Asia's vigorous but dysfunctional democracies

Asia's vigorous but dysfunctional democracies

Satyabrata Rai Chowdhuri, Project Syndicate

Asia has been gripped by election fever all year. The
Philippines and Taiwan have chosen new presidents; India and
Malaysia have ushered in new parliaments and prime ministers.
September brings two more vital polls: A legislative election in
Hong Kong and a presidential election in Indonesia. Voters there
may also extend a disturbing paradox that has emerged in the
region: The more "vigorous" Asian democracy becomes, the more
dysfunctional it is.

There is no shortage of examples. The attempt by opposition
parties to impeach South Korea's President Roh Moo Hyun on the
flimsiest of excuses; Taiwan President Chen Shui-bian's inability
to pass legislation through a parliament controlled by the
opposition Kuomintang; Philippine President Gloria Macapagal
Arroyo's stalemated first term and the logjam over the fiscal
reforms needed to prevent a predicted Argentine-style meltdown
early in her second: each bears testimony to democratic paralysis
in Asia.

If deadlock and confusion were the only results, such
political impasses might be tolerable. But chronic stalemate has
confronted many Asian democracies with the threat of being
discredited, a potential for violence, and the prospect of
economic decline.

Indeed, the precedents of democratic immobility in Asia are
hardly encouraging. For example, since Pakistan's creation in
1947, partisan divisions have ensured that no elected government
has been able to serve its full term. So Pakistanis have grimly
accepted military rule as their destiny.

The problem in Asia often arises from something the French
call "cohabitation" -- an awkward arrangement by which a directly
elected president must co-exist with a parliament controlled by a
rival party or parties. The United States and Europe's mature
democracies may function well enough with the "checks and
balances" of divided government (though the Republicans' bid to
impeach President Clinton a few years ago might suggest
otherwise), but in Asia the failure to bestow executive and
legislative powers on a single institution is usually a terrible
drawback.

This seems especially true when a government tries to enact
radical economic or political reforms. The elected president
wants to act, but the assembly refuses to approve the necessary
laws. Or vice versa.

The pattern begins in parliamentary deadlock. Incompetent
leaders blame legislatures for their failures; legislators blame
presidents from rival parties. Finger pointing replaces
responsibility, fueling popular demand for a strongman (or woman)
who can override political divisions. Indira Gandhi's brief
"emergency rule" in the 1970s was partly the result of such
institutional dysfunction.

Divided government also plays into the hands of Asia's
separatists. At a critical moment for Sri Lanka's peace process,
President Kumaratunga was so incensed by the policies of her
political rival, Prime Minister Wickremessinghe, that she sacked
three of his ministers and called elections almost four years
early. The only people who seem to have benefited from this
democratic division are the murderous Tamil Tigers. Similarly, in
Nepal, a Maoist insurgency has taken advantage of divisions
between the King and parliament to gain control of much of the
countryside.

True, Asian democracies, however unstable, are preferable to
autocracies, whether military, as in Pakistan and Burma, or
communist, as in China and Vietnam. But the danger in a weakened
democracy is not merely blocked legislation and ineffective
government. Ambitious but thwarted presidents are easily tempted
to take unconstitutional measures; after all, they reason, the
people elected them directly. The same is true of some prime
ministers, like Thailand's authoritarian Thaksin Shinawatra, who
now stands accused of weakening his country's democratic
traditions in favor of personal rule.

Given these precedents and the widespread instability exposed
by this year's elections, perhaps Asian policymakers should
consider the merits of doing away with "cohabitation" and
adopting systems where electoral victory translates into real
power. Of course, parliamentary political systems are far from
perfect. Neither Singapore nor Malaysia, where ruling parties
have long dominated the parliaments, has a political culture as
healthy as in Taiwan or South Korea.

But in parliamentary democracies such as Japan and India, an
elected leader runs the country until the day his or her party or
coalition loses its legislative majority. This means that
governments are judged not by their ability to outmaneuver
legislatures, but by the quality of their policies. This seems to
be a more efficient -- and politically more stable -- form of
democracy than the unhappy cohabitation that produces such ugly
confrontations in Taiwan, South Korea, and the Philippines.

By contrast, the threats posed by divided government could be
greater than mere parliamentary rumbles. Cohabitation could very
soon become a problem even in the quasi-democracy of Hong Kong,
if voters there on Sept. 12 elect a legislature hostile to Tung
Chee-hwa, the territory's Beijing-anointed chief executive, later
this month. Indonesia also risks deadlock if, as seems likely,
the election on Sept. 20 produces a president from a different
party than the one that controls parliament.

Abraham Lincoln was right: A house divided against itself
cannot stand. In many Asian democracies, only institutional
reconstruction will prevent a collapse.

Satyabrata Rai Chowdhuri, Emeritus Professor at India's
University Grants Commission, is a former Professor of
International Relations at Oxford University.