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View all search resultsASEAN’s ailing democracy
ASEAN will lose its international credibility if it fails to restore the fundamental rights of its member states’ citizens.
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T
he victory of Cambodian leader Hun Sen in Sunday’s one-sided election, decided by threats and suppression rather than ballots, and the conspiracy of the Thai military and royalists to override the popular will as expressed in the country’s May election have rung alarm bells for the prospects of democracy in ASEAN.
The two assaults on popular sovereignty come as the bloc continues to fail to stop the Myanmar military junta from carrying on with its violence and human rights violations after its February 2021 seizure of power from the democratically elected government of Aung San Suu-Kyi.
Now ASEAN has seen three of its 10 member states reach low ebbs of their democratic regression, not to mention other member states at various points on the spectrum of illiberalism and autocracy. And the rulers of Myanmar, Thailand and Cambodia confidently defend their acts and brand the citizens who exercise their right to free speech as terrorists and troublemakers.
Given ASEAN’s noninterference principle, it is unlikely that the remaining member states will talk frankly about the withering of democracy in their midst. But how long can we turn a blind eye to the disturbing phenomenon plaguing this region?
In 2015, the bloc launched its 2025 ASEAN Community Vision, which aims to forge a community of countries that “enjoy human rights and fundamental freedoms as well as thrive in a just, democratic, harmonious and gender-sensitive environment in accordance with the principles of democracy, good governance and the rule of law”.
ASEAN will lose its international credibility if it fails to restore the fundamental rights of its member states’ citizens. It will certainly not be easy for Indonesia, as the current chair of ASEAN, to offer good solutions for the region’s new problems. But it would be wrong for it to stand by idly as the bloc’s principles crumble around it.
Hun Sen and his Cambodia People's Party (CPP) arrested and harassed university students, democracy activists and political opponents before the elections. No major political party was allowed to contest the ruling party, and people who did not vote, or did not vote for the CPP, faced imprisonment.
