rather, the answer appears to lie in Asian culture and history or so-called
"Asian values" whereby the combination of the fact that Western democracy is
still in its infancy in the region, while the identities of some nation-states
remain malleable, set the stage for an unstable political climate.
However, these fissures may give way to reveal more sustainable and
representative democracies, as the rise of alternative power centers often
brings an end to dynastic politics. In Japan, the DPJ is emerging as a viable
challenger to the monopoly of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), which has led
for the past 50 years.
In Thailand, the inability of the Democrat Party to emerge as viable opposition
to the pro-Thaksin Thai Rak Thai party and its successor the PPP, has left the
PAD to fill this void, although its democratic credentials have been undermined
by its links to the military, the fact that it is not a political party, and
its calls for an increase in the number of non-elected MPs in the parliament.
Instabilities in Indian politics, as demonstrated by the trend of
anti-incumbency, reflect the country's attempts to escape the shackles of the
Congress Party's 50-year domination and its competition with the Bharatiya
Janata Party, which has emerged over the past decade. India is experiencing the
rise of a potential "third front" comprising the left front and sub-national
parties, which provide greater representation of the country's lower caste,
tribal and other traditionally oppressed groups.
The rise of alternative power bases in Asian democracies which are
representative of their populations will help ensure stability, signal a break
from dynastic politics and feudal patronage, and deter populations from
circumventing the normal political process and resort to "people's power" to
make their voices heard.
Chietigj Bajpaee is a research analyst for Asia in the Country
Intelligence Group at Global Insight. He has been a research associate for the
Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, DC, a research
assistant for the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies
and risk analyst for a New York-based risk management company. The views here
are his own. He can be reached at cbajpaee@hotmail.com.
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