Organizer: Yin H Kyaw, National University of Singapore

Chair and Discussant: James V. Jesudason, Colorado School of Mines

This panel will examine party politics in four major Southeast Asian countries, namely, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar and Thailand. Much of the existing general literature on political parties and elections concentrates on the typology of political parties and how structural variables and institutions shape the manner in which political parties and elections function. With the exception of "Elections in Southeast Asia" edited by Robert Taylor, there appears to be a dearth of comprehensive comparative studies of political parties and elections in Southeast Asia. Most leading social scientists working on theories of political parties and elections do not pay much attention to political parties and elections in Southeast Asia. There have also been many changes since the emergence of Taylor’s edited volume in 1996. Indonesia has become a democratic polity, a constitutional convention is ongoing in Myanmar, a new generation of politicians has taken over the leadership of the ruling parties and government in Malaysia while Thailand appears to be gravitating towards a dominant party system.  We feel that this is an expedient time to undertake a comparative study of political parties and elections in Southeast Asia. The participants of the panel will try to remedy the weakness of the existing literature by examining how historical process, structural and cultural variables and institutions related to political parties and elections contribute to political developments in various Southeast Asian countries. In so doing, this panel will contribute to the theoretical literature while filling the gap in the study of modern Southeast Asian politics.

Meredith Weiss, East-West Center Washington

To understand the institutions of electoral politics, especially parties, we need to look beyond rules and existing structures, to culture and historical processes. Doing so may change our sense of how to classify systems: which dimensions are significant, and where any one country fits within a taxonomy. Malaysia offers an excellent example of why such an approach is valuable. Quite clearly there, an institutional approach tells us more about the persistence than the origins of existing structures and processes. Focusing on historical trajectories illuminates the contingent dynamics through which institutions were constructed – and significantly complicates our understanding of Malaysian politics and party systems. To demonstrate, I will situate Malaysia within the literature on parties and elections, then highlight four broad factors that helped to shape the system as we see it now: the ways in which the rules and characteristics of an electoral system advance or impede the interests of particular segments of the population; the significance of paths (not) taken, as implied by consideration of counterfactuals; and transformative impacts of history and culture. In short, seen from a dynamic rather than static perspective, the Malaysian case begs that we unravel what about the status quo is truly inevitable, and what the result of contingent historical developments. As such, the case recommends a research agenda more broadly that takes seriously changes over time in classifying regimes and institutions rather than assuming the here-and-now is representative of the true essence of the case at hand. 

Yin H Kyaw, National University of Singapore

Of the more than ninety political parties that ran in the 1990 election, the National League for Democracy (NLD) emerged as the main opposition party and won a landslide victory. This victory was largely due to its popular leader, Aung San Suu Kyi. Senior NLD members tried to promote the image of the NLD mainly by using Suu Kyi’s name. Gradually, the NLD became synonymous with Suu Kyi. This paper attempts to analyze how the NLD’s over-dependence on Suu Kyi’s popular leadership undermined the institutionalization of the party and the prospect for the success of the national reconciliation process in the country. So far, the political impasse continues; while the NLD’s position weakens more and more over time, the military remains in firm control of the government. Naturally, analysts, activists and the international community put all the blame on the junta and attributed most political problems in the country to the junta’s unwillingness to transfer power to the NLD. While there is truth in this argument, this paper suggests that while refusing to play the political game according to the rules set by the junta, the NLD did not come up with any concrete strategy to remain a strong opposition party and make the junta take it more seriously. In illustrating this argument, the paper will also explain that it was the failure of the NLD leadership to turn the party into an institutionalized political party that contributed to its failure to consolidate its position vis-à-vis the junta.

Suzaina Kadir, National University of Singapore

In 2004 Indonesia successfully conducted its second general elections since the transition to democracy. Around 147 million voters went to the polls to simultaneously choose among some 450,000 candidates vying for more than 150,000 seats in the national-level People’s Representative Assembly (DPR), the Provincial People’s Representative Assemblies (DPRDs), the Regency or city DPRDs and the new national Regional Representative Assembly (DPD). Twenty-four political parties contested the elections in 2000 electoral districts. Two months later, and for the first time in the country’s history, Indonesians voted for their president directly. The success of the 2004 elections led many political observers to declare that Indonesian had consolidated its democracy.

This paper is concerned with the quality of Indonesia’s democracy. It borrows heavily from the scholarship on party system institutionalization in "Third Wave" democracies, which argue that the degree of party system institutionalization is central to understanding the prospects for democratic consolidation. The paper explores the argument within this scholarship regarding the role of the authoritarian state in affecting party system institutionalization. It hypothesizes that while the New Order State severely weakened established political parties and undermined the party system as a whole, the authoritarian period also offered substantial opportunities for new forms of party machinery to emerge. This has allowed for a fairly stable party system to emerge in the post-authoritarian period with relatively new political parties gaining a stronger then usual foothold. Ultimately, this can bode well for Indonesia’s democratic consolidation.

Nara Ganesan, Hiroshima Peace Institute, Japan

The political party system in Thailand has undergone significant changes since the aftermath of the Asian financial crisis in 1997 and in particular after the election of the Thai Rak Thai government into power in 2001 and 2005. Broadly speaking, structural attempts at national democratic consolidation by the Democrat Party have been weakened. There have also been attempts to rein in social critics and the relatively liberal mass media. Thaksin’s Thai Rak Thai government’s consolidation of power derives from an admixture of populist policies to gain broad electoral support and some selectively strategic policies to defuse traditional alternative centres of power.

A number of smaller political parties that supported the first Thai Rak Thai government dissolved themselves and merged with Thai Rak Thai while the dominant opposition party, the Democrats, has been significantly weakened. The Thaksin government’s overwhelming control of the government and pacification of potential challengers to his power make it appear as if Thailand is headed in the direction of a dominant party system. Yet, in as much as Thaksin consolidates his power and that of the Thai Rak Thai in national politics, serious factionalism and rifts are emerging within the Thai Rak Thai. Consequently, there are both centrifugal and centripetal forces at work within the Thai political party system now. The political violence that has engulfed the southern predominantly Muslim states is also threatening the Thaksin government.