Word: thailand
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...more crucial. While the specter of economic mayhem catalyzed one of the most dynamic presidential campaigns in recent U.S. history, it has done little to spur Asia's democracies into action. Japan's parliament is unable to decide on an economic-reform package, while Malaysia and Thailand engage in partisan politics that has little to do with how to shield these export-led economies from a slowdown in the West. Indeed, Asian governance is failing in democracy's most basic undertaking: to represent the will of the people. Back when the region was poor and ravaged by war, Asia...
...make Asians act more like subjects than citizens. Militaries - the other power pole in much of Asia - can meddle in politics without much public distress from the masses. Just look at how Bangkok office ladies cheerily handed carnations to the soldiers who carried out a 2006 coup against Thailand's democratically elected leader. When Asians finally do react against their governments, it is often in extremis, anger spilling onto the streets in revolutionary-style rallies...
...impulse is understandable. Beginning in the mid-1980s, a wave of people-power revolutions transformed the continent, from the Philippines and South Korea to Thailand and Taiwan. But such mass protests were designed to overthrow dictators, not democratically elected leaders. In much of Asia, political frameworks now exist to remove incompetent rulers at the ballot box, making street rallies to throw the bums out largely unnecessary. Of course, no electoral system is perfect: vote-buying in villages, for instance, plagues some Asian countries. But it is only by going through several electoral cycles that democracies can consolidate and grow...
...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 have called a "judicial coup." Although the judgment to punish the three onetime governing coalition members for electoral fraud may have been sound, the speed of the court decision raised eyebrows...
...Developing Civil Society Many of the region's people-power revolutions occurred because of the courage of independent activists leading the downtrodden masses. The intervening years, however, have bred disenchantment within Asia's civil society. One of the architects of Thailand's PAD is Chamlong Srimuang, a Buddhist ascetic who spearheaded the country's seminal 1992 democracy movement. This time around, Chamlong campaigned on the streets to rid the country of its elected leaders. Like others in the opposition alliance, the 73-year-old believes that democracy is so corrupted in Thailand - votes are bought, the rural electorate is woefully...