Lim Guan Eng

[Ed. Note: This story contains extracts from the speech by Lim Guan-eng, national vice chairman of the Democratic Action Party (DAP) of Malaysia, at the public forum organised by the Open Singapore Centre in Singapore on 5 August 2000.]

Democracy engenders human freedoms necessary for economic progress. More importantly, democracy can prevent the gains of economic progress from being completely whittled away by corruption, cronyism or inefficiency and allowing some benefits to filter down to ordinary people. No one is therefore surprised that Transparency International's Corruption Perception Index (CPI) of corrupt-free countries are democracies, such as Sweden, Denmark and New Zealand, while the most corrupt are invariably dictatorships and tyrants.

The Twin Challenges Facing Asia in a Democratic Transition

In the pursuit of life's happiness, Asians value social order above all else. In a survey by the American embassy in one ASEAN nation, Asians placed social order above individual rights as opposed to Westerners who placed individual rights or choice above social order.

Events in Indonesia highlighting the painful and at times bloody march to democracy have placed democracy in a negative light. The natural tendency is for Asians to reject any ideas that cause social disruption and disorder even at the expense of genuine democracy.

Despite the obvious benefits of freedom, openness and democratic rule, the masses fall easy prey to lies and threats of public disorder by the ruling elite. The people's tolerance of government misrule and misgovernance is so high that at times the dictatorship has to practically commit political 'harakiri' before a democratic system can be ushered in. The only countries to have made the successful transition from a full-fledged dictatorships to a full-fledged democracy are Taiwan, South Korea and perhaps Thailand.

Even tyrants and putative dictators realise that they are powerless to resist the tide of democracy. Thus, to vindicate their rule, these tyrants and putative dictators apply cosmetic make-up, permitting the form but not the content, showing the style but not the substance of democracy.

Elected dictatorships are those where dictatorships cleverly masquerade as democracies. In elected dictatorships, regular elections are held, but the results are preordained, or rigorous candidate selection permits only those that support the ruling elite to stand, or a docile and subservient press is maintained that purveys lies and fear to intimidate the voters to support the ruling elite. The ability to pull off this masquerade of pretending to be democratic makes elected dictatorships difficult to eliminate.

If the elected dictatorship finds that such subtle subterfuge does not work, off come the velvet gloves to reveal fists of steel. One of the most masterful practitioners of an elected dictatorship is Malaysia.

Authoritarianism In Earnest

Despite regular multiparty elections, most of the minimal conditions necessary for the practice of democracy in the Shumpeterian sense, particularly fair elections, adequate opportunities for independent political opinion-making and political organisation and minimal protection for the individual from arbitrary state power, hardly exist in Malaysia.

In other words, elections in Malaysia are seen as so unfairly conducted and prejudiced against the opposition that they are a mere sham used to endorse the rule of the dictator, albeit an elected dictator.

Such features of authoritarianism have become more pronounced since Dr Mahathir Mohamed took over as prime minister in 1981. There has been a steady encroachment by the executive on all of the other branches of government, the judiciary and Parliament. The federal Constitution has been amended so many times that Parliament is just like another branch of the prime minister's office.

The judiciary was brought into line when the Lord President Tun Salleh Abbas, together with two Supreme Court judges, was sacked in 1988 for refusing to toe the prime minister's line. Ever since, independence of the judiciary has become a dirty word, suspicions about its integrity publicly voiced and no action taken against a 33-page letter outlining corruption and malpractices among the highest judges of the land, a letter penned by a High Court judge who was forced to resign.

As a result, Malaysians were cowed into silence with awards for damages in defamation suits involving tens of millions of ringgits, contempt action involving imprisonment became common and opposition leaders like myself convicted and jailed for sedition, banned and stripped of all political and civil rights.

Meanwhile, judges who are eminent jurists seeking reform and truth in the judiciary are hounded out of office. Even proceedings in Malaysian courts are no longer sacrosanct. Karpal Singh faces a three-year jail sentence under the Sedition Act for defending his client in court, Malaysia's famous accused, ex-Deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim. Which lawyer in Malaysia dares to act as counsel for opposition politicians now that they may well join their client in prison?

The circle of authoritarianism became complete when the executive was emasculated with powers concentrated in the office of the prime minister, a virtual dictator. Which minister dares to disobey the prime minister when he has absolute powes to sack any minister without giving any reason whatsoever? In fact, it is standard practice for certain ministers or chief ministers to give the prime minister undated resignation letters.

The centralisation of powers in the hands of one person was achieved with the active acquiescence of the Fourth Estate. The press has ceased to function. There is not so much as no freedom of the press as a freedom to lie on the government's behalf coupled with a total news blackout of all unfavourable news.

The government-controlled print and electronic media plays its role not just in promoting and legitimising its mastery but also to discredit the opposition and create dissent generally. For those who still refuse to bow and scrape, imprisonment awaits them as highlighted by the imprisonment of Far Eastern Economic Review correspondent Murray Hiebert last year.

Economic Corruption

The government has refused to heed growing public concerns of political patronage or cronyism, abuses of power and open corruption. Estimates of losses from such financial abuses range up to RM50 billion. Malaysia's performance in Transparency International's CPI has worsened from 29th position in 1998 to 32nd position in 1999 which is a similar ranking to Namibia.

Malaysians were not surprised when:

1. we had to depend on Australian Customs to expose how wealthy our chief ministers are when one of them was arrested for failing to declare cash amounting to RM2.5 million while entering Australia. Not surprisingly, the RM2.5 million cash exceeded his accumulated official income. Not only was he not convicted of corruption, he was re-elected as vice president of UMNO, the third highest post in UMNO;

2. a young 27-year-son of a minister without any business experience and record became a billionaire overnight by purchasing listed companies valued at RM1.2 billion;

3. the advisor of the Malaysian Central Bank whose speculative forays in the currency markets resulted in more than RM10 billion in losses seven years ago escaped unpunished. Recently he was rewarded with an appointment as the country's economic advisor. One wonders how much more his advice is going to cost us?;

4. the head of the anti-corruption agency was forced to resign for being effective. Instead of being praised for catching a senior government civil servant red-handed with unexplained cash totalling RM100,000 in a raid on the latter's office, he was forced to close the case and retire after being lambasted by the prime minister for conducting the raid without the prime minister's permission. The senior civil servant with a discovered talent for 'loose change' was then appointed to head Malaysia's Central Bank; and

5. the international trade and industry minister, entrusted with giving preferential shares of listed companies to the public, personally approved RM20 million shares for her own son-in-law. Instead of being prosecuted for corruption, she was elected to head the UMNO Wanita wing.

Concerns coalesced around former Deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim after he was summarily sacked by Prime Minister Dr. Mahathir Mohamed on 2 September 1998. Anwar's exposes of corruption in high places, the accumulation of extraordinary and unaccounted wealth of top government leaders and immunity from prosecution of crimes ranging from sexual misconduct to murder has served to galvanise a reformasi movement in Malaysia.

These underlying problems are related to the absence of the rule of law and democratic institutions. Rule by law may work in the short term with an enlightened or benevolent dictator, but he is still a dictator. Tyrants and putative dictators embrace the same credo and institutions that are oppressive and opaque. Without democratic institutions and the rule of law, there are no safeguards nor legal guarantees for human rights.

An Elected Dictatorship

At a time when the world is moving inexorably towards the enlargement of democracy, Malaysia stands out for its ever-increasing intolerance of democratic and human rights norms. The most blatant abuses, such as the ISA, Official Secrets Act, Sedition Act and the University and University Colleges Act, are trumpeted as necessities to maintain order and even save democracy.

Confident with his manipulative powers and control of the electoral process, Dr Mahathir rejects calls to abolish such draconian laws by claiming public support for them. He has openly reasoned that if the people feel that strongly against such laws they can always reject the government and replace it with another that will abolish such laws, which the people have never done.

The Malaysian government uses a Malay proverb 'seperti kera mendapat bunga' (like a monkey obtaining a flower) to explain why full democracy cannot be permitted. The monkey does not know how to appreciate the flower and will destroy it. Likening the people to a monkey, democracy is like a flower that will be destroyed by the people unless there is a strong 'guiding hand.'

Dr. Mahathir asks for time to be given to educate the people about democracy. After all, if Americans took 100 years to develop a fully functioning democracy, why can we not be given the same 100 years? He wants Malaysians to achieve a developed-nation status in two generations, though something which took Americans nearly 200 years to do. Therein lies the puzzling question. If Malaysia can succeed in becoming a developed country in two short generations, why must we wait 200 years before becoming a full democracy?

A more insidious attempt by Dr. Mahathir was to introduce his own brand of Asian democracy or Asian values as a counter to Western democracy or Western human rights. Dr. Mahathir claimed that Asian culture and values precluded Western liberal democracy due to the Asian emphasis on loyalty to the community over individual freedom, the shunning of adversarial relations and the favouring of order over conflict.

Such arguments ignore the historical fact of the suppression of political rights during the postcolonial era. But more dangerously, this process has also gradually socialised Malaysians to accept and even appreciate authoritarian rule, norms and institutions.

Dr. Mahathir's Asian values concept also contains a basic flaw in that there is no such thing as Asian values. Asians are fragmented by race, culture and religion. If there is any common thread, it is the sharing of universal values of humanism and religious norms that emphasise respect for the individual and tolerance for diversity. Asian values in all their diverse forms are compatible with basic human rights and the liberating effects of democracy.

What Can We Do?

Despite Thomas Jefferson's refrain that 'resistance to tyrants is obedience to God,'

it is simpler said than done, especially against one as resourceful and determined as Dr. Mahathir. Perhaps both Singapore and Malaysia share many commonalities and similarities, whether in the prosecution and persecution of dissidents, in arbitrary detention without trial under preventive laws, and, in Singapore, even bankrupting opponents in court, a new development in Malaysia no doubt acquired from masters of such devices.

I have faith that we can improve our nation for the better if we continue to struggle and try. There is an old Chinese proverb: 'If you are thinking a year ahead, sow a seed. If you are thinking 10 years ahead, plant a tree. If you are thinking 100 years ahead, educate the people.'

In this nanosecond Internet age, we do not need 100 years. We will survive the legacy of these tyrants, elected or otherwise. By continuing our work to educate the people about democracy and their rights, we shall prevail. While we are impatient for results, we must be patient with our resolve.