You could call the soap “No Guiding Light.” Many of these leaders came to power on the heels of generals and strongmen toppled by the Asian financial crisis of 1997 and ‘98. They were welcomed as the “New Generation,” the one that would usher in something more like a functioning democracy. Now they are barely clinging to power, tripped up by their own mistakes and their opponents’ machinations at the most inopportune time: economies are slowing or stalling throughout the region, raising fears that Asia may be hurtling into another full-blown crisis. And an even bigger question lurks: is Asia, as Singaporean leader Lee Kuan Yew has suggested, simply not suited for Western-style democracy? Or are these crises a vital prelude to the construction of healthier democracies?
It certainly is hard to find a democratic hero in Asia these days. Consider Kim Dae Jung, the reformist South Korean president who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for reopening the delicate dialogue with North Korea. The world applauds him. But at home, the 76-year-old former dissident is spoofed for pursuing his Northern quest despite pleas to focus on the financial trouble at home. One Seoul cartoonist recently drew the famous “champion of democracy” in earmuffs, shutting out the voice of the people.
One leader who might deserve praise is Thailand’s Prime Minister Chuan Leekpai, an articulate, squeaky-clean politician who has led his country out of a deep economic crisis. But polls say the colorless Chuan will likely lose the Jan. 6 election to billionaire telecommunications tycoon Thaksin Shinawatra. Even if he wins, Thaksin may be barred from office for allegedly transferring hundreds of millions of dollars worth of corporate stock to his household servants–maids, chauffeurs, guards–and failing to report them in a financial disclosure statement. He is fighting the charges, and the anti-corruption commission won’t have a verdict until after the election. But if found guilty, Thaksin will have to step down, leaving Thailand without a leader.
The Philippines, of course, has been virtually leaderless for months. As the charges against Estrada have become more extravagant–a former provincial governor (and Estrada drinking buddy) said he used to bring the president bags full of illegal gambling proceeds–the street protests have gotten bigger. Economic confidence has swooned. The peso has hit an all-time low, the stock market has dropped more than a third and foreign investment has slowed to a trickle. The chorus of voices asking Estrada to resign now includes top business executives, church leaders, even Vice President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. But Estrada denies the charges and refuses to budge.
The melodrama in Manila may seem chaotic. But Estrada’s current predicament at least says something positive about the Philippines’ young democracy: it may not guarantee the best leaders, but it does allow for the bloodless removal of a bad one. Today, Estrada’s fate rests in the hands of the 22-member Senate, where a two-thirds majority (15) can convict him and remove him from office. When the Senate trial began earlier this month, Arroyo and former president Corazon Aquino marched around the walls of the Senate with thousands of protesters and a few lonely trumpeters. It was called the “Jericho March,” after the biblical story in which the Israelites marched around Jericho with trumpet-playing priests until the walls came tumbling down. If the Senate stays on course, it may be just four to six weeks before the final trumpet sounds for Estrada.
Indonesia’s leadership crisis, however, has no end in sight. When Wahid took power in late 1999, the moderate Muslim leader was embraced as a curiously apt choice to unite his large and fractious nation. An amiable man with purported mystical powers, Wahid inherited many of the country’s economic, political and social woes from the corrupt and authoritarian Suharto era. But he has made some refreshing changes: he has promoted racial and religious tolerance in a strife-torn nation; he has largely removed the military from the leading political role it played under Suharto (even firing ambitious Gen. Wiranto); and he has let Indonesians speak out. “It used to be that people who criticized the government were put in jail,” says spokesman Wimar Witoelar. “Now they are put on television.”
But Wahid has done little else. He has not reformed the economy, put Suharto on trial or defused the sectarian violence that grips several outlying provinces. He has been known to doze off at official functions, and can be strangely aloof and unpredictable. (After last month’s feel-good summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in Singapore, he lashed out inexplicably at the host country, warning that he could withhold drinking supplies so that tiny Singapore “will have no water to drink.”) But Wahid’s most dangerous shortcoming is his growing lack of control over military generals in the field. Earlier this month in Aceh, security forces murdered, execution-style, three local aid workers who were investigating allegations of torture. In the easternmost province of Irian Jaya, police have detained several separatist leaders and killed more than a dozen pro-independence protesters over the past few weeks–all against Wahid’s orders.
Like Wahid, Taiwan’s Chen Shui-bian is trying to shake off five decades of single-party rule–and finds himself in way over his head. The longtime opposition leader won last March’s election with just 39 percent of the vote, and only because the ruling KMT was split between two candidates. But as a joke making the rounds in Taipei puts it: “It took [former president] Lee Teng-hui five years to break up the KMT; it took Chen Shui-bian five months to bring it back together.” With a minority in Parliament (just 68 of 221 seats), Chen’s party has no hope of passing legislation without building consensus. After decades as a dissident lawyer, that’s something Chen has a hard time doing.
Meanwhile, the KMT has relished making Chen’s life miserable. Last month, when Chen scrapped plans for a nuclear-power plant just minutes after promising KMT leader Lien Chan he’d consider his objections, KMT pols were outraged–and moved to “recall” the president. The threat died down only after Chen apologized on national television for overlooking “the feelings of some people.”
Asia’s leadership crisis won’t end soon. And that scares investors. In a region still plagued by bad loans, chronic corruption and shaky banks, the last thing businessmen want to hear about is capital flight. But it’s happening again in Taiwan, Indonesia and the Philippines. The silver lining, says one Western diplomat in the region, is that “political turmoil is part of the natural growing pains of democracy.” Besides, he says, “people are using the mechanisms of democracy to make their challenges, to test their cases.” And that, of course, is better than reaching for their guns–or allowing for the entrenchment of another Marcos or Suharto.
