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ASEAN's moral leadership amid democratic decline
These are indeed worrying times and yet (un)surprisingly there is only silence from ASEAN.
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President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo and his counterpart Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull speak after an event on Feb. 26, 2017. (Courtesy of/The Presidential Office )
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his weekend the 10 leaders of ASEAN will gather in Sydney for the ASEAN-Australia Special Summit. A first for Australia, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s effort has been hailed as a diplomatic coup, providing an unprecedented opportunity to advance Australia’s commitment to the regional grouping and to underline its status as ASEAN’s oldest dialogue partner.
While PM Turnbull will want the focus of the special summit to be on the wider picture, namely strengthening Canberra’s strategic partnership with ASEAN and delivering tangible economic and security benefits to Australia and ASEAN, the event threatens to be overshadowed by issues unrelated to the ASEAN-Australia relationship.
Responding to a planned protest by Cambodians living in Australia, Prime Minister Hun Sen has publicly threatened to “pursue them to their houses and beat them up”. In recent months, the main opposition party was dissolved, its leader imprisoned, and a major independent newspaper critical of the government was shut down; moves that virtually guarantee the ruling Cambodian People’s Party will win the general election this July.
Cambodia is not alone, however, in witnessing an alarming decline in democracy. A report released by the United States Office of the Director of National Intelligence identified Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte as a “threat to democracy in Southeast Asia”. The report noted Duterte’s war on drugs, which by some estimates has claimed 12,000 lives, as well as his suggestions to suspend the Constitution, declare a “revolutionary government” and impose nationwide martial law.
