Malaysia and Indonesia

Malaysia and Indonesia

Having imprisoned his longtime deputy on questionable charges and secured reelection for his ruling party on equally questionable laws and methods, the prime minister of Malaysia is now extending his anti-democratic crackdown. Last week his government hauled into court the editor of an opposition newspaper, a lawyer for the jailed deputy and several other opposition leaders.

They were charged with various forms of sedition, which is to say, with making statements displeasing to Prime Minister Mahathir bin Mohamad. To criticism from Amnesty International and others, a Mahathir loyalist responded with the age-old retort of dictators defending the indefensible: "It is not up to international bodies to decide how we should administer our laws."

Mr. Mahathir is following a classic plot line, but its ramifications are particularly sad in Malaysia's case, given that country's successful postcolonial history. The long-ruling autocrat unwilling to tolerate thoughts of succession, the turning on a protege who gains too much popularity, increasing isolation and intolerance -- all this has played out many times before. But in Malaysia it seems far from inevitable.

Perhaps Mr. Mahathir looks across the narrow strait to his south at Indonesia's perilous passage to democracy, and trembles. There a newly elected president is bravely confronting a host of problems, how to tame a military long accustomed to excessive power, how to accommodate regional demands for autonomy while keeping the country together and more. But Indonesia's challenges are grave precisely because its longtime dictator, president Soeharto, for so long repressed any independent political action or civic organization.

Mr. Mahathir may postpone Malaysia's day of reckoning, perhaps even until after his own death. But the more repressive his behavior now, the more difficult for his country that eventual reckoning will be.

-- The Washington Post