Word: pakistans
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...throughout 2008, many Asians appeared to progressively lose their faith in democratic politics. In Thailand and South Korea, the streets have been convulsed by mass protests, despite elections that ushered in popular leaders in the past two years. Pakistan and East Timor are rapidly veering toward the status of failed states. Malaysia suffers from a paucity of good governance, proof that simply holding polls doesn't ensure a healthy democracy. Postelection riots shook Mongolia, while Bangladesh is trying to exorcise two years of military-backed rule with a strong voter turnout in its Dec. 29 polls that ushered the secular...
...Other countries are blighted by dynastic democracy, in which the same families - the Bhutto-Zardaris in Pakistan, say - act as if it is their birthright to lead, and the electorate duly votes them in. Sri Lanka, Indonesia and the Philippines have all elected daughters of former leaders to helm their countries, while the man who's set to assume the top post in Malaysia in March is the son of a former Prime Minister. In Japan, the current premier is the grandson and son-in-law of ex-premiers, while his two immediate predecessors were the son and grandson...
...propensity for voting in a big man (or woman) has stifled the growth of independent institutions that should check the power of elected leaders. Often, the media is muzzled, if not silenced outright. In 2007, at least 17 journalists were killed in Asia for doing their job, while in Pakistan alone 250 reporters were detained by security forces, according to media watchdog Reporters Without Borders. "Pakistan's inability to institute a democratic political system stems from the failure to build institutions that can moderate conflict," says Ayesha Jalal, a historian at Tufts University in Massachusetts, who specializes in South Asian...
...Across much of Asia, the courts are viewed as compromised, as in the case of Pakistan where the country's former Law Minister Aitzaz Ahsan describes the judiciary as "handcuffed." The rich and powerful are seen as finding their way around the judicial system. "People have an image that there's no equality under the law," says Choi Jang Jip, a political-science professor at Korea University in Seoul, referring to perceptions in South Korea. The stakes are higher in Thailand, where the former ruling People Power Party and two of its partners were banned last month in what critics...
...pictures of Bangladesh and Pakistan's forgotten...