In Asia’s Difficult Labor, True Democracy Is Born

Only two decades ago, with the big exception of Japan, most of Asia’s 39 nations rated poorly on international indexes of democratic freedom and civil liberties. Dictatorships in some form included South Korea, Taiwan, the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia, all of which are now either parliamentary democracies or republics struggling with some form of democratic governance.

Today, Asian democracies like Taiwan and the Philippines rank with the U.S. and Britain in terms of freedom of the press. Democracy in Asia is alive and well, but messy. Alexis de Tocqueville once observed about democracy in a young America that “nothing is more fertile in marvels than the art of being free, but nothing is harder than freedom’s apprenticeship.”

These words resonate deeply in Asia today, where democratic processes are rattling politics, markets and society. The effects range from moderates battling conservative Muslims at the polls in Malaysia to a presidential candidate being shot in Taiwan or the impeachment of the president in South Korea. However, the results are not half-bad from both Asia’s and the United States’ perspectives.

In Malaysia, critical general elections took place March 21 in which Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi faced the challenge of a conservative Islamic opposition hoping to consolidate legislative power. At stake were not only the 219 parliamentary seats but also the legitimacy of Abdullah’s five-month tenure in office and his moderate political and social platform. Some analysts cautioned that the prospect of additional gains by conservative Muslims -- who advocate the establishment of a strict Islamic state -- made the stakes for the moderate coalition party more formidable.

In spite of the hand-wringing, Abdullah’s coalition party won handsomely. It exceeded expectations by taking three-quarters of the parliamentary seats, and it also had an unexpectedly strong showing in ethnically Malay opposition strongholds. The vote underscored support for a reform agenda instituted by Abdullah that seeks to crack down on corruption, abandon wasteful projects of the previous era and enhance government transparency.

The messiness of democracy was also apparent in Taiwan’s presidential elections March 20. Campaigning between the incumbent, Chen Shui-bian, and the challenger, Lien Chan, climaxed with a dramatic eleventh-hour assassination attempt wounding Chen and his running mate. The opposition contested the validity of Chen’s slim margin of victory (29,518 votes), demanded a recount and accused the incumbent’s followers of staging the assassination to gain last-minute sympathy.

The controversy sent Taiwanese markets into a downward spiral and is testing a democratic system that only four years ago saw its first transfer of power between political parties. Even here, the signals are not all bad. A resounding 80% of registered voters cast ballots. The incumbent Chen quickly agreed to a recount.

Moreover, a controversial referendum aimed at gauging the public’s appetite for an assertion of Taiwanese independence from China was rejected. This may have created just enough ambiguity to avert another crisis in the Taiwan Strait.

In South Korea, legislators in March physically battled each other in the chambers of the National Assembly over the first vote to impeach a sitting president. The suspension of Roh Moo Hyun’s presidential powers was based on minor electoral law infractions and political charges of incompetence. Following the vote, lawmakers punched each other out, at least one Roh supporter set himself on fire and another blew up his car on the steps of the legislative building.

Democracy does not get any messier than this. But even here, a constitutional court’s deliberations will almost certainly look hard at the political motivations behind the impeachment vote. In the interim, a moderate and experienced prime minister is running the government. And in the end, the impeachment fiasco may have a cathartic effect, causing both the electorate and the parties to seek out a workable moderate agenda amid the current polarized atmosphere.

The test of democracy in these cases is not whether the choosing of political leaders looks tidy but whether the authority of the democratic institutions prevails. Ugly politics in democratic Asia may characterize the battles, but rule of law, it is hoped, will win the war.

Victor D. Cha, an associate professor of government at Georgetown University, is coauthor of “Nuclear North Korea” (Columbia, 2003).