Nigeria, Indonesia

Nigeria, Indonesia

The most populous nations of Africa and Southeast Asia are
poised precariously in transition from decades of dictatorship to
would-be democracy. Success could reverberate far beyond the two
countries, setting examples that might prove contagious. Failure
could prove just as discouraging.

Nigeria held its presidential election on Saturday. Indonesia
is scheduled to vote in June. It is far too soon to predict the
outcome of transition in either country. If we have learned
anything in this decade of falling dictators, it is that
elections alone are not enough to guarantee democracy.
Democratization depends on the involvement of citizens before,
during and after elections, and that can be corroded by
corruption, intimidation and apathy.

In both Nigeria and Indonesia, long years of repression
crippled the institutions that could provide a sustained check on
those in power and a sustained voice for the otherwise powerless.
Such institutions cannot be created, or re-created, in an
instant.

Their absence helps explain the worrying level of cheating in
Nigeria. Only the loser so far has charged that such cheating
alone was responsible for the winner's 63 percent result, but no
independent observers have certified the voting as fair. The
Transition Monitoring Group, a coalition of Nigerian nonprofit
organizations, said that in some areas "the incidence of
electoral fraud was great enough to completely distort the
election result".

Such charges are unlikely to prevent former military ruler
Olusegun Obasanjo from assuming power on May 29, but charges of
fraud should be investigated. More to the point, they should
discourage him from "any triumphalist insistence on a 'winner-
take-all' stance", as the monitoring group said. "The incoming
civilian government must therefore begin to make determined and
sustained efforts to cultivate democratic norms and values".

There are reasons for worry in Indonesia, too. Ethnic and
religious based violence has broken out in many parts of the
country, some of it allegedly instigated by military groups. The
transitional government has devised election rules that are only
partly democratic.

But in neither country is it time to write off the attempted
transitions. If elections are not sufficient to create a
democracy, they are nonetheless essential. In both countries,
players across the political spectrum so far seem willing to
participate and fight for improvement in the rules and a
deepening of civic society. In those efforts, they merit support
from overseas, with an attention that stays focused long past
election day.

-- The Washington Post