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.