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Democracy and Discipline
Two elections have taken place in the last one week that have greatly strengthened Asia's move towards democratic governance — a trend that has been prominent in the region in the last few years. In Republic of Korea, a civilian president has been elected after 30 years of being ruled by military autocrats. In the nearby Taiwan the ruling Nationalist Party (KMT), though re-elected to power, has been sent back with a thin majority, making the message of voter dissatisfaction loud and clear to the party that has been ruling this island country ever since Chiang Kai Sheik brought them here in 1949.
In the case of Korea, the election this time was unique in many ways. As for the candidates, there were the two old veterans — Kim Young Sam. the president-elect and the Kim Dae Jung, from the main opposition party. Then there was a third, the 77-year old tycoon turned politician, the populist Chung Ju Yung, founder of the con-, glomerate Hyundai Group. The last candidate was Perot incarnate. He was Mr Fix-all without much substance to his policies. For most of the last three decades of Korean struggle for a fully civilian government, the two Kims fought the military-led civilian governments side by side. But in January 1990. Kim Young Sam joined the ruling Democratic Liberal Party with fifty of its members in the parliament. This shocked many of the veterans of democracy movement and was then seep as a capitulation. Now. however, it Is being judged as a shrewd move to gain the majority of the Conservative votes, that was needed to catapult the younger of the two Kims to power.
In the case of Taiwan, which is seeing some form of opposition politics only recently, the recent election will go a long way in democratising the ruling KMT. which has so far been dominated by the leadership that owed its power through the patronage of the old guards of the Kuomintang. There has been a widespread feeling that the mainlanders who came to the island in 1949 monopolised power, to the exclusion of the Taiwanese. This feeling found expression in the extreme demand for independence of Taiwan and sharp opposition to one China point of view. The outcome of this election will force the ruling party to be more receptive to the views of groups other than those who are within the party or its affiliated bodies.
What is interesting about Korea and Taiwan Js that both these countries have had enormous success in developing their respective societies, and are now making definite strides towards democratising their political systems. Thus strong disciplinarian regimes were used to bring about economic progress, and now they are going i towards democratic governments.
This brings to the fore a very Important Issue, that of democracy versus discipline. It has been said about both Korea and Taiwan that during the last three decades these countries had highly disciplined society, where all forms of political opposition was controlled and manipulated and trade unions were virtually non-existent. This was attributed to be the reason for their economic success. This was also said to be the case for Singapore, as was recently reiterated by Lee Kuan Yew, the architect of Singapore's economic success, in a seminar in the Philippines, in which the Philippines President, ex-military chief Fidel Ramos, made a strong case for democracy.
For whatever it Is worth, we would like to throw our lot with democracy. We have seen how in the name of discipline and political stability, the democratic rights and privileges of the people were usurped and how non-representative governments were imposed on us. But at the same time we think there is a lot to learn from the experiences of Korea, Taiwan and Singapore, in how to manage the economy in the most efficient manner to achieve the maximum growth with limited resources. Perhaps the issue is not democracy versus discipline, but democracy with discipline.