What is democracy actually? Is it solely about who to be voted for the next presidential election round? Is it only about the rights to speak up? Before going more rooted to the discussion on Southeast Asian democracy, we should take our first step by having a firm definition of democracy itself.
Democracy is a system of government where the people or all citizens are given accesses to exercise their power by electing their leaders under a free and direct electoral method and to ensure further those elected leaders are capable of running the policies. The term democracy is derived from Greek whose direct meaning is similar to “government by the people”. So, it is not only about voting and ends the whole story; since the voting itself marks the beginning of the people to observe the accountability of the leaders further and to look more at the functioning democracies itself.
Southeast Asian countries do not have the same pattern regarding the evolution of democracy. One of the contributing factors to the diverse natures of democracy in the region is the type of regime. Benjamin Reilly, the Dean of Sir Walter Murdoch School of Public Policy and International Affairs, Murdoch University, classifies the regimes in Southeast Asia as follows:
Regimes in both Vietnam and Laos are dominated by the power of one Communist party, the regime of Thailand is still under the military forces, Singapore and Malaysia are ruled by quasi-democracies. Brunei should be satisfied with its single monarchy, Myanmar is quite similar to Thailand, but its military is more transitional, while countries like the Philippines, East Timor, and Indonesia are known for their multi-party democracy.
Even though the pattern of the regimes does not have something to do with the effectiveness of democracy, but it potentially possesses a serious challenge when it comes to diverse societies regarding and ethnics.
To back up the argument, Seymour Lipset in his work titled Some Social Requisites of Democracy mentions, in a broader global context, democracy is often correlated with human development including the literacy rates, access to public goods and services, and the level of educational attainment. This is partly because, as the country develops, the middle class in the country also grows and would demand the roles in the ruling regimes. Thus, a generalised political approach to democracy might be challenging in the context of Southeast Asian regimes.
The Economist Intelligent Unit published the 2017 Southeast Asian Democratic Index based on at least five measurements, namely the process of election and the level of pluralism in it, citizens’ political participation, culture of politics, the government system functioning, and civil liberties. The index is presented below without the access to gain information of the system in Brunei:
Southeast Asian Democratic Index 2017 (table from aspistrategist.org.au)As the index indicates that none of the Southeast Asian countries truly exercise full democracy, it is argued that the wave of democracy in Southeast Asia is entering the daunting stage—not to mention that the 2017 index shows a worsening condition compared to the index established in 2016. If we trace to the record we can recall a few years back, many have happened in Southeast Asia countries regarding democracy.
In 2017, after President of Singapore Halimah Yacob was elected, many people join the crowds at Hong Lim Park, Singapore to deliver the protest against the presidential election process. Halimah, who has limited financial experience, was automatically chosen as the President—after the disqualification of the two other candidates, following the rapid changes by the constitution to warrant that its eighth president should be from Malay, an ethnic minority group in Singapore.
As reported by Asia Times, Tan Cheng Bock, one of the disqualified candidates stated in a Facebook post, “It is not President Halimah as a Halimah as a person that Singaporeans are unhappy about. It is about the way our government has conducted this whole walkover presidential election”, after congratulating her.
It seems the attempt of the government of Singapore to ensure that the commitment to embrace multiracialism in the country has been exaggerating and lead to the unsatisfied citizens.
Another case is the Philippines. Years ago, the country was known for its good track record in implementing democracy, which can be seen through the conduction of free elections in 1946 and how the country showed that people power could peacefully cease the suppressive power under Marcos regime in 1986 though EDSA Revolution. The crisis of Philippine democracy revolves around the issues of poverty, corruption, and electoral fraud.
Nowadays elections in Philippine mostly contain the practices of “buying and selling” votes for the candidates to get electoral nominations. One of the most known elective fraud cases was in 2011 when the former Philippine president, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo was charged with electoral fraud and corruption as Arroyo bribed the officials to arrange the results of 2007 congressional elections to bolster her candidates.
Cambodia, too, must wave goodbye to democracy as its long-ruling leader, Hun Sen has disbanded and outlawed the country’s main opposition, namely the Cambodian National Rescue Party (CNRP). It is obvious that Hun Sen strives to use repression to thrash opponents, ban NGOs and other related institutions, and change public opinion by setting rules for journalists on how they should cover elections and domestic issues.