Every time I despair about Taiwan’s democracy, all I need to do to cheer myself up is look around the region.
Take Thailand. There, a court has ordered off-again, on-again prime minister Samak Sundaravej — whose party was duly chosen by the Thai people in free and fair elections — to step down.
The reason: He took money for appearances on a TV cooking show.
Huh?
One can have a reasonable debate about what sort of sin rises to the level of an impeachable offense. But I’d venture to say that moonlighting on the boob tube to whip up some green curry doesn’t quite cut it.
After all, in places like the US this sort of thing is now a requirement for high office.
Writes the New York Times: “He was paid [US]$2,350 for four shows on a program called Tasting and Complaining, according to testimony by the managing director of the company producing the show. Mr Samak had been host of the show for seven years but gave it up in April, more than two months after being sworn in as prime minister.”
OK, so he made a boo-boo. Why not just fine the guy that amount and a penalty for bad behavior, and move on?
Because what the court order is really all about — surprise, surprise — is politics that’s rawer than the prawns in a bowl of tom yam I once ate at a Koh Samet food stall (an unfortunate event that turned my five-day vacation in paradise into a nightmarish, three-week introduction to Thai healthcare and morbid diarrhea).
The monied Bangkok elite and their buddies in the military and the courts just can’t stand Samak, who they rightly see as a proxy for their arch-enemy, ousted PM Thaksin Shinawatra.
Thaksin’s policies were the best thing to ever happen to Thailand’s rural poor, and that gave him a powerful support base that represents a direct, long-term political threat to Bangkok’s entrenched old-boy network.
That cabal can’t be bothered with a whole ’nuther coup right now (been there, done that — two years ago). And they’ve already tried mobilizing their supporters in the streets to dress up their naked power play as a “people power” movement (hmm, sounds a bit like a certain red-clad army of cretins we saw around these parts not too long ago).
But that darn Samak just won’t step down on his own. So the only thing to do is get him on a technicality — tax evasion, dissing the king, picking his nose in public, whatever … just find something.
Which brings us to Malaysia.
There, we’ve also got hijinks from anti-democratic politicians who just can’t bring themselves to play by the rules of the game.
Longtime opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim is now making a dramatic move to seize power through democratic means.
His and two allied parties did well in March elections, and could form a ruling coalition if he can convince 30 more lawmakers (out of 222 in parliament) to defect to his side. There’s just one hitch: 50 of those lawmakers, including many targeted by Anwar as possible allies, have inconveniently left the country.
Why? They had to join a critical trip to our beloved Taiwan — to study farming methods.
That’s right, dear readers. It turns out this week we may actually have more Malaysian lawmakers than Chinese tourists running around our precious island.
Now I’m all for welcoming our foreign friends to tramp around in our betel nut plantations (note to guests: please tip the binlang xishi handsomely while you’re here) and put pomelo rinds on their heads.
But the timing of this little junket is interesting, to say the least.
Anwar insists he’ll push ahead, despite the old send-them-to-Taiwan tactic. Here’s the New York Times again:
“Anwar claims to have made tacit pacts with dozens of lawmakers in recent months, and insisted that he was still ‘very much’ on track for his target date of next Tuesday.
“‘We’re working on it,’ Anwar told reporters. ‘There are technical problems because [the lawmakers] have been shipped away. ... God willing, it will [still] happen. If need be, I will fly to Taipei.’”
I’m not sure why he makes “flying to Taipei” sound like the ultimate sacrifice, but maybe I’m too sensitive.
At any rate, in Malaysia, too, we have the old-line “powers that be” subverting democracy through non-electoral means that are downright laughable. Or would be laughable, unless you’re Anwar, who probably didn’t find it so amusing when courts put him in jail for six years on sodomy charges (the charges were overturned and he was freed in 2004).
Here, again, we have a long-term political threat to an entrenched elite, this time Mahathir Mohamad and his like. They’ve long maintained a stranglehold on Malaysian politics, in part by favoring majority ethnic Malays with sweeping affirmative action policies. Anwar wants to do away with ethnic favoritism, which makes him dangerous.
Unfortunately for the old guard, the guy just keeps winning support. Hence another round of butt-piracy charges against Anwar, this time from a 23-year-old former male aide.
So what does all this have to do with Taiwan?
As screwed up as politics may appear here, for the time being most of our powerful politicians appear to accept basic democratic processes — and that even goes for our current Shuaige-in-Chief Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), no matter how limp his leadership may be.
For that, of course, we can be thankful.
But if you start to see sodomy lawsuits and cooking-show scandals in the Taiwanese press, you’ll know we’re really in trouble.
PS: For readers looking for a kickin’ tom yam and other essential Thai recipes, I urge you to visit www.thai-food-recipes.com, which has this memorable intro:
“Hi. I am Warunee from Petchabun, which is about 200 miles north and very slightly east of Bangkok, as the ‘Siamese Fireback Pheasant’ flies. Of course those of you who are ornithologists will know that a more scientific name for this pheasant is ‘Lophura Diardi’ and that their flight path may not be identical to that of a Crow.
“Welcome to my web site, which is dedicated to bringing you the most authentic Thai food experience ever.”
Got something to tell Johnny? Go on, get it off your chest. Write to dearjohnny@taipeitimes.com, but be sure to put “Dear Johnny” in the subject line or he’ll mark your bouquets and brickbats as spam.
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