When an autocratic government collapses, what saves the state?

  For us in this part of the world, May 1998 will be remembered for the fall of the Suharto regime, one more climax in the rolling crisis that began in June 1997 with the devaluation of the Thai Baht.

The immediate cause of Suharto's fall was the severe economic crunch in Indonesia, with the Rupiah less than one fourth the value it had a year earlier and the resulting shortage of basic foodstuffs, but the economic whirlwind itself was sowed by the systemic political corruption starting from the highest levels in the country, spanning three decades, that drained the lifeblood out of the economy.

Singapore prides itself as being only moderately affected by the Asian economic crisis, and this we attribute to our sounder financial institutions, greater transparency in economic management, and more credible regulators. This little place also prides itself in being more or less corruption-free. This lulls many Singaporeans to think that we are not in the same class as our neighbour, Indonesia.

But in another respect, I think we have an interesting lesson to learn, and that is in the difficulty Indonesia faces in rebuilding a stable political structure after the collapse of the Suharto regime. It is becoming apparent that the appointment of Dr Habibie, the Vice-President, to fill the vacancy, in accordance with the constitution, is not satisfactory enough. The demonstrators want wholesale change, because the entire establishment is tainted, and because they want a more open political order to prevent a repeat of the past.

Yet there are no clear mechanisms to accomplish this. The constitution, the parliamentary make-up, the electoral system, the laws governing the media were all designed to protect the Suharto order. Each of these institutions must be changed or replaced, yet there is no widely respected mechanism to arrive at a consensus of what to replace them with. So the country is now looking at a transition period of a year, perhaps, before new elections can be arranged under a more open set-up. Such a long transition period does not bode well for economic recovery. Business confidence cannot wait that long. The lack of robust, credible political institutions is hurting the country and its people in very real ways.

If you examine the political structures of Singapore, they don't look that different from the institutions of Suharto's Indonesia. The Parliament in Jakarta was dominated by Golkar, a party that was a collection of various Suharto supporters, with no stirring mission of its own. Furthermore, the armed forces got to appoint a considerable number of their own as MPs. This Parliament has no credibility left with the collapse of the government. Whether or not the people consider it to have any shred of authority to legislate changes for the future is also in doubt. But without legitimacy, how does Parliament provide for new electoral laws and constitutional amendments?

Singapore's People's Action Party has long lost any ideology or social cause, it's largely a nuts and bolts, technocratic outfit. Our Parliament also contains Nominated Members, that no one elected. Over half the eligible population didn't get a chance to vote at the last elections; their MPs were returned unopposed, without anyone casting votes for them. Should the government in Singapore collapse in disrepute, can Parliament retain any legitimacy too?

One of the urgent tasks in Indonesia now is to brainstorm a new electoral system and organise elections. The old set-up, that permitted exactly three government-sanctioned parties, and that required all civil servants to vote for Golkar, is -- you don't even have to ask -- out of the question for the future. Suharto did not do his country a favour by setting up such a self-serving electoral system, which now takes months now to undo, while prolonging the economic pain.

Singapore's electoral system is widely ridiculed, not by the West, but by her own citizens. We began life as an independent country with a single-member constituency system which was straight-forward and easy to understand. We now have Group Representation Constituencies that elect up to six persons en bloc, in some areas, mixed with single-member constituencies in other areas. We have electoral boundaries drawn and redrawn until even the word gerrymandering is too mild. Then of course, there has been so much intimidation of the opposition parties till they no longer are able to provide realistic alternatives to the party in power. In a fit of frustration with the present government, do you think Singaporeans would really want to retain such an arrangement?

The last few days, the Habibie government has been hinting that press laws will be relaxed. The Suharto regime had readily banned any publication that criticised it. Now, such heavy-handedness must be reversed. But how does one enshrine the new freedoms? What if a new dictator comes along and proves intolerant of dissent again? Where are the judicial protections?

I don't have to tell you the situation in Singapore is no different. The government has a controlling hand in every significant publication or TV channel. Should the government collapse in shambles, would the media be whitewashing the mess, even as the system comes crashing down? Would one be happy to simply let a new government take over the same reins of control? If not, how to prevent that?

My point is that just as the collapse of the Suharto regime has left the country with no credible political structures, Singapore too faces the same risk should the government here fall apart in disarray. Our political institutions have been too engineered by the government to survive it with any stitch of credibility.

I can hear you say I postulate too much about a collapse of the government in Singapore. It is too far-fetched. The Suharto government fell because of a severe economic crisis. By no stretch of the imagination would Singapore be in such dire straits, so the same kind of political vacuum will not arise.

You are partly right. The Singapore government is unlikely to be a victim of an economic vortex. But governments can implode for purely political reasons too, and here, Singapore is far from immune. I can think of 4 kinds of disasters: Scandal, Arrogance, Heresy and Schism. For every example I show you from abroad, I can show you something close to it (thankfully, not to the same degree of seriousness) from Singapore's history.

Scandal. Major corruption or wrongdoing at the highest levels. An example is the Watergate affair, which brought the Nixon Presidency down in a maelstrom. Fortunately, the American political institutions, e.g. the Congress, the Press and the Courts, were robust and independent enough to uncover and clean up the mess. In a state with weak institutions, they would more likely be sucked into the scandal, be part of the problem, rather than be the solution.

Despite what you may think, Singapore has not been all that free of scandal. Those of you with a longer memory may recall the Phey Yew Kok affair in the 70's and the Teh Cheang Wan suicide in the 80's. Earlier this decade, when the Nassim Jade issue hit the headlines, and had to be explained, many people were nervous.

Arrogance. Now and then, some governments get carried away by their invincibility, and their sense of what's right for the country. They impose a policy that backfires so badly, the whole government may come crashing down. Indira Gandhi's forced sterilisation campaigns was almost one such example. It was widely hated. This campaign, together with her State of Emergency and the schism she created in her own Congress Party, led to her being ignominiously voted out at the following elections. Fortunately, India had a well-practised electoral system, inherited from the British, and fairly independent institutions such as the Presidency, that allowed for a constitutional changeover.

Singapore's government has been called arrogant for years. In the early eighties, its Graduate Mother policy, a eugenics-inspired piece of social engineering that tried to get women with university qualifications to breed more, was considered offensive by many people from all levels of society.

Heresy. This is when a government charged with a certain faith -- a political faith, not a religious faith -- suddenly disavows that faith. The collapse of the Soviet Union was largely due to Mikhail Gorbachev's heresy. He was entrusted with a vast structure held together by totalitarianism. Along the way, he decided to loosen the controls ("Glasnost") and even cast off East Germany. Instead the whole construction fell down in an infernal heap.

The Soviet Union and its constituent parts did not have any institutions that could survive the disaster with much honour, and even today, years later, the successor republics such as Russia, Uzbekistan and Belarus are still trying to rebuild their political structures.

Can heresy happen in Singapore? Yes, of course. If a government charged with safeguarding Singapore's sovereignty turns around and advocates merger with a neighbouring country, and then brings its control of the electoral system, the media and the bureaucracy to support the move, but is resisted by the public, can you imagine the unholy mess?

Schism. This is when a regime, with overbearing control of all arms of the State, splits internally. The two sides battle for control, no holds barred. There are no institutions with the independence and authority to act as referees. The whole country is consumed in the struggle. Example: Maoist China in the 60's and early 70's. Mao Tse-tung waged internal war on dissenters within the Communist Party. His tool was the Red Guards, who would attack any body of officials, any organ of State, which harboured leaders opposed to his ideology of perpetual revolution. Eventually, only the army could restore order, and only his mortality would end the madness.

Way, way back, in the early 60's, Singapore witnessed a schism. The PAP split, with the Barisan Socialis going into opposition. The Barisan however had mass support, and was a very serious challenge for a few years. I have a feeling that the roots of PAP's totalitarian style can be found in this experience.

To conclude, the lesson from Indonesia is the need to separate Government from State, so that if the government collapses in chaos, at least there remain institutions who hold authority and respect in their own right, to engender a new and acceptable government quickly. Such institutions must include a courageous and independent judiciary, an electoral system and Parliament widely acknowledged to be fair and legitimate, healthy media and civil society, so that views other than that of the discredited government's are heard.

Of the four examples from abroad that I mentioned above, two States survived and overcame their crises: The US and India. The Soviet Union went into the trashbin. China is still trying to find credibility for its institutions, two decades after Mao. Why do some states survive, and others not?

Just as credibility and transparency in financial institutions protect an economy from disaster, so credibility and transparency in State institutions protect a State.

© Yawning Bread 

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