The fight for democracy

In October, Latin America’s most populous nation, Brazil, elected as president Jair Bolsonaro, a former military man and historically fringe, far-right senator known for his pro-gun, pro-torture views. In 1999, he told Brazilian television, “Elections won’t change anything in this country. It will only change on the day that we break out in civil war here and do the job that the military regime didn’t do: killing 30,000. If some innocent people die, that’s fine. In every war, innocent people die.”

Elsewhere in the world, Donald Trump, Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin, Recep Erdogan, Viktor Orban and Rodrigo Duterte are some of the names that have dominated headlines as leaders who are spearheading the world’s reported march towards authoritarianism. In January, the Economist Intelligence Unit’s Democracy Index for 2018 reported that electoral democracy was continuing its “disturbing retreat” the world over. The TIME magazine recently declared that “a new archetype of leader has emerged. We’re now in the strongman era.”

If this is true of Brazil, the United States, China, Russia, Turkey and even the Philippines, it is not so in the Malay Archipelago.

In May, Malaysian politics was changed irrevocably with the election of its opposition for the first time in 60 years of independence. Accountability, openness and democratic progress appear to be finally within reach.

While many Western observers continue to argue that Islam is incompatible with democracy - Indonesia and Malaysia beg to differ. With the former already the strongest electoral democracy in Southeast Asia and the latter an unlikely late bloomer, the two countries are leading the charge for democratic politics in their immediate region, and perhaps the world.

As Malaysia went to the polls in May, Indonesia was celebrating 20 years of Reformasi - a word in both Malay and Indonesian which means reform, specifically of the democratic kind. Protests from a broad civil society coalition of students, Muslim groups and women in 1998 saw Indonesia’s outrageously corrupt dictator of more than three decades, Soeharto, step down.

It has since seen the unshackling of its media; the emergence of non-traditional political actors including trade unionists, rights activists and feminists as well as a forceful re-emergence of Islamists; and the establishment of a range of anti-corruption and human rights protection institutions.

Indonesia’s wildly popular if somewhat goofy President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo has been accused of authoritarian tendencies, particularly after the outlawing of the Hizbut Tahrir group, which campaigns for Indonesia to adopt Islamic law and become a caliphate, under a controversial presidential decree in July 2017.

But unlike most heads of state in the region, he is less about smearing the media and threatening NGOs than he is about shoring up support through building rural infrastructure and giving land rights to indigenous groups. He likes groovy jackets and giving away push bikes to kids.

Indonesia’s smaller, richer cousin Malaysia had lagged behind in its own Reformasi. But come May 2018, Prime Minister Najib Razak was turfed out by the electorate despite incessant gerrymandering and a rigged voting system. His demise came largely due to accusations he stole hundreds of millions of dollars from the sovereign fund 1Malaysia Development Berhad or 1MDB and the return to politics of now-PM Mahathir Mohamad.

When in power between 1981 and 2003, Mahathir was known for his intolerance of critics and has since admitted to serving as a “dictator”. Shortly after being elected in May, however, the 93-year-old took to Twitter to chastise authorities for arresting a man who had allegedly slandered him and Islam on Facebook. “I don’t agree with the action taken against those who criticise me,” he said.

This article has been excerpted from: ‘Malaysia and Indonesia are bucking the global trend on democracy’.

Courtesy: Aljazeera.com