In Asia: Weekly Insight and Features from Asia

Election Day in Pakistan just happened, but groundwork for a domestic observation network was laid a long time ago. In 2006, with technical support from The Asia Foundation and in preparation for national and provincial assembly elections scheduled for 2007/08, Pakistan’s Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN) began to take shape. FAFEN‘s goal was to become the first Pakistani election observer group to use a long-term, nationwide, systematic, statistically-driven methodology, following international standards and best practices.

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The next best thing to being in the music hall in Pyongyang for the performance by the New York Philharmonic Orchestra was watching the performance with the hard-nosed members of the Seoul Foreign Correspondents Club in downtown Seoul, a little over one hundred miles to the south. After watching the live broadcast of the performance with the correspondents and other interested observers based in Seoul, I participated in a polite but sharp debate with Brian (B.R.) Myers, an analyst of North Korea’s official propaganda machine and keen observer of North Korean political culture.

According to one perspective, the admirable but naïve expectations that music would soften the hearts of the North Korean people toward Americans, opening their eyes to a world beyond the tightly controlled one in which they live, will be dashed on the impermeable propaganda wall.

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After canceling elections in June, and again in November 2007, the ruling coalition in Nepal is trying to assure the Nepali people that there will be a Constituent Assembly (CA) election on April 10, 2008. According to a recent poll, only 22 percent of Nepalis believe them. Although this election date is surrounded by as much uncertainty as the earlier ones, this third attempt may actually succeed because, this time, the stakes on all sides are much higher.

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On February 25, Lee Myung-bak will be inaugurated as the tenth president of the Republic of Korea. President-elect Lee is a member of the conservative Grand National Party (GNP or Hannara-dang), and his inauguration ends ten years of rule by progressive presidents; it is the second transition in power from the ruling party to the opposition since South Korea’s democratic transition in 1988. In contrast to American inaugural ceremonies, in which the symbolism of checks and balances is played out both through legislative roles and the swearing-in of the American president by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, South Korea’s president has traditionally by his own initiative publicly sworn his own oath directly to the people.

But the symbolism of an imperial presidency is no longer adequate to reflect the vibrancy of South Korea’s democracy or the reality that power and responsibility have been diffused to other power centers within Korean government and society. Nor will such an oath reflect the biggest challenge Lee Myung-bak will face as South Korea’s next president: the need to provide leadership by forging and promoting social consensus within South Korea.

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Standing almost with his nose against the glass, he was smiling broadly and waving his open hand slowly back and forth as our bus full of South Korean tourists passed in front of his ground-level apartment building. What was this elderly citizen of Kaesong City in North Korea saying to us? Throughout our one-day visit to this ancient Korean capital just north of the heavily-fortified dividing line police and soldiers had kept ordinary citizens at a distance. Though many stopped and stared as we passed or disembarked at tourist sites, no adult had dared make a gesture toward us. Groups of young children, some just out of school were an exception. Perhaps they had not been warned, or their exuberance overcame them. They ran toward our bus waving vigorously. At one point even a group of adolescent boys waved, a bit sheepishly. The South Koreans had been warned not to wave or make gestures from the moving bus, but some could not resist responding to the children.

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On January 11, 2008, Bangladesh quietly marked the first anniversary of the state of emergency and appointment of a military-backed Caretaker Government. A year earlier, Bangladeshis had accepted these interventions”and the cancellation of a national parliamentary election that was almost certain to have been rigged by the ruling party and boycotted by the opposition Grand Alliance”as the only viable option in averting a catastrophic course of political confrontation, violence, and bloodshed.

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Since the fall of the Suharto regime in 1998, Indonesia has made significant progress on democratic reform. The subsequent period of reformasi has included constitutional amendments, significant reforms in the judicial system, and the beginnings of reform of the police sector into an accountable, civilian force. On February 11th, a $2.5 million project was announced to advance democracy and human rights in Indonesia through two leading change agents: religious leaders and the police.

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When Thailand’s military leaders carried out their coup on September 19, 2006, they justified their action by saying they had to suspend democracy in order to save it as they believed Thailand under Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra’s rule was irrevocably dividing the country. The military wanted to prevent Thaksin, who so ably manipulated the 1997 constitution for his own self-interest, and the social forces he came to represent from ever returning to power. But neither the new constitution nor the December 23, 2007, election appears to have prevented Thaksin supporters from gaining political control or helped to bridge the significant divisions in the country. Instead, the election has returned Thailand to what had been hoped was a bygone era of coalition governments marked by less effective political leadership and a stronger bureaucracy.

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