The march of democracy in Southeast Asia

Across the border in Singapore, the PAP's Tony Tan was sworn in as President a fortnight ago. He won by the narrowest of margins, just beating out a former PAP politician campaigning on a platform of more transparent government. In a sign of the growing divisions within the party and the electorate, this was the first presidential poll since 1993 (the first time it was held) to be contested by more than one candidate.

In the May general election, the PAP won 60% of the votes. While this would be considered a landslide in Australia, it actually represented a 6.5% swing away from the party and its worst result since independence in 1965.

These are small steps, but they are nevertheless significant. In a region known for its stellar economic growth, the path from development to democracy has been uneven at best.

Singapore's first Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew famously maintained that Asian people preferred soft authoritarian 'Asian values' to the individual freedoms espoused by the West.

John Lee pointed out back in 2008 that China's economic modernisation had not led to widespread democratic demands. The well off, well educated middle class had increased rapidly in size. But these nouveau riche preferred party membership to political franchise.

Once seen as Southeast Asia's greatest hopes for democracy, coup-ridden Thailand and the Philippines have seen political freedoms decline over the last decade.

But other large Asian countries have bucked the trend. In Japan and South Korea, the first Asian 'tigers', democracy has been remarkably resilient. Indonesia, just over a decade ago an authoritarian stronghold, has transformed into a vibrant (if messy) democracy. Now it seems that liberal democracy is a real (if perhaps distant) possibility in Malaysia and Singapore too.

Writing in the influential journal Foreign Affairs in 2009, Ronald Inglehart and Christian Welzel argued that economic "modernization does not automatically lead to democracy. Rather, it, in the long run, brings social and cultural changes that make democratization increasingly probable."

Malaysians and Singaporeans, now well accustomed to economic growth and development, are slowly beginning to demand political freedoms too.