Malaysia's National Front Suffers Setback

Malaysia's opposition made significant gains in Saturday's elections. The alliance of three opposition parties led by former Finance Minister Anwar Ibrahim won 82 of 222 seats in the national Parliament, up from only 19 seats. By controlling one-third of Parliament, opposition parties will be able to block government efforts to amend the constitution. They also took control of five out of 13 states, up from one state previously. They included Penang, home to much of Malaysia's industrial base and to billions of dollars in U.S. and other foreign investments. These elections were held amidst the usual allegations of vote rigging by international organizations such as the Human Rights Watch. The results signaled that Malaysia, one of the world's most economically advanced Muslim-majority nations and the U.S.'s 10th-largest trade partner, could become a model of peaceful democratic change in the Islamic world. Although the jury is still out, this perception is further reinforced by the recent Pakistani elections where the ruling coalition was trounced by the opposition.

Under the decades-long rule of Malaysia's National Front, Malaysian economy has been completely transformed from a natural-resource base to a modern industrial base. The former prime minister and a retired National Front leader Mahathir Mohamad founded the regional alliance ASEAN along with former Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yu of Singapore and late President Suharto of Indonesia. The three leaders, credited with the rapid economic and industrial development of the region, ruled with an iron hand for a long time. The current Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim was abruptly removed as Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister, jailed and tortured by Mr. Mahathir Mohamad during his term in office.

As Yaroslav Trofimov of the Wall Street Journal reports, the spread of uncensored new media, such as the Internet and cell-phone text messaging, helped opposition parties break the government's stranglehold on information flow, harnessing public anger over mounting inflation, widespread corruption and inept governance. Combined with rising resentment by ethnic Chinese and Indian minorities over long-standing affirmative-action policies designed to benefit the country's Muslim ethnic Malay majority, this anger coalesced into a perfect storm of protest against Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi's government.

Mr. Abdullah is now facing growing pressure to step down. Former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, who named Mr. Abdullah to replace him in 2003, also demanded the premier's head, accusing him of "destroying" the National Front.

ASEAN Architect Suharto Passes On

Last Sunday was a sad and a historic day in Southeast Asia as General Suharto, a key architect of ASEAN, left this world at age 86. It seemed like any other day in Indonesia and the world. There was a state funeral but few world leaders mourned his passing. However, the General's close friends and co-architects of ASEAN, Singapore's Lee Kwan Yu and Malaysia's Mahathir Muhammad, reportedly made a visit to his deathbed and wept.

"Lee, 84, and Mahathir, 82, paid what they knew would be their final respects to a former comrade-in-power, in a moment pregnant with symbolism as the curtain was drawing on a key regional actor. The death of Suharto, the most senior of the three ASEAN octogenarians, marks the beginning of the end of a defining generation of regional leaders", said Yang Razali Kassi of Pacific CSIS.

General Suharto leaves a mixed legacy for Indonesia and the entire region. He ruled with a firm hand over a diverse and sprawling country. Many will remember him for the rapid progress made by Indonesia and the ASEAN region that transformed both from agrarian and natural resource based economies to modern industrial economies. Others will recall the deaths of millions of Indonesians in the Communist purge, the human rights abuses in Indonesia and the horrors in East Timor and Aceh that took place on his watch.

Lee Kwan Yu and Mahathir Muhammad, the other two important architects of ASEAN, share many things in common with General Suharto. It was, therefore, quite natural for them to weep at the General's deathbed and think about their own legacies.

The questions that will continue to be asked are: Could the ASEAN economic transformation have been achieved without such leaders? Are other leaders elsewhere in the world inspired or horrified by such legacies? Would countries such as Pakistan be transformed economically in the same way? Are there better days ahead for them?

Here's a video clip on Suharto Legacy: