One billion people to vote in Asia this year
One billion people to vote in Asia this year
Peter Cunliffe-Jones and Mark McCord, Agence France-Presse, Hong Kong
More than a billion ballots will be cast and counted in 11 different Asian elections this year, as democracy becomes slowly entrenched in the world's most populous region, political scientists told AFP this week.
On April 5, 147 million Indonesians will be called to the polls for the first of three elections expected this year in the sprawling archipelago; a legislative poll to be followed by two rounds of presidential elections.
Political scientist Douglas Ramage of the Asia Foundation told reporters in Jakarta last month that the democratic process in Indonesia was still weak after years of one-party rule which ended in 1998.
"The problem is that citizens don't know what they should expect from democracy... They don't link voting with accountability and this is a great concern in terms of the quality of democracy that emerges from these elections," he said.
India, with 674 million voters among 1.2 billion people, has the world's biggest electorate and will be calling out the voters from New Delhi to Bangalore in a rolling election that starts on April 20 and continues in stages until May 10.
The voting process in the world's largest democracy has often been undermined in the past by electoral malpractice and violence. But a booming economy and political sophistication are now pushing the country towards real, entrenched democracy, political scientists in Delhi told AFP.
"The conduct of polls and the awareness among political parties about the moral code of conduct are improving," said B.G. Verghese, honorary research professor at the independent Center for Policy Research in New Delhi.
Several measures have been brought in to reduce the opportunities for electoral malpractice, including the introduction of electronic voting machines, and this would make this year's vote both "fairer and quicker" than those in the past, Verghese said.
In Taiwan -- an island which Beijing still considers a renegade province -- more than 15 million voters are due to go to the polls on March 20 to elect a president and take part in two referendums.
The voting is expected to be a close-run affair between supporters of incumbent President Chen Shui-bian, a Taiwanese nationalist opposed by Beijing, and his opponent, Lien Chan, backed by the mainland.
But the fact that the island is voting for its leaders at all - the only part of greater China to do so - is a sign of growing democracy in Asia, Taiwan's supporters say. Even until 2000, the Taiwanese were unable to vote for their presidents and the fact that they can today shows how things are changing, pro-democracy activists say.
A day after the Taiwanese poll, the 10 million voters of Malaysia will have a chance to cast their first ballots in 22 years without the dominating presence in the election of former leader Mahathir Mohamad.
The transition of power last October between Mahathir and his successor, Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, has been largely smooth and that process has been healthy for democracy in Malaysia, political analysts there say.
Badawi's moderate ruling United Malays National Organization (UMNO) party is expected to see off a challenge from the Parti Islam se-Malaysia (PAS) which surged in support at the previous polls though opponents have criticized the short time given for campaigning for the polls.
In Sri Lanka, the country's 12 million voters hope the elections due on April 2 will settle a power struggle which broke out late last year between President Chandrika Kumaratunga and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe over the peace process in the country's long-running civil war.
The sparring between the two politicians has put on hold the peace process and slowed Sri Lanka's economic growth and most voters hope the election will resolve the situation.
Elsewhere in the region, there are fewer such hopes.
Meanwhile South Korea's political malaise is deepening ahead of April 15 general elections and is not expected to be helped by efforts to unseat President Roh Moo-hyun this week in the National Assembly through unprecedented impeachment proceedings.
Roh, a former human rights lawyer, narrowly won election in December 2002, unexpectedly beating a conservative candidate.
"Conservatives have never accepted that defeat," said Lee Chung-hee, political science professor at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies told AFP this week.
The political turmoil shows how fragile South Korean democracy remains 17 years after military dictators surrendered power through free elections for the first time. Roh has been dogged by a hostile parliament controlled by the conservative Grand National Party (GNP) and impeachment proceedings stem from charges that he campaigned illegally for Roh loyalists in the pro-government Uri Party.
In the Philippines, voters have on May 10 to choose between incumbent president Gloria Macapagal Arroyo and political novice film-star Fernando Poe, in an election that has so far favored personalities over issues.
"This is not going to be a decision-making election because the people really won't have a say ... which will remain with the heads of the old clans who have always run the country," said political scientist Michael DeGolyer from Hong Kong's Baptist University.
"The trend is most definitely a move toward more democracy," said Broadfoot analyst with the Political and Economic Risk Consultancy (PERC) think-tank.
And at the same time, many analysts express alarm at U.S.- backed plans for elections in Afghanistan in June at a time when the country is still beset by poor security conditions and voter registration has barely started.
Elections now would not be credible and that would undermine the push to bring real democracy to the region, they say.