Ideas@TheCentre
Will development lead to democracy in Southeast Asia?
Does economic development lead to democracy? Until now, several East Asian states have seemed determined to prove the theory wrong.
CIS Visiting Fellow John Lee pointed out back in 2008 that China’s economic modernisation was not leading to widespread democratic demands. And Singapore’s first Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew famously maintained that Asian people preferred soft authoritarianism to individual freedom.
But recent developments in Malaysia and Singapore suggest that claims for political freedom in these countries may be slowly on the march.
Both countries are nominally democratic and hold regular elections. Yet both countries have been ruled by the same party, the Barisan National (BN or National Front) coalition in Malaysia and the People’s Action Party (PAP) in Singapore, since independence.
Both the BN and the PAP have used their country’s remarkable economic growth over the past five decades – Malaysia’s GDP per capita is now around US$7,000, and Singapore’s is more than US$36,000 – to legitimise their ongoing rule.
Both use strict controls on the media and opposition parties, as well as electoral gerrymandering – elections are considered free but not fair – to maintain their grip on power. Yet that grip now seems to be gradually slipping. In 2008, the BN was dealt a blow in the Malaysian general election when it lost more than a third of its seats as well as control of five state governments.
In the last few months, Kuala Lumpur has been rocked by a string of mass protests calling for cleaner elections, the biggest of which saw almost 1,700 protestors arrested. Just this week, the media have been speculating that Prime Minister Najib, under pressure, will pass controversial reforms giving Malaysians greater freedom of speech.
Increasingly, there are calls to dismantle Malaysia’s institutionalised system of racially based affirmative action, a bedrock of the BN’s historical platform.
Across the border in Singapore, the PAP’s Tony Tan was sworn in as President a fortnight ago. He won by the narrowest of margins, just beating out a former PAP politician campaigning on a platform of more transparent government. In a sign of the growing divisions within the party and the electorate, this was the first presidential poll since 1993 (the first time it was held) to be contested by more than one candidate.
In the May general election, the PAP won 60% of the votes. While this would be considered a landslide in Australia, it actually represented a 6.5% swing away from the party and its worst result since independence in 1965.
These are small steps, but they are nevertheless significant. Malaysians and Singaporeans, now well accustomed to economic growth and development, are slowly beginning to demand political freedoms too.
Jessica Brown is a Research Fellow at The Centre for Independent Studies.
