Electoral Malpractice in Asia: Bending the Rules 9781955055963, 9781685852931

Citation preview

Electoral Malpractice in

Asia

Electoral Malpractice in

Asia

Bending the Rules edited by

Netina Tan and Kharis Templeman

Published in the United States of America in 2023 by Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc. 1800 30th Street, Suite 314, Boulder, Colorado 80301 www.rienner.com and in the United Kingdom by Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc. Gray’s Inn House, 127 Clerkenwell Road, London EC1 5DB www.eurospanbookstore.com/rienner © 2023 by Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Tan, Netina, editor. | Templeman, Kharis, editor. Title: Electoral malpractice in Asia : bending the rules / edited by Netina Tan and Kharis Templeman. Description: Boulder, Colorado : Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc., 2023. | Includes bibliographical references. | Summary: “Systematically compares the quality of elections across eleven democracies and electoral autocracies in Asia”— Provided by publisher. Identifiers: LCCN 2023000978 (print) | LCCN 2023000979 (ebook) | ISBN 9781955055963 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781685852931 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Elections—Corrupt practices—Asia. Classification: LCC JQ38 .E46 2023 (print) | LCC JQ38 (ebook) | DDC 324.95—dc23/eng/20230323 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023000978 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023000979 British Cataloguing in Publication Data A Cataloguing in Publication record for this book is available from the British Library. Printed and bound in the United States of America The paper used in this publication meets the requirements of the American National Standard for Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials Z39.48-1992. 5  4  3  2  1

Contents

Acknowledgments

vii

 1 Electoral Malpractice in Asia: The Menu of Manipulation Kharis Templeman and Netina Tan PART 1

1

RULING PARTY ACTORS: CHOOSING FROM THE INCUMBENTS’ TOOLKIT

2 Japan: Manipulating (on) the Margins Kenneth Mori McElwain and Tomoshi Yoshikawa

27

3 South Korea: Neither Free nor Fair Jong-sung You

43

 4 Taiwan: Raising the Bar Kharis Templeman

65

 5 Mongolia: When Manipulation Backfires Michael Seeberg

89

 6 Singapore: Tilting the Playing Field Netina Tan

107

 7 Malaysia: When the Whole Menu Is Not Enough Kai Ostwald

127

 8 Cambodia: When the Gloves Come Off Max Grömping

145

v

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Contents

PART 2

LOCAL AND UNELECTED ACTORS: MANIPULATION WITHOUT INCUMBENTS

 9 Indonesia: Different Actors, Different Tools Seth Soderborg

169

10 The Philippines: Democracy in Distress Cleo Calimbahin

199

11 Myanmar: Invisible Intimidation Elin Bjarnegård

219

12 Thailand: The Uses and Abuses of Electoral Reforms Joel Selway

241

PART 3

CONCLUSION

13 Electoral Malpractice: The Consequences for Democracy in Asia Kharis Templeman and Netina Tan

255

List of Acronyms Bibliography List of Contributors Index About the Book

283 287 311 313 327

Acknowledgments

THIS BOOK HAS HAD A LONG GESTATION. ITS INTELLECTUAL ORIGINS DATE back to 2007, when the editors first met as dissertation fellows at the Taiwan Foundation for Democracy in Taipei, Taiwan. During our fieldwork in Taiwan, we initially were focused on opposite sides of the same research topic: Netina wanted to better understand how the KMT’s hegemonic party regime broke down over time, while Kharis was concerned with explaining how the opposition Democratic Progressive Party developed into a formidable challenger to the ruling party. But we quickly discovered that we shared an interest in one-party dominance and a morbid curiosity about all the underhanded ways that ruling parties could stack the deck to win contested elections. We also became intellectual sparring partners, lobbing questions, criticisms, and the occasional derisive jab at each other as we tried to make sense of the Taiwanese case and how it fit into the larger patterns of electoral authoritarianism around the world. We learned a lot from each other. The book itself was conceived years later at a workshop held on the sidelines of the American Political Science Association annual conference in San Francisco. That event brought together more than thirty people for a full day of presentations on the patterns of electoral malpractice in Asia. In addition to the chapter authors, many participants contributed to the initial discussions or provided comments on manuscript drafts that helped to shape the project’s evolution. We especially acknowledge comments and contributions from Larry Diamond, Carolien van Ham, Jorgen Elkin, Allen Hicken, Meredith Weiss, Stan Hok-Hui Wong, Guillem Riambau, Chin-shou Wang, Yu-hsien Sung, Sarah Shair Rosenberg, Ben Nyblade, and Paul Schuler. We also benefited from a grant from the vii

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Acknowledgments

Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, which among other critical elements made possible the food, drink, and caffeine necessary to pull off a successful workshop. Over the following months, the outlines of the book started to take shape. As we began to seek a publisher, we received critical early feedback and encouragement from Lynne Rienner Publishers, which saw the potential of an edited volume on electoral malpractice that covered both northeast and southeast Asia. At LRP, we benefited from the editorial assistance and exceptional patience of Marie-Claire Antoine, who reacted to the many twists, turns, and delays in the project with good-natured understanding. Her encouragement and prodding through the shifts in chapter lineups and the long physical isolation brought on by the global Covid-19 pandemic helped to keep us moving toward the finish line. As we neared the end of the editing process, we came to rely heavily on the organizational skills and resourcefulness of several research assistants at McMaster University, including Cassandra Preece and Elaina Ngyuen. The editors acknowledge with gratitude the support of their respective institutions and mentors during the years this project was in progress. Netina Tan is grateful to Bernie Grofman for his guidance in shaping the way she thinks about gerrymandering and the unfair effects of electoral rules. Kharis Templeman thanks Larry Diamond for his support and encouragement and his longtime leadership of the Taiwan project at Stanford, as well as the various campus units with which it has been affiliated: the Freeman Spogli Institute and its director, Michael McFaul; the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center and its director, Gi-wook Shin; and the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law and its former director Francis Fukuyama. Since 2020 the Taiwan project has had a new name and home at the Hoover Institution; Kharis would like to thank the institution and its director, Condoleezza Rice, for providing early-career fellows the research support and time away from administrative and teaching duties to take on ambitious projects such as this one. Finally, we both thank all of the authors in this collection for their patience and commitment as we saw the book through to completion. They are, of course, absolved of any remaining errors of interpretation or fact, which remain the sole responsibility of the editors.

1

Electoral Malpractice in Asia: The Menu of Manipulation Kharis Templeman and Netina Tan

THIS IS A BOOK ABOUT ELECTORAL MALPRACTICE IN PACIFIC ASIA.1 It is focused on the electorally contested regimes of the region, although the questions that motivate it and the implications of the case studies within it are relevant around the world, in democracies both old and new. The book brings together studies of eleven countries in two regions in Asia: Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Mongolia in northeast Asia, and the Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Cambodia, Thailand, and Myanmar in southeast Asia. The chapters covering these cases demonstrate the many ways that the legitimacy of elections has been undermined in the region. The picture is not pretty. Even today, some form of electoral malpractice can be found in almost every country in Asia. This book documents serious problems at every stage of the electoral process, including the pre-electoral phase beginning with the manipulation of the voter rolls in Cambodia and Indonesia; strict campaign rules designed to protect incumbents in Japan and South Korea; arbitrary changes to the electoral system in Mongolia, Singapore, and Malaysia; harassment of candidates or selective exclusion from the ballot in Thailand, Indonesia, and the Philippines; vote buying, ballot stuffing, and fraudulent counting of the votes in Cambodia; and direct military intervention and exclusion of elected officials from power after elections in Thailand and Myanmar. Nevertheless, the cases in this book also offer some reason for optimism. Electoral malpractice may be common in the region, but its

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prevalence also indicates that elections are meaningful and competitive: electoral outcomes are not preordained, and voters can use the power of the ballot box to throw the rascals out. The lengths to which political elites will go to manipulate the electoral game are an indication that the game itself is important. Even when electoral competition is unfair, political conflict is still channeled into a process that is regular, normalized, and rewards the winners with the right to rule. Unfair electoral competition is still preferable to no competition at all, as in closed autocracies such as China, Laos, North Korea, and Vietnam. Moreover, not all violations of the integrity of the electoral process are equally destructive to political legitimacy and the quality of democracy. Widespread vote fraud, the arrest or murder of opposition candidates, and military coups spell the end for democracy in a way that vote buying and gerrymandering do not. From this perspective, the shift over time in several Asian countries, including Japan, South Korea, Indonesia, and Taiwan, from manipulation that is crude, personalized, and arbitrary to sophisticated, institutionalized, and rulesbased, should be viewed as a sign of progress. The converse is also true: the increasingly repressive methods used to keep incumbents in power in Cambodia, Myanmar, and Thailand are manifestations of a deep (and deeply tragic) political regression in countries that once appeared to be on the path to democracy.

What Is Electoral Malpractice? Electoral malpractice is one of the great threats to democracy today. As Andreas Schedler noted in a foundational article on the topic, for a political regime to qualify as democratic, its electoral process must “offer an effective choice of political authorities among a community of free and equal citizens.”2 This process-based approach defines electoral integrity as a normative ideal, and it implies that there is a universal set of benchmarks against which individual cases can be evaluated.3 Following Pippa Norris’s work, we use the term electoral integrity to refer to the set of global norms and international standards which, when maintained through each step of the electoral process, are sufficient to create a level electoral playing field. The integrity of democratic elections is fully maintained when these benchmarks are met before, during, and after election day. Conversely, if any part of the process falls short of international norms and standards, then we have an example of electoral malpractice.4

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In our book, the term electoral malpractice is used broadly to include all activities that lead to a violation of the “level playing field” ideal.5 But not all malpractice is equally problematic for democracy. What is most concerning is electoral manipulation—the intentional, systematic use of illegitimate means to influence election outcomes in favor of one party, candidate, or coalition over others. Electoral fraud is the most damaging kind of electoral manipulation; it involves deliberate interference with the voting or vote-counting process that violates domestic laws and is intentionally perpetuated by governments, incumbents, electoral officials, or party workers to favor some parties or candidates over others.6 Examples of fraud include the removal of qualified voters from (or addition of “ghost” or “phantom” voters to) the voter rolls, stuffing or tossing ballots, and falsification of vote tallies.7 In contrast, electoral maladministration refers to the unintentional mistakes, routine flaws, and mishaps by election officials that occur because of managerial failures, inefficiencies, or incompetence.8 The severity of these violations can vary a great deal across electoral regimes and within regimes over time. Some aspects of managing an election, such as creating accurate voter rolls and printing ballots, require basic administrative competence that is sorely lacking in some cases. The integrity of the electoral process may then be undermined without intentionality because of mismanagement or insufficient capacity. However, election management typically improves over time, as voters and candidates gain experience, administrators develop clearer and more consistent procedures to manage the critical functions of elections, and norms and rules become better established. It is also likely to be better, all else equal, in places where state capacity is higher—and this factor can also vary significantly even within countries.

What Do We Know? There has been a great deal of conceptual work on what electoral malpractice is.9 An especially helpful framework for thinking about the different kinds of malpractice comes from Sarah Birch, who categorizes it based on the targets of manipulation: rules, voters, and voting over the pre-electoral, election day, and post-election cycle (see Table 1.1). As Birch notes, these manipulations can also be thought of as taking place at different stages of the election cycle. For example, manipulation of the rules typically occurs well before election day—everything from the choice of electoral system to the number of polling stations and ballot

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Table 1.1

Types of Electoral Manipulation

Manipulation

Pre-Electoral Process

Rules and legal   framework

Electoral system Exclusionary rules   (candidacy) Gerrymandering Malapportionment Campaign finance Independence of   election commission Voters (preference Pork-barreling   formation or Campaign spending   expression) Abuse of state resources Vote-buying Media time Voting (electoral Ballot design   administration) Location of ballot booths   

Election Day Presence of   international   election   observers

Post-Election Appeal   process Annulment   of results Disqualification   of candidates Protests Electoral   violence

Ballot-box stuffing Misreporting Bias in electoral   voting process Underprovision of   facilities in   pro-opposition   districts Forging voter   identification Burning ballot boxes Padding voting totals Indelible ink (multiple   voting)

Sources: Birch, Electoral Malpractice; Norris, Why Electoral Integrity Matters; Schedler, “The Menu of Manipulation,” pp. 36–50.

design usually is decided early in the electoral process. Manipulation of voters typically occurs during the election campaign period, in the months and days leading up to an election. And manipulation of the voting and counting occurs on election day itself—and sometimes beyond, through post-election violence and the annulment of election results. Manipulation of Electoral Rules Birch’s first type of malpractice is the manipulation of rules. Political actors can target for manipulation the collection of norms, laws, regulations, and other practices that together define the electorate and structure

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the conversion of preferences into votes, votes into seats, and seats into political power. Manipulation at this stage begins with the most fundamental issue of all: who has the right to vote? In most polities, one must be a citizen to enjoy that right. Where the citizenship of a significant share of the population is contested, as with the Rohingyas in Myanmar, it may be rational for incumbents to deny their (valid) claims to be members of the electorate to prevent them from voting. But even if citizenship is not in doubt, the ease of voter registration and access to polling stations can still vary across subgroups within the electorate.10 In some countries such as the Philippines, voter registration is not automatic, and the hurdles to registering and exercising the right to vote tend disproportionately to affect groups with lower socioeconomic status, resulting in lower turnout among those groups and neglect of their interests by elected representatives. Further, given the high number of overseas workers and expatriates from the Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia, and Myanmar, the right of citizens living abroad to vote is also a common threat to electoral integrity in the region.11 In most of the other cases in this volume, however, voter registration is automatic, voter rolls are derived from population registers, and the gap between potential and eligible voters is small or nonexistent. What are more commonly manipulated across the Asian cases are the electoral rules. Manipulation of the rules in the region comes in three forms: malapportionment, or the uneven distribution of elected representatives across constituencies; gerrymandering, or the deliberate drawing of district boundaries to favor one party or coalition’s candidates over others; and disproportionality, or the conversion of votes into seats in a way that systematically favors one party (usually the plurality winner) over others.12 These practices are problematic for democratic representation: by distorting the conversion of votes into seats, they undermine the principle of political equality and ensure that the votes of some citizens are weighted much more heavily than others. They can also undermine democratic accountability if this inequality between voters maps onto partisan competition. In extreme cases, incumbents have won reelection indefinitely with the support of only a minority of the electorate, leading to long periods of one-party dominance. In Malaysia, severe malapportionment helped keep the dominant coalition led by the United Malay National Organization (UMNO) in power for over five decades—even when, as in 2013, it lost the popular vote to the opposition. It managed this feat by apportioning parliamentary seats so that the average number of voters in districts in the eastern states of Sarawak and Sabah and the rural Malay heartland on

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the Malay peninsula was much lower than in urban districts that supported the opposition. Consequently, a vote cast in one of these UMNO stronghold districts could be worth as much as ten times a vote cast elsewhere.13 Another example of extreme malapportionment comes from pre-1993 Japan, where the number of voters represented by a member of the Diet from an urban district grew to be three or four times those represented by a member in a rural district. This gross inequality of representation gave rural areas disproportionate political influence and helped keep the longtime ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) in power for almost 40 years.14 Gerrymandering and disproportionality have also helped incumbents hang onto power across the region even as their popularity has declined. Gerrymandering has had the greatest impact in single-member districts, where the ways boundaries are drawn have sometimes predetermined electoral outcomes regardless of changes in voter preferences. Singapore is an especially egregious example. In the last thirteen general elections, the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) has on average won over 97 percent of the seats with 68 percent of the vote. It has routinely used its control over the Election Department for partisan advantage, changing electoral boundaries and switching back and forth between single-member and multi-member winner-take-all group representation constituencies before every election.15 The arbitrary manipulation of boundaries and sizes of constituencies has resulted in high disproportionality between vote and seat shares, and PAP nominees have often ended up winning in “walkovers”—uncontested races.16 A final class of manipulation of electoral rules targets candidates and campaigns themselves. Throughout Asia, electoral laws and regulations have been enforced in ways that effectively limit who can run for office—for instance, by requiring that large financial deposits be paid or for independent candidates to gather large numbers of signatures to qualify for the ballot. One of the most prominent examples of this kind of manipulation comes from post-2010 Myanmar, where the military junta wrote a requirement into the constitution that the country’s president could not have immediate family members with foreign citizenship. This clause effectively barred the opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi from holding the office. Similar kinds of legal or practical barriers have also been erected elsewhere to prevent competitive new parties from registering and contesting elections, even as multiparty competition was officially permitted. During the so-called New Order period in Indonesia under Suharto, for instance, only three government-approved parties were allowed to field candidates, creating a

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kind of closely managed party system that prevented genuine challenges to Golkar, the ruling party. Another example is Singapore’s 2017 presidential election. There, the ruling PAP suddenly introduced a constitutional amendment and tightened candidate eligibility rules to reserve the presidential office for an ethnic minority. That institutional manipulation effectively barred all the leading opposition candidates from the competition.17 Although Singaporeans are used to predictable elections, the election of Halimah Yacob—the first female president in Singapore—through a “walkover” created much unhappiness. Other more sophisticated forms of manipulation have involved the regulation of campaign activities. The variation in how, when, and where candidates are allowed to campaign is particularly striking across northeast Asia. For example, in Japan and Korea, election law and its strict interpretation and zealous enforcement by regulators and courts have placed severe restrictions on the times and locations of vote canvassing, election rallies, and even campaign billboards. These two cases stand in stark contrast to the laissez-faire approach of Taiwan at the opposite end of the spectrum, where there are few limits on campaign activities and speech. Finally, incumbent parties in several Asian countries have used their control over the legal system to sue or selectively prosecute opposition members and journalists for critical speech. For instance, the PAP in Singapore and UMNO in Malaysia have frequently made use of administrative punishments and legal actions to gain an electoral advantage. In Singapore, opposition challengers such as J. B. Jeyaretnam and Chee Soon Juan were fined for criticizing the government and prosecuted or disqualified for running for office for minor violations of campaign finance reporting requirements.18 Critics of the PAP government have also regularly been sued for libel or denied tenure at academic institutions.19 In Malaysia, false allegations of sexual misbehavior were repeatedly brought against former deputy prime minister Anwar Ibrahim and used to disqualify and jail him for years.20 In Thailand, lèse-majesté laws have been used for similar purposes against the opposition and reporters—a legal abuse that has become more common after the most recent military coup in 2014.21 In Indonesia, a sweeping anti-blasphemy law has enabled Islamist groups to seek to disqualify non-Muslim candidates for office—most prominently the Christian former governor of Jakarta Basuki Tjahaja Purnama (nicknamed “Ahok”) in 2017.22 In the Philippines, President Rodrigo Duterte’s government arrested a sitting senator and leading government critic, Leila de Lima, on trumped up charges of protecting

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drug dealers while she was justice minister in the previous administration.23 Duterte also followed up a year later by having another senator and prominent government opponent, Antonio Trillanes, arrested on charges of “rebellion.”24 Manipulation of Voters Birch’s second type of malpractice is the manipulation of voters. For the integrity of the election to be upheld, voters must be allowed to cast their votes freely and in secret, without either reward or punishment being tied to their voting decisions. This fundamental principle has been violated in many ways across the region. Governmental agencies have appointed only members of the ruling party to government jobs, giving them a direct financial stake in the outcome of an election and exploiting state resources for partisan ends. Civil servants have been forced to join the ruling party and campaign for it, as occurred during Suharto’s rule in Indonesia and Chiang Ching-kuo’s in Taiwan. Public agencies responsible for distributing government benefits have used these payouts as leverage, with bureaucrats responsive to groups or precincts that supported the ruling party’s candidates in the last election while ignoring applications from those suspected of disloyalty. Private companies that received government contracts have limited employee choice, insisting that their workers vote for ruling party candidates or be fired from their jobs. These are all examples of clientelism in elections. Clientelistic exchanges between office-seekers and voters can take many forms, but they are typically characterized by two basic features: government and ruling party resources can be selectively targeted at individual voters; and benefits delivered in this way are contingent and can be withheld in future if voters do not follow through by supporting the party’s candidate for reelection.25 Many variations on clientelism are found across our cases. One especially illustrative example of how the incumbent party abuses state resources for electoral gains comes from Singapore, where more than 80 percent of the electorate lives in public housing blocks. In 1997, the PAP exploited this feature by promising to prioritize estate lift and facility upgrades for pro-PAP precincts.26 Voters were also told that their estates would “be left behind” and become “slums” if they voted for opposition parties.27 Clientelism has also been pervasive in Japan, where support for the LDP in many constituencies was built on government construction contracts; companies that won these contracts in turn mobilized their workers and subcontractors to donate money and turn out

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for the party’s candidates at election time.28 Other more coercive forms of clientelist exchange have been common in the Philippines, where large landholders and business owners who wield significant economic power over their tenants and employees have threatened to expel or fire farm or factory workers if they refuse to support the boss’s preferred candidate in the election. When these threats have been ineffective, local power-holders have been known to deploy private militias to intimidate anyone attempting to campaign for challengers.29 The most extreme form of manipulation of voters is through the overt use of violence, which can suppress participation, change voting behavior, and drive candidates out of the race. Election-related violence has become rare in northeast Asia, but it remains disturbingly commonplace in some parts of southeast Asia, particularly in the Philippines, Thailand, Cambodia, Myanmar, and parts of Indonesia. In the Philippines, political killings have targeted not only candidates for local office but also key supporters, political organizers, and even reporters.30 In Indonesia, election-related violence has tended to occur in formerly separatist areas and districts with prior ethnic violence, although riots in Jakarta after the 2019 presidential election led to the deaths of six people. 31 Credible reports of election-related violence and voter intimidation also still appear regularly in Cambodia, Thailand, and Myanmar.32 Nevertheless, as a tool for electoral manipulation, violence has considerable political downsides: in addition to its deeply immoral nature, it can also be messy, unpredictable, and costly. As a result, many political actors across the region have shifted toward vote buying as their favorite form of manipulation. Vote buying is the exchange around election time of money, food, or other goods for the promise to support a given candidate at the ballot box, and it has historically been practiced to varying degrees in every country in our book except for Singapore.33 The root causes of this variation are complex, but they include at least the electoral rules, level of competitiveness, turnout, poverty and clientpatron relations between candidates and voters.34 For example, the single nontransferable vote (SNTV) electoral system, which pits multiple candidates from the party against one another over the same blocs of voters, was commonly believed to incentivize vote buying when it was used in Japan and Taiwan.35 In both cases, the switch to a mixed-member parallel system appears to have contributed to a decline in the incidence of vote buying. Candidates for parliament have faced similar incentives under Indonesia’s open-list proportional representation (PR) system, where competition for votes between party members to come

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top of the party’s list can be fierce, and payments to voters are often necessary even to be viable. Although it has been widespread in the region, vote buying, too, comes with downsides. Successful execution of a vote buying strategy to win office requires detailed knowledge of a constituency’s voters, including who are the candidate’s supporters and who can be bought. It also requires solving an enforcement problem: if the ballot is secret, then voters may well be able to defect from any agreement with a campaign, taking their money and voting for who they want without fear of retribution. Vote buying has been most effective in low-salience, low-turnout elections, where getting supporters to show up to vote can be decisive. It has been much less effective in high-interest, high-turnout elections, where a few hundred votes bought through traditional networks may have little impact where the winning totals may be in the millions. In addition, as incomes and living standards have risen, vote buying has become more expensive and uneconomical compared to television and newspaper advertisements, social media campaigns, billboards and sound trucks, and other forms of voter outreach. There are also legal risks to vote buying: if caught, candidates have been struck from the ballot, fined, or jailed for the practice. Thus, the decline of vote buying in some of the cases in this book, notably in Japan, Korea, and Taiwan, should offer some hope that progress is possible to other countries in the region where this electoral scourge remains common, such as Indonesia and the Philippines. Although some scholars do not consider advantages of incumbency or media control to be forms of malpractice,36 we think these should be included on the menu of electoral manipulation. The abuse of the government’s power to regulate and control information flows is a serious problem in Asia. The integrity of elections rests on voters’ free access to information and on the ability of candidates to make direct appeals to voters. When all (or almost all) forms of media are under the government or incumbent party’s control, this precondition is no longer met. Opposition challengers will have a hard time getting their appeals across to voters if all television stations are state-owned, party-owned, or incumbent-aligned. The same is true for newspapers and magazines. In some of our cases, strict licensing requirements have been used to shut down critical political reporting; in others, selective enforcement of libel laws has been used to punish daring investigative reporting on powerful political figures. Or, if newspapers and magazines are not shut down, state regulators nevertheless dictate the content they are allowed to publish, assessing stiff fines for printing unflattering sto-

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ries about the government, as in Malaysia and Singapore, or simply arresting journalists on trumped up charges, as in Cambodia, Thailand, and the Philippines. With the advent of the internet, and especially the spread of social media apps accessed via smart phones, some democracy advocates expected that these alternative sources of information would create a more level playing field and erode the power of incumbents to set the terms of campaigns.37 While the growth of online technology in Asia has allowed voters to access new and more diverse viewpoints and allowed electoral challengers to get around strict limits on offline activities, it is increasingly clear that online media and social media platforms are a double-edged sword for electoral integrity.38 The absence of editorial discretion, news feed algorithms that prioritize user engagement over accuracy and impartiality of stories, and the speed at which false reports spread on social media make these platforms new sources of information but also of mis- and disinformation that can leave voters distracted and poorly informed about political issues. 39 Sources of falsehood can emerge from state agencies, rival candidates, or foreign actors who wish to influence voting behavior. These actors are increasingly brazen in manipulating the platforms through hired hands or “cyber troops” to alter the information voters receive about their electoral choices.40 The rise of malicious disinformation is a serious concern for electoral integrity and a topic that needs more study in Asia and globally. Manipulation of Voting and Counting Birch’s third category of electoral malpractice is the manipulation of the voting and counting process itself, both on election day and beyond. As noted earlier, malpractice can occur inadvertently and not be intended to disadvantage any particular group, party, or candidate. This malpractice is often a result of a lack of administrative capacity or experience running elections. These problems have typically been most severe in the region in countries holding their first elections after a political transition, when the entire electoral infrastructure may need to be constructed from scratch—from developing accurate voter rolls, designing the ballot, and using indelible ink to prevent double-voting, to figuring out how, when, and where to count the ballots. After a few election cycles, these inadvertent voting and counting problems have tended to go away as poll workers gain experience and routines become established.

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Yet the maladministration of voting and counting can also be much more malign, intentional, and persistent. One of the most important obstacles to electoral integrity in Asia at this stage has been the mistrust of election officials. When one party or leader dominates the government and has abused its power, it may be hard for people to be persuaded that election administrators and poll workers will not bend the rules to help the incumbent secure reelection. Without basic trust in the fairness of the process, a host of ostensibly technical, apolitical decisions can take on a nefarious cast. In Cambodia in 1998, for instance, a change to the proportional representation formula used to distribute seats prevented the opposition from winning a majority—a seemingly innocent decision that had serious long-term consequences for the country’s democratic trajectory.41 The most dramatic—and traumatic—kind of manipulation of the voting process has been through the threat of violence. Although electoral violence is not common in most of the cases in this book, there are still recent instances in which a campaign’s supporters instigated riots that targeted election administrators (in Indonesia), armed groups seized ballot boxes and destroyed votes they suspected would go for the opposition (in Myanmar), and government-backed thugs roamed the streets targeting suspected opponents for random violence to keep voters away from the polls on election day (in Cambodia). Nevertheless, it has generally been easier and less dangerous for power-holders in our cases to use subtler methods of manipulation targeting the vote count. One option is ballot stuffing, which has typically involved the addition of “ghost” or “phantom” ballots marked for a particular candidate and added to the polling box at some point during the electoral process. For instance, during the martial law era in Taiwan (before 1987), a favorite trick of the ruling KMT was to cut the lights for a few minutes during the public vote count. When power was restored, the voting trends would change as late-counted ballots put the KMT’s favored candidates in the lead. Though no one could prove that ballot stuffing had taken place during these blackouts, the reason for the repeated pattern across precincts was obvious. 42 Another form of manipulation is ballot spoiling—election workers have simply thrown out and not recorded votes cast for the “wrong” candidate, as occurred in a notorious case in Taiwan in 1975, 43 and more recently at the commune level in Cambodia. A third option is falsification of vote totals after the election count is over, either at the precinct level or centrally, by workers loyal to the government or ruling party, as occurred in the Philippines in 2004. Finally, there is out-

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right rigging of the voting results. In New Order–era Indonesia (1966– 1998), for example, electoral commission members took advantage of the complicated process of aggregating the vote count from the precinct up to the national level to change numbers so they would hit the vote targets of the ruling party, Golkar. The manipulation of the actual vote count is among the most blatant forms of electoral integrity violation, but also the hardest to pull off successfully, and the cases in this book offer some useful lessons for how this kind of electoral fraud can be deterred.44 First, an impartial electoral administration —usually, a public bureaucracy—has been critically important for preventing vote fraud.45 Politicized electoral management bodies (EMBs) have in many of these cases undermined the legitimacy of elections, even when there was no obvious attempt by electoral commissioners to favor some candidates over others. In contrast, EMBs with both high capacity and high autonomy from the ruling party or government have in general helped bolster the legitimacy of the election winners. Second, transparency has been key to building trust in electoral administration and to dispel any suspicions about the voting or counting process. Long term exposure to electoral irregularities undermines citizens’ trust and willingness to turn out to vote. 46 To counter these suspicions, in some cases candidates have been able to nominate their own observers (as in Indonesia) or even their own poll workers (as in Taiwan) to be present at every polling station to monitor the voting and counting. Under these conditions, the incentives to follow the rules and call out each other’s mistakes have usually been sufficient to ensure a fair and accurate count. Another way to enhance trust has been to hold a public count of the ballots. While more than 59 percent of countries in the world tabulate their votes electronically, in Taiwan and Indonesia, votes are still manually counted in the polling place immediately after the polls close, in the presence of anyone who wants to observe.47 Finally, the presence of outside observers may dissuade poll workers from attempting to falsify the count. There is already a large literature on the role and effects of international election monitors in ensuring electoral integrity, mostly in Africa, but also in Cambodia, Mongolia, Indonesia, and Myanmar.48 As this work shows, observers from outside organizations have in some cases helped document flaws in election procedures and acted as a kind of impartial judge of electoral integrity. But given the size and scope of an election in, for instance, Indonesia, which has 190 million voters spread out over a

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giant archipelago of 10,000 islands, the actual deterrent effect of international election monitors on electoral malpractice has not been very important in the region, and out of proportion to the attention they have received in the comparative literature on electoral malpractice. Worse, international election monitors with misaligned objectives have in some cases failed to prevent violence or been used by the winner to give a veneer of respectability to a badly flawed election, as Hun Sen did with observers in Cambodia’s 2018 general elections.49 What has proven more useful for large countries such as Indonesia are procedures that allow local groups to monitor the voting and counting and to report problems themselves. The “Menu of Manipulation” All the variations in form, timing, and perpetrators of electoral malpractice in the region highlight a key fact: those who wish to manipulate elections have many choices. There is a continuum of manipulative behavior and practices across our cases, from blatant, heavy-handed violations, to the subtle, surgical changes that are not evident except to the most astute observers.50 Confident incumbents have also sometimes chosen not to manipulate at all and instead supported robust checks on malpractice. The reasons political actors have chosen one form of electoral manipulation over another are not always obvious. For instance, vote buying and intimidation of opposition supporters are two means to achieve the same ends, and these practices have appeared at different times even within the same countries. As Andreas Schedler put it twenty years ago: The chain of choice . . . suggests that authoritarian transgressions are equivalent in practical terms. If this is true we may expect them to work like the tubes of a pipe organ. If some go down, others must go up. But to what extent and under which conditions are authoritarian rulers free to pick from the menu of electoral manipulation? Which combinations and sequences of nondemocratic strategies are viable and which are likely? Unfortunately, scholars of comparative politics do not currently know much about the conditions under which authoritarian actors pursue, or stop pursuing, certain strategies or bundles of strategies.51

Much work has been done in the last two decades to document and categorize different forms of electoral malpractice. This scholarship has filled out Schedler’s “menu of manipulation” and advanced our understanding of how manipulation can be carried out across a wide array of

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different political systems. However, it has not yet advanced nearly as far in explaining how power-holders decide between different types of manipulation. Given that power-holders typically seek to influence elections to achieve desired results—even in robust liberal democracies— what explains the variation in the kinds of electoral manipulation that we observe across different regimes? This question has been surprisingly neglected in the study of electoral integrity, democratic backsliding, and electoral autocracy. Despite rapidly growing literatures in each of these areas, we still know little about what drives the trade-offs between, for instance, stuffing ballot boxes with extra votes versus paying voters to vote a certain way.52 Instead, much of the research on electoral malpractice in recent years has focused on explaining the cost or consequences of one particular kind of manipulation in isolation: vote buying,53 clientelism,54 malapportionment and gerrymandering,55 violence and intimidation,56 and outright fraud such as ballot stuffing or falsifying vote counts.57 Another line of research on elections in autocracies has put forward elaborate deductive theories of how one kind of electoral manipulation or another is executed,58 how manipulation is used to signal regime strength,59 and how incentives to manipulate elections can be affected by the presence of election observers.60 The question of why powerholders might switch between different types of manipulation, however, does not feature much in this work. Advantages of Case Studies on Electoral Manipulation Quantitative comparative research has helped to move forward the literature on malpractice, but it also suffers from some weaknesses that country case studies may be able to overcome. First, there is the problem of assigning causality to statistical associations, between measures of democracy, economic development, social cohesion and division, and regime features, on the one hand, and measures of electoral integrity on the other. The ability to manipulate elections to benefit a ruling party or incumbent candidate is endogenous to the type of regime itself—free and fair elections are part of the definition of democracy. Thus, showing a correlation between certain kinds of manipulation and regime type or level of democracy does not by itself demonstrate a causal relationship between the two. Individual case studies offer a better way to assess causality, if we can trace how a single ruler or ruling party switched from one method of manipulation to another as other aspects of the regime or its external or domestic environment changed.

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For example, a common claim about vote buying is that rising incomes and living standards make it a less economical and effective way to manipulate elections, and so it should decline in prevalence as percapita GDP rises. By looking at political and economic development over time within a single case, we can evaluate this claim more effectively than comparing across many cases at a single point in time. In fact, this is what we find in the cases of Taiwan, South Korea, and Japan in this book: as household incomes have risen, vote buying has become less common. This finding offers some hope that in cases such as Indonesia, Thailand, and the Philippines where vote buying is still widespread, it may become less of a threat to electoral integrity as economic prosperity increases. Second, there is a potential selection bias problem in most quantitative studies of electoral malpractice. The tendency in this research area is to focus on cases where electoral manipulations have occurred, and then to ask about their consequences.61 But this approach cannot answer why power-holders commit one kind of fraud and not another, or why they manipulate elections at some times and not others. These are arguably some of the most interesting and important questions about electoral manipulation, but by focusing on only the cases with egregious electoral violations, we risk overlooking the hidden success stories where clean elections happened in unlikely circumstances. Case-study work can heighten our awareness of these instances and help us mitigate this selection bias problem. Third, much of the recent scholarship on electoral manipulation begins with deductive theory-building: the authors make some simplifying assumptions about key actors, preferences, and institutional constraints and capabilities, and then work to derive nonobvious predictions from those assumptions.62 It is striking that many of these models are inspired by just one or two prominent cases of electoral fraud, such as in Russia under Putin. The wide range of places and times in which electoral manipulation has occurred, and the diverse ways in which elections are managed around the world, should raise skepticism about the generality of these models and the insights that they can provide. For example, elections do not always determine who governs, and we should consider other reasons power-holders might choose to allow contested elections. Elections also take place in regimes where the supreme authority is beyond the reach of the electorate, as in Iran, Jordan, Morocco, and Kuwait—and among our cases, Myanmar, Thailand, and martial-law-era Taiwan. Additional case study work can help us better understand the motivations and stakes involved in elections that do not

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affect who rules but do matter for other ruling party goals, including distribution of spoils, recruitment, information-gathering, and signaling strength to elites and voters. Finally, recent work on electoral malpractice has focused disproportionately on a few prominent cases: Mexico in Latin America;63 Russia64 and other post-Soviet and post-communist regimes in Eastern Europe;65 and a handful of sub-Saharan African countries66—especially Kenya and Zimbabwe. There is also a large literature on electoral manipulation in the United States, though it has developed in almost complete isolation from scholarship in the comparative politics subfield.67 Thus, our understanding of electoral manipulation would benefit from looking at a wider distribution of cases across the world’s electorally contested regimes.

About the Book We aim in this book to add to the current literature by examining electoral malpractice in northeast and southeast Asia. Cases in this region have been underrepresented in comparative scholarship on pre-election intimidation, electoral fraud, election-management bodies, election observers, vote buying, and postelection protests and violence. Good descriptive work by knowledgeable country experts can bring these cases to a wider audience that may not be familiar with Asia but is interested in the comparative study of the conduct of elections. To this end, this book features case studies of all the major countries in Pacific Asia that hold (or have recently held) contested, multiparty elections—a region that contains over 600 million people. These include Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Mongolia in northeast Asia, and Singapore, Malaysia, Cambodia, the Philippines, Indonesia, Cambodia, Myanmar (Burma), and Thailand in southeast Asia. Each case is covered by a contributor who is an expert in the politics and electoral practices of that country. This distribution, we think, hits the happy medium that is most promising for comparative case-study research: countries that share a broadly similar geopolitical and economic context, but nevertheless exhibit enormous variation in regime histories and in their contemporary political systems. Two important patterns are immediately apparent across this set of cases. First, a diverse array of political actors are involved in electoral manipulation across the region, including ruling and opposition parties, individual candidates, local power-holders, the military, electoral

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management bodies, and even foreign governments. Second, the same manipulators have in many cases employed different strategies at different times. As some types of electoral manipulation have become more costly—as when international observers are introduced, foreign aid is at stake, an economic crisis hits, or an election management body becomes more independent—those in power have ordered up substitutes from the menu of manipulation, most often switching from cruder to more subtle forms of manipulation. The simplest manipulation strategy for power-holders is simply to ban real opposition parties and candidates, as in, for instance, Taiwan during the martial law era, or Cambodia after 2013: one cannot lose an election that has only one name on the ballot. But this can come at a high reputational cost to autocrats: it undercuts any claim to being fairly and legitimately chosen by the people to rule. In Asia, this cost rose near the end of the Cold War. As the political value of winning elections increased, some of the same political actors who had previously banned electoral competition found it in their own interests to implement fair elections free of intimidation and vote fraud, believing they were popular enough to win an election outright without cheating, or that the electoral institutions were set up in a way that was already so advantageous to the incumbent that electoral defeat was nearly impossible. This change over time within the same country is a central focus of the case studies. They collectively expand our understanding of not only how political elites have made these trade-offs but also how institutional features can limit or expand the menu of options for manipulation. For example, among the high-capacity states of South Korea, Taiwan, Malaysia, Japan, and Singapore, a diverse array of tactics is used to manipulate elections. In Singapore and Malaysia, gerrymandering and selective enforcement of rules and regulations to the incumbent party’s benefit have been the most serious forms of electoral violations, and while oppositions can contest elections, they are campaigning on an electoral playing field tilted strongly against them. By contrast, in Japan and Korea, the tool of choice has been strict legal limits on campaign activities. These restrictions have been applied relatively evenly, appearing to provide the “level playing field” that is so conspicuously absent in much of Southeast Asia. But here there is a subtler strategic logic: incumbents benefit more from strict campaign limits than the challengers, as they are already well-known to the electorate while challengers are not. Thus, the legal limits provide a kind of hidden incumbency advantage that is more sophisticated but also more dependent on the state’s capacity to enforce campaign restrictions.

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At the other end of the spectrum are the low state capacity regimes of the Philippines, Cambodia, and Myanmar, each of which has suffered from widespread violations of electoral integrity throughout the electoral process. All three have been characterized as “flawed” democracies or worse by Freedom House, despite holding regular, contested elections. In these cases, power-holders have focused more on manipulation of voters and campaign processes than the electoral rules themselves. For decades, incumbents in Cambodia, Thailand, Indonesia, and Mongolia have used state resources for vote buying and patronage as a central part of their campaign strategies. These violations of electoral integrity have not prevented ruling party turnover, which has occurred in all these countries except Cambodia. However, this pattern of manipulation has also contributed to deep distrust of the electoral process by the losing camps—and in the Thai case, an explicit rejection of democratic politics altogether by a large part of the royalist elite. These case studies also allow us to explore the sources of variation in electoral practices across countries that experienced political liberalization at around the same time. For example, South Korea and Taiwan are both notable for improvements in election management that occurred well before their respective transitions to democracy began in the 1980s. Consequently, the independence and professionalism of election management bodies was not a serious worry when they democratized. Together with Japan, they are the highest-quality democracies in the region today. The contrast with Indonesia is instructive: in the predemocratic New Order period, the Suharto regime practiced systematic fraud during the vote count and aggregation, and so a critical issue after democratization was how to prevent these practices from reoccurring. The solution there has been to create multiple overlapping oversight bodies: one to manage the elections, a second to oversee the election management body, and a third to investigate the other two. This fragmented system has largely succeeded in rooting out the widescale fraud of the Suharto era, but at the cost of many delays and inefficiencies in the vote count, including disputes over the results in individual localities that drag on for months or even years.

The Manipulators: Ruling Parties and Everyone Else The chapters that follow are divided into two groups of case studies based on who has historically done the manipulating. In the first group, which includes Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Mongolia, Singapore,

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Malaysia, and Cambodia, a ruling party has historically been the most important power-holder and electoral manipulator. In all these cases, ruling parties have manipulating the electoral rules with the aim of keeping themselves in power. In Chapter 2, Kenneth McElwain and Tomoshi Yoshikawa explore Japan’s long postwar history of elections, detailing how governing parties and incumbent politicians have strategically altered and violated electoral laws. They argue that partisan motivations and a passive judiciary have tilted the electoral playing field in the incumbent LDP’s favor. Similarly, in Chapter 3, Jong-sung You shows that both conservative and liberal parties in South Korea supported strict electoral rules and prosecution of campaign violations, and he demonstrates how these rules have undermined electoral fairness. Taiwan presents a stark contrast; in Chapter 4, Kharis Templeman traces the rise of a professional central election commission under electoral autocracy there and argues that the ruling KMT was incentivized to eliminate electoral fraud and support a relatively liberal electoral regulatory environment. In Chapter 5, Michael Seeberg highlights how a multiparty system and semipresidential regime helped to preserve institutional checks and balances and to strengthen electoral integrity in Mongolia. In Chapter 6, Netina Tan demonstrates how Singapore’s ruling PAP has regularly relied on litigation, co-optation, and pre-electoral manipulation of rules via a compliant election commission to restrict political competition. In Chapter 7, Kai Ostwald shows how the previously hegemonic UMNO-led coalition in Malaysia engaged in a wide range of manipulations to maintain its parliamentary majority prior to its unexpected defeat in 2018. In Chapter 8, Max Grömping maps out the time, space, and tactics used by Hun Sen and the CPP to manipulate elections in Cambodia. In the second group, which includes Indonesia, the Philippines, Myanmar, and Thailand, other actors have more often been the most important manipulators of the electoral game. In Chapter 9, Seth Soderborg shows how overlapping and independent watchdog institutions in Indonesia have made the once-routine, large-scale electoral manipulation of the Suharto era all but impossible. Today, local candidates rather than the incumbent party are the most likely to attempt to manipulate elections. In Chapter 10, Cleo Calimbahin demonstrates how electoral integrity in the Philippines is persistently undermined by strong dynastic politics, electoral violence, and weak campaign finance regulation, although the move to automate the vote count has been a recent bright spot in an otherwise dismal picture. In Chapter 11, Elin Bjarnegård documents how the military-backed party Union Solidarity and Develop-

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ment Party (USDP) in Myanmar has attempted to use “invisible” forms of violence such as intimidation and psychological coercion to change election outcomes. In Chapter 12, Joel Selway traces how the militarybacked government in Thailand has moved toward manipulation of the electoral system as the efficacy of more traditional tools of vote buying, political assassinations, and clientelism has declined. Finally, in the concluding chapter, we attempt to draw some generalizations from the case studies. We tackle three tasks there. First, we note variation in the broad patterns of electoral manipulation across the region and over time. Second, we highlight several key factors that appear to be associated with this variation, including the party system, independence of courts, structure of electoral management bodies, and broader international context. Third, we highlight some remaining questions that deserve further attention in the literature on electoral malpractice.

Notes 1. By this term we mean the traditional regions of northeast and southeast Asia, but not South Asia (the Indian subcontinent), Central Asia, or Oceania. 2. That is when elections (1) empower citizens to choose their leaders, (2) provide voters with a “free supply” of competing alternatives to choose from, (3) allow these alternative candidates and parties to appeal freely to voters’ demands, (4) ensure all citizens have equal access to the vote, (5) allow voters to express their preferences freely and anonymously without individual repercussions, (6) reflect an accurate count of the votes freely cast, and (7) ensure that the winners of that count are able to assume office and exercise power for the length of their terms. Schedler, “The Menu of Manipulation,” p. 37. 3. Pre-electoral manipulation includes forms of manipulations that occur during the early steps of the electoral cycle prior to the polling. That can include manipulation of election laws; electoral procedures; electoral boundaries; voter registration; party and candidate registration; campaign media and campaign finance. Van Ham, “Getting Elections Right?”; Norris, Why Electoral Integrity Matters. 4. Norris, Why Electoral Integrity Matters, pp. 21, 34. 5. It refers to an “activity that is likely to be engaged in by incumbent political actors (though not necessarily or exclusively those who hold the offices up for election in the contest in question), either directly or through pressure put on electoral and administrators at various levels.” Birch, “Electoral Systems and Electoral Misconduct,” Comparative Political Studies, pp. 3–4. 6. Simpser, Why Governments and Parties Manipulate Elections, p. 14. 7. Lehoucq, “Electoral Fraud”; Alvarez, Election Fraud. 8. Norris, Why Electoral Integrity Matters, p. 36. 9. For example, Cheeseman and Klaas, How to Rig an Election;; Alvarez, Election Fraud; Schedler, “The Menu of Manipulation.” 10. For voter registry fraud in Japan, see Fukumoto and Horiuchi, “Making Outsiders’ Votes Count.”

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11. Thousands of overseas migrants did not receive their ballots and were excluded from Myanmar’s 2020 general elections. Nyein, “Thousands Excluded.” 12. Coma and Lago, “Gerrymandering in Comparative Perspective”; Johnston, “Manipulating Maps and Winning Elections.”; Grofman and Handley, Redistricting in Comparative Perspective. 13. Ostwald, “How to Win a Lost Election.” 14. Hickman and Kim, “Electoral Advantage.” 15. Tan, “Pre-Electoral Malpractice.” 16. Tan, “Manipulating Electoral Laws in Singapore.” 17. Osman and Waikar, “The People’s Action Party and the Singapore Presidency”; Rodan, “Singapore’s Elected President.” 18. Thio, “Singapore,” p. 516. 19. For example, see George, “Reputational Risk.” 20. Chin, “Malaysian Politics.” 21. Harsono, “Indonesia to Expand Abusive Blasphemy Law. 22. Setijadi, “Ahok’s Downfall.” 23. Villamor, “Leila de Lima.” 24. Villamor, “Second Philippine Senator Who Defied Duterte.” 25. Hicken, “Clientelism.” 26. Huat, “Constituency Delimitation and Electoral Authoritarianism.” 27. Richardson, “Blunt Message Sets Scene for Singapore’s Election.” 28. Reed, “Patronage and Predominance.” 29. Patino and Velasco, “Election Violence in the Philippines.” 30. Hicken, Aspinall, and Weiss, Electoral Dynamics in the Philippines. 31. Harish and Toha, “A New Typology of Electoral Violence.” 32. Ibid. 33. Aspinall et al., “Vote Buying in Indonesia”; Callahan, “The Discourse of Vote Buying and Political Reform”; Hicken, “How Do Rules and Institutions Encourage Vote Buying?” 34. Hicken, “How Do Rules and Institutions Encourage Vote Buying?” 35. Schaffer, Elections for Sale; Wang, Democratization and the Breakdown of Clientelism. 36. Cheeseman and Klaas, How to Rig an Election, p. 6. 37. See especially Diamond, “Liberation Technology.” 38. Tan, “Electoral Management of Digital Campaigns and Disinformation.” 39. Persily, “Can Democracy Survive the Internet?” 40. For disinformation threats from China in recent election campaigns in Taiwan, see Blanchette et al., “Protecting Democracy in an Age of Disinformation.” 41. Brown, “Election Observers in Cambodia.” 42. Su, “Angels Are in the Details.” Eventually, Taiwan’s election laws were changed to allow each candidate for office to nominate their own poll workers at each station; to deter fraud during these blackouts, these workers carried flashlights with them so they could monitor the ballot boxes and continue the count in the dark. 43. Su, “Angels Are in the Details.” 44. Mares and Young, “Buying, Expropriating, and Stealing Votes”; Simpser, Why Governments and Parties Manipulate Elections. 45. Kerr and Lührmann, “Public Trust in Manipulated Elections”; Carolien van Ham and Staffan Lindberg, “When Guardians Matter Most.” 46. Carreras and Irepoglu, “Trust in Elections, Vote Buying, and Turnout”; Rosas, “Trust in Elections.”

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47. Data from IDEA shows that Bangladesh, Cambodia, Indonesia, Myanmar, Nepal, Singapore, Sri Lanka, and Thailand are some of the countries in Asia that still rely on manual vote-counting methods. IDEA, “Are Official Election Results Processed by an Electronic Tabulation System?” 48. Hyde, The Pseudo-Democrat’s Dilemma; Kelley, Monitoring Democracy; OSCE/ODHIR, Handbook for the Observation of Voter Registration. 49. “Election Monitoring Groups in Cambodia.” 50. For example, Cheeseman and Klaas highlighted six categories of electoral manipulation: gerrymandering, vote buying, repression, digital hacking, ballot-box stuffing, and playing to the international community. How to Rig an Election, pp. 6–7. 51. Schedler, “The Menu of Manipulation,” p. 46. 52. Exceptions include Collier and Vicente, “Violence, Bribery, and Fraud”; Schedler, The Politics of Uncertainty; van Ham and Lindberg, “Choosing from the Menu of Manipulation.” 53. Schaffer, Elections for Sale; Aspinall et al., “Vote Buying in Indonesia”; Callahan, “The Discourse of Vote Buying and Political Reform.” 54. Allen, “Clientelism and the Personal Vote”; Aspinall, “When Brokers Betray”; Corstange, “Clientelism in Competitive and Uncompetitive Elections”; Kitschelt and Wilkinson, Patrons, Clients, and Policies; Stokes, “Political Clientelism.” 55. Grofman and Handley, Redistricting in Comparative Perspective; Samuels and Snyder, “The Value of a Vote”; Hickman and Kim, “Electoral Advantage, Malapportionment, and One-Party Dominance”; Batto, “Sources and Implications of Malapportionment”; Coma and Lago, “Gerrymandering in Comparative Perspective.” 56. Wilkinson, “Votes and Violence”; Hafner-Burton, Hyde, and Jablonski, “When Do Governments Resort to Election Violence?”; Collier and Vicente, “Violence, Bribery, and Fraud”; Birch and Muchlinski, “The Dataset of Countries at Risk of Electoral Violence.” 57. Simpser, Why Governments and Parties Manipulate Elections; Harvey, “Changes in the Menu of Manipulation.” 58. For example, Gehlbach and Simpser, “Electoral Manipulation as Bureaucratic Control”; Rundlett and Svolik, “Deliver the Vote!” 59. For example, Simpser, Why Governments and Parties Manipulate Elections; Miller, “Elections, Information, and Policy Responsiveness”; Little, “Fraud and Monitoring in Non-Competitive Elections.” 60. Chernykh and Svolik, “Third-Party Actors and the Success of Democracy”; Hyde and Marinov, “Which Elections Can Be Lost?” 61. For instance, did the introduction of strict voter identification laws in some US states disproportionately disadvantage minority voters and hurt the Democratic Party? For examples, see Sobel and Smith, “Voter-ID Laws Discourage Participation”; Valentino and Neuner, “Why the Sky Didn’t Fall”; Grimmer et al., “Obstacles to Estimating Voter ID Laws’ Effect on Turnout.” 62. Simpser, Why Governments and Parties Manipulate Elections, pp. 32–34. 63. Cantú, “The Fingerprints of Fraud”; Diaz-Cayeros and Magaloni, “Mexico”; Eisenstadt, Courting Democracy in Mexico; Langston and Morgenstern, “Campaigning in an Electoral Authoritarian Regime”; Magaloni, Voting for Autocracy; Rundlett and Svolik, “Deliver the Vote!”; Simpser, Why Governments and Parties Manipulate Elections; Ugues and Vidal, “Public Evaluations of Electoral Institutions in Mexico” 64. Bader and van Ham, “What Explains Regional Variation in Election Fraud?”; Harvey, “Changes in the Menu of Manipulation”; Frye and Borisova,

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“Elections, Protest, and Trust in Government”; Rose and Mishler, “How Do Electors Respond to an ‘Unfair’ Election?” 65. Bunce and Wolchik, “International Diffusion and Postcommunist Electoral Revolutions”; Kuntz and Thompson, “More Than Just the Final Straw”; Mares, Muntean, and Petrova, “Economic Intimidation in Contemporary Elections”; Sjoberg, “Bring the Party Back In”; Tucker, “Enough!” 66. Asunka et al., “Electoral Fraud or Violence?”; Bratton, “Vote Buying and Violence”; Bratton, Dulani, and Masunungure, “Detecting Manipulation in Authoritarian Elections”; Collier and Vicente, “Violence, Bribery, and Fraud”; Goldring and Wahman, “Fighting for a Name on the Ballot”; Cheeseman, Lynch, and Willis, The Moral Economy of Elections in Africa; Kerr, “Election-Day Experiences.” 67. For an exception, see White, Nathan, and Faller, “What Do I Need to Vote?”

PART 1 Ruling Parties as Manipulators: Choosing from the Incumbents’ Toolkit

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Japan: Manipulating (on) the Margins Kenneth Mori McElwain and Tomoshi Yoshikawa EARLY POST–WORLD WAR II ELECTIONS IN JAPAN WERE PLAGUED BY rampant electoral fraud, including bribery, voter intimidation, and illegal campaign expenditures. However, a series of high-profile scandals in the 1950s and 1960s, involving kickbacks for government contracts, increased public pushback against “money politics.”1 The long-ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) begrudgingly responded to electoral pressure and implemented a series of reforms to electioneering and campaign finance laws. New guilt-by-association rules (renzasei) that held candidates responsible for misconduct by family members and campaign staff, coupled with accounting requirements that improved the transparency of campaign donations and expenditures, made overt corruption rarer.2 While nominally a “good” outcome, the Japanese approach to regulating electoral malpractice has also come with costs. Concerns about electoral integrity have been used to justify a wide range of restrictions on campaigning activities. Candidates cannot run television advertisements or canvass voters door-to-door. The campaign period is restricted to just twelve days for the powerful House of Representatives. The use of the internet to reach out to voters was tightly proscribed until 2013. These broad bans on electioneering pose two challenges to the quality of electoral democracy. First, they reduce democratic engagement by making it difficult for voters to learn about candidates, parties, and policy issues. Second, they bias the electoral process in favor of incumbents, who have a name recognition advantage and are less reliant on

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campaigning than are challengers. This pro-incumbent bias has helped the LDP to preserve its majority despite declining public popularity.3 The judiciary has also played a crucial role in allowing these rules to persist. While it is not surprising for partisan actors to use public welfare as a pretense to manipulate rules in their favor, these regulations can run afoul of constitutional protections of free speech, assembly, and due process. In polities with an independent judiciary endowed with constitutional review powers, the constitutional court serves a vital role in judging the permissibility of electioneering restrictions. However, the Supreme Court of Japan (SCJ) has been tolerant of far-reaching restrictions on fundamental political rights, including many activities that are legal in other established democracies. A key underlying factor is Article 47 of the Constitution of Japan, which grants the parliament significant leeway in designing electoral rules, thus making the courts loathe to interfere in electoral system design. This silence has meant, however, that governments have been able to tilt the electoral playing field in their favor. Drawing on comparative examples and the specific case of postwar Japan, this chapter reviews partisan motivations for erecting electioneering restrictions and judicial rationales for permitting or prohibiting such practices. We show that countries vary in how much they privilege the freedom versus fairness of elections. The former denotes minimal restrictions on political freedoms and the permission of (relatively) unfettered campaigning; the latter takes into consideration a public welfare interest in equalizing electioneering opportunities among candidates. In this spectrum, Japan’s campaign environment rests much closer to the “fairness” end of the scale. The SCJ has consistently ruled that there is a legitimate government interest in prioritizing public welfare, with two notable characteristics. First, the rulings acknowledge an expansive definition of public welfare that includes not only electoral integrity, such as reducing bribery, but also leveling the playing field between candidates. Second, they judge the effects of restricting any particular method of campaigning as incidental, and hence constitutionally reasonable, despite significant evidence and concerns to the contrary. As a result, legislative majorities in Japan have had relatively free rein to manipulate electoral rules to maximize partisan goals.

How Electioneering Regulations Matter Candidates and parties use various campaign tactics, including advertisements, speeches, and posters, to promote positive news about them-

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selves and negative information about opponents. However, the quantity and quality of campaigns differ between countries and over time. Election laws vary in how tightly they cap campaign expenditures and which forms of electioneering they ban. Crucially, the effects of these regulations are not politically neutral, even when enforced fairly. In general, voters have more information about incumbents from governing parties, who have a legislative track record and receive more regular media exposure.4 As such, strict proscriptions tend to insulate electoral front-runners, while looser rules allow challengers and trailing parties more opportunities to catch up. Regulations are often justified by concerns about the negative externalities of unfettered political campaigns. For example, the growing salience of television advertisements has led to a rapid increase in total expenditures, while declining grassroots membership has made parties more dependent on interest group donations. Arms races to raise campaign funds can produce clientelistic, quid pro quo relationships between political actors and donors. Indeed, high-profile scandals have provided the impetus to tighten campaign finance regulations and introduce public financing for political activities in Britain5 and France.6 The argument for these rules is straightforward: if candidates are capped at lower expenditure ceilings and most of that limited amount is paid by the state, then political elites will have less incentive to engage in bribery, kickbacks, or fraud for electoral purposes. A related solution to curbing campaign finance abuses is to tighten the range of permissible campaign activities.7 For example, the salience of television-based campaigning has risen as voters get more of their news from television programs, but countries vary in whether candidates can purchase private television advertisements and whether they are allocated free time on the public broadcaster.8 Australia and Finland permit privately-funded television advertisements, but Belgium, France, Ireland, and the United Kingdom allow advertisements only as allotted by the government. Japanese regulations have evolved over time. Television campaigning was partially deregulated in 1969, when candidates were permitted to make policy speeches (seiken housou) on NHK, the national public broadcaster. In 1983, candidates were allocated one more time slot to introduce their resumes in a staid newscast (keireki-housou). The original impetus for media broadcasts was to compensate for the declining number of voters who attended public speeches and town hall meetings, but the number and length of television appearances remain curtailed. With regard to private advertisements, political parties were not allowed to purchase television

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time on commercial broadcasters until 1996; individual candidates still cannot do so as of 2022.9 Another case is the quantitative length of election campaigns. Most countries lack explicit limits on when candidates can campaign, although many have implicit periods based on how soon an election must be called after parliament is dissolved. For example, Irish elections must be called within thirty days of dissolution, while Italian elections must be held within seventy days. Typically, these “campaign periods” do not proscribe earlier voter contact. Instead, they are used as benchmarks to determine the start of state-funded television time or to demarcate periods when specific accounting rules for party expenditures kick in. In Japan, by contrast, all forms of candidate campaigning for lower house elections, including directly canvassing voters, are prohibited until twelve days before polling day, although some restrictions have been loosened in recent years. Such restrictions can influence election outcomes by changing voters’ knowledge and prioritization of issues. Stevenson and Vavreck find that fluctuations in key macroeconomic indicators, such as unemployment, inflation, and gross domestic product (GDP) growth, have a smaller impact on election outcomes when campaigns are shorter than six weeks.10

Electioneering Restrictions in Japan Japan’s electioneering regulations are among the strictest in the democratic world. The Public Offices Election Act (POEA; also called the Public Offices Election Law), which governs national and local elections, regulates the number of posters allowed to be distributed, the size of the posters, the number of cars that can be used for campaigning purposes, the number of newspaper advertisements that can be purchased, and other electoral minutiae. Ward, writing about these extensive regulations in the 1960s, points out, “Very few can campaign successfully and still abide by the extremely detailed and rigorous provisions of the law.”11 Carlson and Reed note that “illegal” campaigning, as defined by the POEA, often involves precisely the same activities as legal campaigning.12 For example, Article 139 of the POEA states that it is permissible in Japan for candidates to offer green tea to campaign volunteers, but not coffee. Many of the POEA’s proscriptions date back to 1925, when the Imperial Diet passed a series of laws, including universal male suffrage, that transformed elections to the House of Representatives. While earlier statutes simply enumerated basic civil rights and suf-

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frage criteria, this new law began to delineate campaign conduct. The 1925 Electoral Act banned door-to-door canvassing, placed a ceiling on the number of campaign staff and total expenses, and penalized violence against candidates and voters. 13 Siniawer attributes these tighter restrictions to concerns among the conservative establishment about growing campaign violence, as well as their fear that leftist parties would use their newly enfranchised base of poorer voters to mobilize volunteers cheaply.14 Although the electoral code was less relevant during World War II, when multiparty elections were curtailed, many regulations were resurrected after the resumption of democracy in 1945. The POEA, passed in April 1950, amalgamated various laws relating to elections for the House of Councilors (the upper house), the House of Representatives (the lower house), and sub-national governments. It also upheld many prewar restrictions on electioneering and even added new limits. Public financing of campaign speeches (tachiai enzetsukai), postcards, and posters was expanded, but all other forms of campaign material were prohibited. New accounting rules for expenditures and revenues were established, but they did not require the reporting of third-party expenses that were not directed or coordinated explicitly by the candidate’s official campaign. The normative rationale for the new POEA guidelines was to privilege the fairness of opportunity over the freedom of expression.15 But while legal limits on campaigning evened the playing field for all candidates, the strictness of those regulations disproportionately harmed challengers. The main beneficiaries of the POEA were conservative incumbent candidates. Shorter deadlines to declare candidacy, higher campaign deposits, and limits on electioneering collectively raised the costs of running for office, unless one had independent wealth or was backed by an established party. Proposals to permit door-to-door campaigning were blocked by conservative parties, which feared that leftwing parties would use their grassroots members and labor union meetings to mobilize voters. However, the Socialists—the main opposition party—typically approved new campaign restrictions as long as they received public financing for those activities that were deemed legal. The POEA has evolved significantly since 1950. As of 2022, there have been sixty-three formal amendments to this law, as well as more than 100 minor changes to ancillary provisions that are parts of laws regulating the bureaucracy, Diet, and cabinet. These revisions have had both positive and negative effects on the nature of Japanese elections. On the one hand, by increasing penalties for violations and mandating better

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accounting, they have raised the costs of electoral malpractice. Figure 2.1 tracks the number of POEA violations that resulted in arrests for both lower and upper house elections. Violations jumped from 10,921 cases in the 1958 election to 17,177 in 1960; those relating to bribery increased similarly from 8,209 to 13,346.16 On the other hand, the number of cases has declined steadily since the 1960s, for two primary reasons.17 First, the expansion of “guilt-by-association” penalties (renza-sei), whereby candidates can be fined or imprisoned for POEA violations by staff and family members, has acted as a deterrent. Second, electoral reforms to both Diet chambers have reduced personalistic competition and lowered campaigning costs. In 1983, the Upper House, which utilizes a mixed-member electoral system, changed its national tier electoral rule from single nontransferable vote to closed-list proportional representation (PR). In 1996, the Lower House held its first election under a new mixed-member majoritarian system that replaced the former MMD-SNTV rule. Both

Figure 2.1

Electoral Law Violations in Japan

Source: Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communication, 2017, 2019. Notes: The vertical axis shows the number of arrests (cleared cases) for violations of election laws. Solid lines correspond to House of Representatives (lower house) elections. Dashed lines correspond to House of Councilors (upper house) elections.

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33

reforms have deemphasized district- or candidate-level competition in favor of more partisan or programmatic competition.18 Importantly, these changes eliminated intraparty competition for votes, which was one of the drivers of expensive campaigning and electoral law violations.19 In the most recent 2021 lower house election, there were only fifty-seven cases of POEA-related violations that resulted in arrests, of which twenty-four involved bribery and nine involved disruptions of campaign activities, such as ripping up campaign posters. That being said, postwar revisions have also reinforced the POEA’s pro-incumbent bent. The most important changes were the separation of rules that applied before and after the start of the official campaign period. Under the POEA, politicians are largely prohibited from canvassing voters in any way before the day elections are called, or the Kouji date. Before Kouji, candidates cannot ask constituents to vote for them, distribute flyers and pamphlets, or place newspaper advertisements, but they may do so in a limited fashion afterward.20 As discussed in Section 2, the designation of official campaign periods is not unique to Japan, but the blanket proscription of any prior electioneering is rare among established democracies. Given the steady growth in persuadable voters—weak partisans and independents—in the postwar era, more extended campaign periods could give opposition challengers more opportunities to challenge the LDP, whose popularity was declining. The LDP’s response was to shorten the actual campaign period itself. In 1950, thirty days of campaigning were permitted before all major elections. However, the postKouji period for lower house elections was reduced to twenty days in 1958 and fifteen in 1983, until by 1994, candidates could only campaign for 12 days. In the same span, the campaign periods for upper house and gubernatorial elections fell to seventeen days, and that for the Prefectural Assembly to nine days. Table 2.1 displays changes in campaign period length since 1950.

How Japanese Courts Rule While partisan actors may want to mold a wide range of electoral rules, campaign regulations tend to become the first targets because they are rarely encoded in the national constitution, making them changeable by legislative statute. The Comparative Constitutions Project database codes the constitutional enumeration of three items relevant to our query: the electoral formula (e.g., proportional representation or first-past-the-post)

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Table 2.1 Type Lower   house Upper   house Governor Prefectural   assembly

Changes in Length of the Legal Campaign Period (days) 1950

1951 1952

30

25

30 30 30

1956

25

1958

1962 1969 1983 1992 1994

20

15

14

18

17

20 9

17

23

25 20

15

12

12

Source: Shuugiin Chousakyoku, Senkyo seido kankei shiryou, p. 20.

for the first legislative chamber; provisions for the public financing of campaigns; and provisions for limits on money used for campaigns.21 As of 2020, 45 percent of all constitutions enumerate the lower house electoral formula, 16 percent provide for campaign financing, and 8 percent limit campaign expenditures. Among democracies, as defined by having a Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) polyarchy score greater than 0.5, the proportions are 54 percent, 18 percent, and 10 percent, respectively. If the constitution specifies limits—in either specific dollar amounts or by category—on election expenditures and tactics, then courts lack a compelling rationale to strike down those regulations. Our interest, however, is in judicial reasonings for permitting or prohibiting such restrictions when the constitution is silent, as in the Japanese case. Courts must balance two competing priorities. On the one hand, campaigning by candidates, individual voters, or political organizations has a social character. Demonstrations and advertisements may conflict with other individuals’ rights, as well as broader public interest for civic order. As such, there may be a legitimate government interest to restricting certain political freedoms. On the other hand, human rights guaranteed by the constitution cannot be easily restricted. As Usaki writes, “Political freedom justifies the exercise of governmental power in a democratic state, so it is deemed to be the most fundamental right.”22 Pinto-Duschinsky discusses various cases where constitutional courts have struck down onerous proscriptions against campaign finance and electioneering as violating constitutionally-protected freedoms of expression and speech. 23 After the Australian Labor Party banned paid political advertisements on electronic media in 1991 (to be replaced with free television time allotted by seat share), the High Court ruled that this was not a justifiable restriction on the freedom of

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political communication.24 Similarly, US courts have held that limits on election spending contravene First Amendment protections on freedom of speech. In Buckley v. Valeo,25 the Supreme Court ruled that the Federal Election Campaign Act’s 26 limits on spending for political communication violated the First Amendment, writing: “It is clear that a primary effect of these expenditure limitations is to restrict the quantity of campaign speech by individuals, groups, and candidates. The restrictions, while neutral as to the ideas expressed, limit political expression ‘at the core of our electoral process and of the First Amendment freedoms.’”27 Buckley recognized “the prevention of corruption and the appearance of corruption” as the sole permissible government interest for regulating campaign finance. This position was reaffirmed in McCutcheon v. FEC, which ruled that “Congress may target only a specific type of corruption—‘quid pro quo’ corruption.”28 However, other courts—including the SCJ—have granted the legislative branch more leeway to bind their own hands. Although Article 21 of the Constitution of Japan protects the freedom of speech, 29 the SCJ has never struck down any restrictions on election campaigns under the Public Offices Election Act. In fact, SCJ rulings evince a deferential attitude toward regulating speech in the context of campaigns, tending to dismiss constitutional claims by recognizing the fairness of elections as a legitimate government interest, and downplaying the harms from restricting expression. As early as 1955, the SJC ruled that the POEA could restrict written materials during the official campaign period, because the unlimited distribution of pamphlets, letters, or posters would invite unjust competition and obstruct the freedom and fairness of elections.30 A decision in 1969 stated that restrictions on pre-campaign period electioneering would reduce unfairness from disparities in economic or physical resources, and thus promote public welfare (koukyou no fukushi) without violating Article 21 of the constitution.31 A representative example is the proscription of door-to-door canvassing, which was first upheld in 1950. The SJC ruled that such restrictions were constitutionally permissible, because door-to-door canvassing could cause a variety of (unspecified) harms.32 In later cases, the Court began to articulate concrete types of harmful content. In 1968, the SCJ noted that door-to-door canvassing raises the possibility of injustice such as bribery and threats, can inconvenience or cause trouble for voters, and imposes excessive competition among candidates.33 In 1981, the Court reaffirmed the constitutionality of banning door-to-door

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canvassing in a ruling cited widely in later lawsuits.34 The SCJ wrote that the prohibition was based not on restricting the expression of ideas per se, but rather on preventing harms created by particular means or methods of expression. These harms, such as improper influencing of voters and excessively expensive campaigns, could undermine the fairness of elections. The SCJ recognized that this particular purpose of the POEA was legitimate, and hence there was a rational basis for the total ban on door-to-door canvassing. Of course, even partisan actors are careful to offer a neutral or positive rationale for manipulating political institutions. Where courts frequently differ is the degree to which campaign restrictions can be judged legitimate. In its 1981 ruling, the Court posited that the burden on the freedom of expression was not severe, because the POEA’s canvassing ban was an indirect or incidental restriction on expression that prohibited a particular method of speech. It also emphasized that the resulting benefits to free and fair elections were so important that it outweighed the loss of expression. From these lines of reasoning, we can grasp a broader rationale for why the SJC has not struck down restrictions on campaign speech. First, “legitimate government interest” (or “harms” the legislature has constitutional permission to deal with) is defined quite broadly—much more so than we see, for example, in the United States. The SCJ’s conception of “free and fair elections” includes not only the prevention of bribes and corruption, but also of reining in electoral expenses generally. Equality, in terms of leveling the playing field, is recognized as a permissive rationale for burdening electoral expression that is otherwise constitutionally protected. Contrast this with the US Supreme Court’s reasoning in Buckley, which held that “the concept that government may restrict the speech of some elements of our society in order to enhance the relative voice of others is wholly foreign to the First Amendment.”35 Second, the SJC has not seriously examined the realistic likelihood that “harms” will occur. In other words, it does not seem concerned with the practical necessity of the regulation (unlike “strict scrutiny” in US Courts). It recognizes the existence of “harms” without appropriate skepticism and accepts the regulation as a reasonable way to suppress them. Third, the SCJ has underestimated the weight of the rights lost by the regulations. In its early decisions, the SCJ recognized the constitutionality of the regulations simply by referring to the general theory that the protection of constitutional rights is not absolute. Even in its 1981 decision that explained the constitutionality of door-to-door canvassing

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restrictions in more detail, the SCJ downplayed the burden on rights.36 It held that laws focusing on their “harms” should be evaluated as indirect or incidental restrictions on the expression of opinions, the core guarantee of Article 21.1 of the constitution. It seems as if the SCJ will not recognize the seriousness of the voter’s burden unless the means or methods of election speech are prohibited more comprehensively.

The Issue of Regulations Unless the constitution strictly defines the range of permissible electioneering—something that is rare—courts inevitably have some discretion over the appropriate balance between “free” and “fair” regulations. What, then, makes the SCJ treat election regulation restrictions differently from other limits on free speech? There are two ways in which constitutions can be “unspecific” about a topic. The first is to write nothing at all. The US Constitution, for example, enumerates the method for apportioning seats for the House of Representatives, but does not mention the electoral formula itself. The second is to explicitly note that the topic shall be determined by law. For example, Article 47 of the Constitution of Japan writes, “Electoral districts, method of voting and other matters pertaining to the method of election of members of both Houses shall be fixed by law.” The difference between these two types of constitutional vagueness is that in the latter, authority over electoral matters is explicitly given to the legislative branch of government. Given the constitutional separation of powers between the legislature and the judiciary, even should the SCJ believe that restrictions on campaign speech are problematic, it must also respect the Diet’s authority under Article 47 to set its own rules. This reasoning is reflected in a concurring opinion written by Justice Masami Ito to the SCJ’s ruling upholding the ban on door-to-door canvassing in 1981.37 Justice Ito argued that the reasonings offered by the Court—namely that limited restrictions on particular means of expression were legitimate—was not persuasive enough. Instead of characterizing elections as a “general” arena of free speech, where all ideas can compete against each other freely, he argued that elections were a “special” arena, where every candidate must comply with some set of rules. Article 47 of the constituion, which stipulates that matters pertaining to the method of election of the Diet members shall be fixed by law, suggests that it grants broad legislative discretion in the rulemaking of campaign regulations.

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The rules could privilege electoral “fairness” over “freedom,” for example, as long as they were applied neutrally to all candidates. Put differently, the regulation of election campaigns is a matter of constitutive rules, without which we cannot even imagine an election campaign. One cannot play chess unless one follows the rules of it, and because Article 47 grants legislators the authority to establish those rules, the SCJ should strike down regulations only when some exceptional circumstance makes a particular statute unreasonable.38 Regardless of the specific logic for permitting campaign restrictions, we see the SCJ’s mix of timidity and respect for precedent in their rulings on other limits to electioneering. Take, for example, the restriction of electioneering before the official campaign period. McElwain showed that the gradual reduction in the length of campaigns magnified incumbency advantage by reducing the ability of voters to learn about the personal traits and policy platforms of new candidates.39 While this rule benefited opposition party incumbents, it also solidified the Liberal Democratic Party’s single-party majority. These simulations indicate that had the campaign period for Lower House elections been maintained at twenty-five days—instead of the eventual twelve days—the LDP likely would have first lost its grip on parliament in 1980 instead of in 1993. The SCJ has, nonetheless, applied the same rationale for the ban on door-to-door canvassing to permitting the limitation of the campaign period. In POEA Violation, the SCJ ruled unanimously that, “concerning elections for public office, permitting a permanent electoral campaign, . . . can result in unnecessary expenses and labor, producing unfair results due to differences in economic capabilities, and thus inviting the risk of electoral corruption.”40 The logic here reflects the SCJ’s recognition that equality, in terms of leveling the playing field, is a constitutionally permissible government interest. Contrast this again to Buckley v. Valeo: “The concept that government may restrict the speech of some elements of our society in order to enhance the relative voice of others is wholly foreign to the First Amendment.” 41 In addition, the ruling merely states that harm “can” occur but does not concern itself with the extent to which that harm is actual or imminent. More problematic, however, is the SCJ’s willingness to tolerate bans on activities that are not particularly costly. Ohta draws attention to the notable example of using the internet to advertise policy platforms, promote campaign events, and communicate directly with voters.42 Article 142 of the POEA prohibits the dissemination of documents and drawings for electioneering except for placards and postcards. The

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39

Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications suggested in 1996 that texts and images provided online were comparable to the documents and drawings proscribed by the POEA—that is, the internet was not a placard or a postcard. In 2002, it revised its opinion, writing that the development of political information websites was permissible before the campaign period, but that candidates and parties could not update their content afterward. This made it illegal to update information about the times and locations of campaign events or to upload videos on social media (e.g., Facebook, YouTube). Internet campaigning was partially legalized in April 2013 to allow candidates, parties, and individuals to use websites freely, although they still cannot email voters directly. Here, Justice Ito’s opinion that virtually any regulation is permissible absent compelling special circumstances has broader theoretical implications.43 One particular rationale for limiting internet campaigning was the “digital divide”: some voters and candidates were unfamiliar with the internet, and hence information on the internet would be distributed unequally. This justification appears to be unsustainable if electoral campaign regulations are meant to be subordinate to the general principle of freedom of speech. The SCJ’s position that the legislature should have broad discretion in designing campaign regulations may be valid if “fair elections” are unachievable without them. However, its logical underpinnings could be countered by the principle that the freedom to campaign is at the core of the constitutionally guaranteed freedom of expression, and so must enjoy the most outstanding possible guarantees.44 It is not easy to answer which position is more reasonable or essential, but there is no doubt that how courts confront this issue will significantly affect the quality of democratic competition.

Conclusion Postwar reforms in Japan have successfully reduced electoral law violations relating to illicit electoral expenditures and donations, particularly the bribery of voters. The solutions are fairly intuitive: strengthen transparency requirements, increase penalties for violations, and make it hard to evade blame through guilt-by-association rules. However, the falling number of malpractice cases risks obscuring a qualitative deterioration in the nature of democratic participation. The Public Offices Election Act restricts a wide range of electioneering activities that are

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legal in other countries, such as door-to-door canvassing, media advertisements, and internet outreach, in the name of reducing electoral costs and leveling the playing field. One of its more problematic features is the proscription of most forms of campaigning outside of the “official” election period, which for the lower house is just twelve days. With limited time and means, candidates, particularly challengers from opposition parties, lack the opportunity to share their policy message or develop ties with voters. This may be contributing to growing civic apathy and lower voter turnout in Japan, although further analysis is necessary to identify the causal effect of these regulations. Our analysis points to two broader lessons. First, official counts of electoral law violations, even if assessed impartially and comprehensively, depend on the electoral law itself. Strengthening penalties for violations can deter proscribed behaviors, even if those behaviors may not fall afoul of normative standards of electoral conduct. For example, it is illegal for candidates to directly canvass citizens for their vote twelve days before an election, and so most candidates do not, but it is hard to come up with a rationale for why the same behavior is normatively problematic fifteen, twenty or even thirty days before polling day. As such, it is crucial to consider not just the quantitative number of electoral law violations, but also whether the laws themselves are sufficiently comprehensive (banning normatively “bad” behavior) without overly restricting civil rights (allowing normatively “good” behavior). Second, we cannot assess the landscape of electoral malpractice by only focusing on legislators, executives, and other elected actors. Electoral laws are generally determined by the very people who are selected by it, namely incumbents. Whether the strictures themselves are valid depends on what is enumerated in the national constitution, and how that text is interpreted by the courts. The interests of legislators, whose self-interest is in maximizing incumbency advantage, need to be weighed against the rights of all citizens to run for office in as unfettered a manner as reasonable, so that voters’ choices are based on “full information.” Courts vary in how they balance competing interests, but the SCJ appears to be more comfortable privileging “fairness” and other public welfare concerns over “freedom,” even compared to other countries where the constitution grants discretion to the legislature. While it may be reasonable for each branch of government to be careful about interfering in the selection and survival of the other branches, excessive deference may weaken the main purpose of a constitutional democracy: maximizing the welfare of citizens.

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We do not mean to end this chapter with gloom and doom. Japan is generally free of overt electoral fraud, including bribery, voter intimidation, ballot stuffing, and fraudulent vote counts, and these should be lauded as important achievements. Reducing such malpractices is crucial to ensuring public trust in election outcomes. However, we should be wary of regulations that go beyond prohibiting outright cases of electoral fraud and into restricting activities that are central to a healthy electoral campaign. For example, while “fairness” is an important component of democratic elections, it does not necessarily supersede other constitutional goals, such as the “freedom” to campaign. In other words, we must remain mindful of the democratic validity of election laws themselves.

Notes 1. Carlson, Money Politics in Japan. 2. Carlson and Reed, Political Corruption and Scandals in Japan. 3. McElwain, “Manipulating Electoral Rules to Manufacture Single-Party Dominance.” 4. Jacobson, “The Effects of Campaign Spending in House Elections”; Johnston and Pattie, “The Impact of Spending on Party Constituency Campaigns”; Gerber, “Does Campaign Spending Work?” 5. Kavanagh, “The United Kingdom”; Ewing, The Cost of Democracy. 6. Charlot and Charlot, “France.” 7. For information on specific campaign regulations and environments, see Butler and Ranney, In Electioneering; Kaid and Holtz-Bacha, Political Advertising in Western Democracies; Farrell, “Political Parties in a Changing Campaign Environment”; Austin and Tjernström, Funding of Political Parties and Election Campaigns. 8. Kaid and Holtz-Bacha, Political Advertising in Western Democracies. 9. According to Article 150(5) of the POEA, these private ads can only feature the party leader and must advocate policies, not specific candidates. This excludes independent candidates or small groups that do not meet the legal criteria for a “political party,” defined as 2 percent of the vote in the last national election or at least five legislators. 10. Stevenson and Vavreck, “Does Campaign Length Matter?” 11. Ward, “Recent Electoral Developments in Japan.” 12. Carlson and Reed, “Election Law Violations as Campaign Effort.” 13. Quigley, “The New Japanese Electoral Law.” 14. Siniawer, Ruffians, Yakuza, Nationalists. 15. Soma, The History of Japan’s Electoral Rules. 16. Dai-Ni Tokubetsu Chousa-shitsu Shuugiin Chousa-kyoku, Senkyo-Seido Kankei Shiryou-Shu. 17. Carlson and Reed, Political Corruption and Scandals in Japan. 18. Carey and Shugart, “Incentives to Cultivate a Personal Vote.” 19. Carlson and Reed, “Election Law Violations as Campaign Effort”; Nyblade and Reed, “Who Cheats? Who Loots?” 20. Koenkai, or the personal support networks of individual politicians, allow candidates to skirt this constraint, as their main function is to strengthen social net-

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works and linkages among constituents and legislators via softball games and karaoke parties; Krauss and Pekkanen, “Explaning Party Adaptation to Electoral Reform.” However, koenkai mostly attract core supporters. 21. Elkins and Ginsburg, Characteristics of National Consitutions. 22. Masahiro, “Restrictions on Political Campaigns.” 23. Pinto-Duschinsky, Handbook on Funding of Parties and Election Campaigns. 24. Miskin and Grant, “Political Advertising in Australia.” 25. Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. 1 (1976). 26. The Federal Election Campaign Act Amendment of 1974 limited expenditures by individuals or groups to US$1,000 per candidate per election, and by a candidate to various specified amounts depending upon the federal office sought. 27. Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. 1, 39 (1976) (citing Williams v. Rhodes, 393 U.S. 23, 32 [1968]). 28. McCutcheon v. FEC, 572 U.S. 185, 207 (2014) (plurality opinion). 29. COJ Article 21: “Freedom of assembly and association as well as speech, press and all other forms of expression are guaranteed. No censorship shall be maintained, nor shall the secrecy of any means of communication be violated.” 30. Sup. Ct. Mar. 30, 1955, 9 Keishū 635, 636–637. 31. Sup. Ct. Apr. 23, 1969, 23 Keishū 235, 238–239. 32. Sup. Ct. Sep. 27, 1950, 4 Keishū 1799, 1802. 33. Sup. Ct. Nov. 1, 1968, 22 Keishū 1319, 1321–1322. 34. Sup. Ct. Jun. 15, 1981, 35 Keishū 205, 207–208. 35. Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. 1, 48–49 (1976). 36. Sup. Ct. Jun. 15, 1981, 35 Keishū 205, 207–208. 37. Sup. Ct. July. 21, 1981, 35 Keishū 568, 572–578 (Ito, J., concurring opinion). 38. Hasebe, Kenpō. 39. McElwain, “Manipulating Electoral Rules.” 40. Sup. Ct. Apr. 23, 1969, 23 Keishū 235, 238. 41. Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. 1, 48–49 (1976). 42. Ohta, “Fairness Versus Freedom.” 43. Koyama, Kempō-Jō No Kenri No Sahō. 44. Matsui, “Election Campaign Regulation and the Supreme Court of Japan.”

3

South Korea: Neither Free nor Fair Jong-sung You

SOUTH KOREA (SIMPLY KOREA, HEREAFTER) IS CONSIDERED A CONSOLIdated liberal democracy. The country transitioned to democracy in 1987 and has passed Samuel Huntington’s “two-turnover test” for democratic consolidation, 1 experiencing transfer of power through competitive elections four times in 1997, 2007, 2017, and 2022. Koreans demonstrated their democratic capacity through the candlelight civil revolution in 2016–2017, in which millions of people’s remarkably peaceful rallies led to the impeachment of corrupt president Park Geun-hye.2 However, according to various democracy indices, Korea’s quality of democracy is not as good as those of neighboring Japan and Taiwan and is closer to that of Mongolia. Table 3.1 shows that Freedom House’s global freedom score for Korea (83 out of 100) is considerably lower than those for Japan (96 out of 100) and Taiwan (94 out of 100) and slightly lower than that for Mongolia (84 out of 100). Freedom House’s ratings for Korea on political rights, civil liberties, electoral laws and framework, media freedom, and freedom on balance are not very high. All these ratings for Korea are worse than those for Taiwan. In particular, internet freedom in Korea is considered only “partly free.” In addition, the Polity V democracy score for Korea is only 8, while Japan, Taiwan, and Mongolia get the maximum score of 10. In Freedom House’s subindex of “electoral laws and framework,” Korea and Mongolia have received a score of 3 out of 4, while both Japan and Taiwan have received a full score of 4. Interestingly, Korea

43

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Jong-sung You

Table 3.1

Comparison of East Asian Democracies

FH global freedom status FH global freedom score FH political rights (max. 40) FH civil liberties (max. 60) FH electoral laws and   framework (max. 4) FH media freedom (max. 4) FH internet freedom status FH internet freedom score Polity V score (10 = most   democratic) Perceptions of Electoral   Integrity (PEI) index PEI type Electoral laws index

Korea

Japan

Taiwan

Mongolia

Free 83 33 50 3

Free 96 40 56 4

Free 94 38 56 4

Free 84 36 48 3

3 Partly free 67 8

3 Free 76 10

4 Free 80 10

3 — — 10

73

68

78

62

Very high 47

High 48

Very high 74

High 53

Sources: Compiled by author based on data from Freedom House, Polity V project, and the Perceptions of Electoral Integrity (PRI) project. Data on global freedom, political rights and civil liberties, electoral laws and framework, and media freedom are from Freedom House, Freedom in the World; Freedom House, Freedom on the Net. Polity V Marshall, Political Regime Characteristics and Transitions. PEI indices from Garnett, James, and MacGregor, “Perceptions of Electoral Integrity.” Note: FH = Freedom House.

received high scores in Garnett and colleagues’ 2022 Perceptions of Electoral Integrity index (8.0).3 Korea was given a “very high” score of 73 on this index, which is lower than that for Taiwan (78) but higher than those for Japan (68) and Mongolia (62). However, Korea’s score for the subindex of electoral laws is 47, lower than those for Japan (48), Mongolia (53), and Taiwan (74). Why does Korea as well as Japan receive relatively low scores for electoral laws despite high scores for this index? Freedom House and its subindices are based on surveys of country experts, which reflect their concerns about the excessively stringent campaign regulations in these countries. The electoral laws index is based on three questions: unfair to smaller parties, favoring the governing party (or parties), and restricting citizens’ rights. The bottom panel of Table 3.1 shows that Korea’s average ratings for these three questions are the worst and those for Taiwan are the best among the four East Asian democracies. Japan and Mongolia share the same scores for these three questions. In particular, the comparison indicates that Korea’s electoral laws are considered very unfair to smaller parties and highly restrict citizens’ rights.

South Korea

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According to Plasser and Plasser’s4 2002 classification of electoral campaign rules, Japan, Korea, India, South Africa, Turkey, and Israel belong to the “strictly regulated” category of campaign environments. They consider the United States, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada “minimally regulated” cases and the bulk of the fifty-two countries they studied a “moderately regulated” type, including Taiwan and Russia. An examination of campaign restrictions in these countries, based on election laws and various election reports,5 shows that Japan and Korea are clearly distinguished from the rest in terms of their extensive and severe campaign regulations including criminalization of pre-period campaigning and door-to-door canvassing and numerous and detailed restrictions on campaigning. While Japan used to be known to have the most stringent electoral campaign regulations in the democratic world,6 Korea has not only developed even more stringent campaign rules but strengthened the enforcement of the rules to an extreme degree over the last two decades. Except for vote buying activities, relatively few violations of campaign regulations are prosecuted in Japan, but Korean prosecutors and courts are extremely rigorous in punishing violators of any campaign rules. Taiwan had restrictive electoral campaign regulations during the authoritarian era, but the country has removed most of them since the transition to democracy.7 Now, Korea stands out for stipulating and enforcing the most restrictive election campaign regulations in the democratic world, surpassing Japan. This chapter explores the characteristics of Korea’s election campaign regulations and their causes and consequences for “free and fair” elections in comparative perspectives. It conducts comparative historical analysis, using a variety of primary and secondary sources.8 It compares the main features of Korean campaign regulations and their enforcement with those of Japan and other countries. While restrictive campaign rules have been introduced and justified in the name of fairness, the chapter shows that the incumbency advantage that these rules create infringes on not only the freedom but also the fairness of elections.

Electoral Campaign Regulations in Korea Korea’s Public Officials Election Act (POEA) provides for a pervasive system of restrictions on who can do what, how, and when to influence election outcomes. In fact, Korea’s campaign regulations as stipulated

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in the POEA share many similar provisions with Japan’s Public Offices Election Act. This section describes the main features of Korean campaign regulations and their enforcement, in comparison with those of Japan, Taiwan, and other countries. Key Features of Campaign Regulations in Korea Like Japan, Korea criminalizes campaigning prior to the short legal campaign period and door-to-door canvassing. Any acts of broadly defined electioneering are prohibited prior to the legally defined campaign period except for “normal” political activities and preparatory work for the election. The campaign period is short. It is only twentytwo days for a presidential election and thirteen days for other elections in Korea. While a number of countries have a limited official campaign period, its purpose is usually to regulate certain types of campaign activities such as the allocation of free or subsidized television time and designated areas for campaign posters, and to apply spending limits. 9 Many countries prohibit all or certain types of campaigning on election day. Some countries like France prohibit certain types of activities for certain periods, but do not ban all types of electioneering prior to the official campaign period. 10 In Taiwan, for example, the Civil Servants Election and Recall Act defines official campaign periods for various offices, but it does not prohibit pre-period campaigning. It only prohibits campaigning on the day of the election. The main purpose of the official campaign period is to administer and regulate campaign activities during the period, including those managed or sponsored by the Central Election Commission. There are several provisions for publicly managed campaign activities such as candidates’ political presentation meetings, distribution of election bulletins that provide information about candidates, and provision of television airtime to political parties. While both Korea and Japan strictly ban election campaigning before the legal campaign period, Korea imposes an additional regulation on pre-period campaigning on the one hand and some relaxation of this regulation on the other hand. Korea’s POEA prohibits individuals from distributing or posting advertisements, letters of greetings, posters, other printed materials “or the like” showing the name of a political party or candidate to influence the election for a period of 180 days before the election. This provision is largely redundant to the general ban on pre-period campaigning, but it can be applied more broadly to

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any materials that do not explicitly support or oppose a candidate but might still influence the election, say by supporting or opposing a party or by expressing certain opinions about salient election issues. The statute then provides an exception for very limited activities for registered “preliminary candidates” such as direct distribution of name cards in person by the candidate, her or his spouse, parents and children and a few persons designated and accompanied by the candidate (they cannot put them in mailboxes). It also permits preliminary candidates to mail one piece of campaign material of a limited size to not more than 10 percent of the total households in the electoral district (hence, they cannot reach 90 percent of the households) and to make “direct” (no automated or computer-aided) phone calls to voters. Registration of a preliminary candidacy is allowed starting from 240 days before the presidential election, 120 days before National Assembly elections, 90 days before gubernatorial, mayoral, and high-level council elections, and 60 days before low-level council elections. In practice, distribution of name cards is the most important campaign instrument, and holding events to try to influence the election is not allowed during the period of preliminary candidacy. In addition, Korea provides strict and detailed regulations of various campaign tools during the legal campaign period, as Japan also does. Door-to-door canvassing is prohibited in both countries not just for candidates but for anyone including campaign workers and volunteers. Both countries prohibit electioneering by minors (persons under the voting age) or by public officials. Both countries strictly limit the distribution and display of campaign literature. In Korea, candidates and a limited number of registered campaign workers can distribute name cards of the candidate; they are not allowed to distribute any campaign materials other than the candidate’s name cards. Candidates can submit to the district election commission copies of a campaign pamphlet of a certain size and number of pages. Then, the district election commission distributes to each household a set of campaign pamphlets for all the candidates in the district. In Japan, each candidate and his or her campaign workers and volunteers can distribute certain numbers of standard postcards and handbills of a fixed size. In addition, both countries strictly regulate the display of campaign materials such as posters, banners, and signboards. In both countries, electioneering using the internet, email, or social media was strictly limited until very recently. The election management bodies and courts in both countries had interpreted election laws

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to mean that restrictions on the distribution of printed materials, illustrations, and the like should be applied to materials on the internet as well. This interpretation was reversed in Korea in December 2011, when the Constitutional Court declared that campaigning in cyberspace should not be restricted. The Japanese legislature amended the POEA in 2013 to legalize campaigning on the internet. However, there are still a number of restrictions on internet campaigning. For example, minors are not allowed to do any campaigning using the internet or social media in either country. Printing and distributing electioneering materials from websites or emails is also punishable in both countries. Candidates can conduct email-based electioneering, but voters and nonparty organizations cannot send emails for electoral purposes in either country. In Korea, internet sites must identify the real name of everyone who posts any information or opinion about elections during the campaign period. There are numerous additional restrictions on various types of campaign activities, including political parties’ organizational activities that could affect elections. In both countries, political parties are prohibited from most party-related activities during the campaign period except for certain activities such as distribution of party manifestos without candidate names. In Korea, political parties are prohibited from holding party member meetings or recruiting party members for thirty days prior to the election day. Another striking feature of Korean electoral law is a general prohibition against organizations or representatives of organizations supporting or opposing a political party or candidate.11 In Korea, the creation of any private organization for electoral purposes is prohibited, regardless of their titles or professed purposes. Also, there are a number of restrictions for holding any meetings that can influence an election: no one may hold any hometown fraternity meetings, clan meetings, alumni meetings, social gatherings or picnics, or other meetings to influence the election during the campaign period, other than candidates’ campaign speeches on the street and candidate debates and interviews organized by the National Election Commission, the media, or other organizations as prescribed by the law. The press as well as organizations are not only prohibited from endorsing candidates or political parties but also barred from awarding points or ranks to candidates or political parties when they compare and appraise the policies and campaign promises of political parties or candidates. Unlike in Korea, it is not illegal in Japan to create private organizations to support politicians and to hold various meetings such as alumni

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meetings and picnics during the campaign period. Support organizations for politicians, or koenkai, in Japan, would be considered illegal “private organizations” in Korea. In Japan, koenkai cannot engage in explicit electioneering activities prior to the campaign period, but they can serve as a tool for networking with voters before the campaign period and as a headquarters during the campaign. The Constitutional Court of Korea determined on July 21, 2022, that the prohibition that “no one may hold any hometown fraternity meetings, clan meetings, alumni meetings, social gatherings or picnics, or other meetings to influence elections during the election period” was unconstitutional. This is a welcome development in relaxing too stringent election campaign rules. However, the Constitutional Court also determined that the prohibition against holding any hometown fraternity meetings, clan meetings, alumni meetings, social gatherings or picnics to influence elections during the election period was constitutional. Also, the clause that prohibits anyone from mobilizing any private organization, including a research institute, hometown fraternity society, mountaineering society, early football club, or political-party-affiliated organization, remains intact. Apparently, the Constitutional Court’s view is still that overheated electioneering should be suppressed. Another area in which Korea imposes stricter restrictions than Japan is related to campaign finance. Both countries maintain various regulations such as spending limits, caps on individual contributions, and reporting and disclosure requirements for campaign finance as most Western democracies do. Both countries also provide publicly managed campaigns and reimbursements for campaign expenses to qualified candidates within certain limits. The main difference between the two countries lies in the legal restrictions on who can raise campaign funds by collecting political contributions. In Japan, any aspiring candidates for any elected office can designate a fund management organization, which has the right to receive political contributions. In Korea, however, the Political Funds Act restricts the types of candidates who can legally raise campaign funds from people other than their close relatives, and the period for campaign fundraising. Candidates for lowerlevel local councils are completely barred from raising any campaign funds except from their close relatives. Candidates for upper-level (provincial or metropolitan) councils, governorships or mayorships cannot raise campaign funds until official registration of their candidacy— that is, 20 days prior to the election day. Preliminary candidates for the National Assembly are allowed to raise campaign funds, starting from 120 days before election day.

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Election campaigning often involves criticizing and attacking one’s opponents, while exaggerating one’s own merit and achievements. Both countries criminalize false campaign speech about candidates. But in Korea, making true but slanderous statements about a candidate is also crime, although a violator could be immune from punishment if the publication of the true facts is deemed in the public interest. South Korea is the only country in the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) that criminalizes true but insulting campaign speech. Enforcement of Campaign Regulations in Korea While Korea and Japan have similarly restrictive electoral campaign regulations, Korea’s election law imposes harsher punishments on violators. For example, premature campaigning is punishable by up to two years imprisonment or about US$4,000 (4 million won) in Korea, while it is punishable by up to one year imprisonment or about US$3,000 (300,000 yen) in Japan. Door-to-door canvassing is subject to imprisonment of up to three years or a fine of up to about USD 6,000 in Korea, compared to imprisonment of up to one year or a fine of up to about US$3,000 in Japan. Candidate defamation via false facts is punishable up to seven years of imprisonment or a fine between about US$5,000 and about US$30,000 in Korea, compared to four years of imprisonment or a fine of up to about US$10,000 in Japan. Even making true but slanderous statements about a candidate can lead to imprisonment of up to three years or a fine of up to about US$5,000 in Korea, while it is not a crime in Japan or Taiwan (or any other OECD country). More important, Korea takes a far more rigorous approach to the enforcement of campaign regulations than Japan and other countries. In Japan as well as Taiwan, election crimes are divided into two broad categories: criminal offenses and administrative offenses. 12 The former are of an unethical nature and include bribery, fraud, violence, and infringement on the freedom of the election. The latter are violations of various administrative restrictions on election campaign activities, such as campaigning outside the official campaign period and improper display of campaign materials. Prosecution is focused on criminal offences, and the police usually give warnings to first-time administrative offenders and formally investigate them only when they ignore the previous warning and commit the offense a second time. In Korea, however, the prosecutors are as vigorous in prosecuting those who have violated administrative campaign regulations,

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including the ban on pre-period campaigning and various restrictions on campaign methods during the campaign period, as those who have engaged in vote buying. For example, of the forty-six members elected in the seventeenth National Assembly elections who were investigated for violation of the election law, twenty-one members were charged for pre-period campaigning.13 Table 3.2 presents a comparison of the numbers and percentages of investigated persons during legislative elections from 1996 to 2012 in Korea and Japan (lower house elections) by type of election crime. Note that the total number of investigated people for election crimes during this period is much larger in Korea (14,075) than in Japan (5,169). Considering that the number of House Representatives in Japan (475) is larger than that of National Assembly members in Korea (300) and that Japan’s population (127.3 million in 2013) is much larger than Korea’s (50.2 million in 2013), this shows that prosecution of election crimes is much more rigorous in Korea. The more striking difference is the relative proportions of vote buying versus administrative offences: while vote buying represents 82 percent of election crime investigations in Japan, the equivalent figure in Korea is only 37.1 percent. The proportion of people investigated for administrative offences in Japan is just

Table 3.2

Numbers of Investigated Persons for Election Crime in Legislative Elections in Japan and Korea, 1996–2012 Japan

Investigated   (arrested) Vote-buying Infringement of freedom   (interference, violence) False campaign speech   (and slander in Korea) Illegal campaign and others   (administrative offenses)

5,169 (991) 4,236 82.0% 375 7.3% 5 0.1% 553 11%

Korea 14,075 (920) 5,227 37.1% 727 5.2% 2,408 17.1% 5,697 40.5%

Sources: Supreme Prosecution Office, Republic of Korea, various press releases; Ministry Justice, White Paper on Crime, various years. Notes: Japan’s statistics are for six general elections from the forty-first (1996) to the forty-sixth (2012) House of Representatives. Korea’s statistics are for five general elections from the fifteenth (1996) to the nineteenth (2012) National Assembly. Infringement on electoral freedom in Japan includes interference in voting, illegal voting, and violence. Infringement on electoral freedom in Korea denotes violence only. False campaign speech in Korea includes slander of candidate based on true facts. “Others” in Korea may include some violations that are classified as “infringement of electoral freedom” in Japan.

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11 percent, but the equivalent figure in Korea is as much as 40.5 percent. Another striking difference is seen in the proportion of prosecution of candidate defamation based on false speech (and insults based on true facts in Korea): 0.1 percent in Japan versus 17.1 percent in Korea. In Taiwan, the number of defendants tried for election law violation in the lower courts from 2003 to 2012 was 6,468. Of the 6,035 defendants whose election offenses are identified, 5,660 or 93.8 per cent were indicted for vote buying, 220 or 3.6 percent for false propaganda, and 37 or 0.6 percent for violence, and 118 or 2.0 percent for other violations.14 Considering that both Japan and Taiwan distinguish between criminal offenses and administrative offenses for election law violations and that Taiwan has fewer electoral campaign regulations than Japan, it is understandable that prosecution of election crime is even more concentrated on vote buying in Taiwan than in Japan. It is notable, however, that the false propaganda cases comprise 3.6 percent of all election crime indictments in Taiwan, which is higher than 0.1 percent in Japan but much lower than 17.1 percent in Korea. What distinguishes Korea from Japan and Taiwan in election crime prosecution is the relatively low proportion of vote buying cases and the relatively high proportions of administrative offenses and false propaganda cases. The relatively low proportion of vote buying cases in Korea does not mean less rigorous prosecution of vote buying in the country. Vote buying is rigorously prosecuted in all three countries. The real difference comes from much more rigorous prosecution of administrative offenses and candidate defamation and insult cases in Korea. The violation of regulations on campaigning and methods is usually regarded as a minor administrative offense, as opposed to a criminal offense, in Japan, but Korean prosecutors do not distinguish between administrative offenses and criminal offenses. In Taiwan, regulation of the campaign period is purely for administrative purposes and most of the campaign methods that are illegal in Japan and Korea are legal, hence there are few cases of administrative offenses. Both Korea and Japan have provisions for associated sanctions: not only election crimes of the elected person but also those committed by his or her campaign manager, campaign accountant, or family members can lead to invalidation of the election. While that is very rare in Japan, it occurs very frequently in Korea. An increasing number of elected members of the National Assembly have been indicted and convicted, and as a result more than three per cent of the National Assembly members have lost their seats due to criminal convictions during the last decade in Korea.

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The Consequences of Electoral Campaign Regulations in Korea There is no doubt that Korea’s stringent election campaign regulations and their rigorous enforcement limit freedom of political expression as well as voters’ right to know. Frank la Rue, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Opinion and Expression,15 criticized Korea’s excessively restrictive election campaign rules, and Haggard and You16 identified abuse of election laws as one of five key issues for freedom of expression in Korea. These highly restrictive campaign regulations have been justified in the name of fairness in both Korea and Japan: without strict restrictions on campaign opportunities, rich candidates would enjoy resource advantages over poor candidates.17 Another justification is to reduce opportunities for corruption and vote buying: allowing direct contacts between voters and politicians such as door-to-door canvassing will increase opportunities for vote buying.18 Critics have pointed out that ensuring a level playing field between rich and poor candidates can be achieved by strict enforcement of spending limit and disclosure requirements for campaign finance. Restricting campaign opportunities in addition to spending caps is redundant. Critics have also argued that strict prosecution of vote buying does not need to be accompanied by stringent restrictions on campaign speeches.19 In fact, these laws have all been abused to generate electoral advantages for incumbents. Short campaign periods produce enormous incumbency advantages, because incumbent elected officials are already well known to their constituents, and they can also publicize and hold a variety of events as “normal political activities” while new entrants find it hard to get name recognition and introduce themselves to the voters. Major party candidates are also advantaged vis-à-vis minor party or independent candidates because the former get extensive media coverage that is not given to the latter. Challengers and minor party or independent candidates find it extremely difficult to compete with the incumbents and major party candidates in these strictly regulated campaign environments. Provisions on candidate defamation and insult create particularly high and risky hurdles for new entrants. In order to run a successful campaign, it is often necessary for the challengers to attack the incumbents for their poor performance and malfeasance as a representative of their constituents. However, not only making false accusations on the opponents knowingly or with reckless disregard but also using some

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incorrect information in accusing the opponents, or even insulting the opponents with correct information, can be a serious crime. Not only candidates and campaign workers but ordinary citizens are prosecuted for their remarks about candidates, including posts on their Facebook or Twitter accounts. Especially troubling is the discretion enjoyed by prosecutors.20 Chung Bong-ju, former National Assembly member, was imprisoned for a full year in 2011–2012 after being convicted of making false accusations about Lee Myung-bak’s connection to an alleged stock fraud during the 2007 presidential election. By contrast, Park Geun-hye raised the same issue during the competition for the presidential nomination of the Grand National Party in 2007 but was not investigated by the prosecutor’s office. After the inauguration of Park Geun-hye as president in February 2013, politically biased prosecutions continued. Park and You find that the number of indictments initiated upon statements attacking the ruling party candidates (154 cases, or 87 percent) outnumbered the ones attacking the opposition candidates (23 cases, or 13 percent) during the 2012 presidential election.21 Campaign finance is another hurdle for minor party and independent candidates. Although South Korea is quite generous in reimbursing a substantial part of campaign expenses to those candidates who have obtained 15 percent or more of the total votes, it is difficult for minor party candidates to get 15 percent. Various restrictions on campaign fundraising, in addition to substantial amount of deposit for candidate registration, place a high hurdle for new entrants and minor party candidates.

The Historical Evolution of Electoral Campaign Regulations in Korea The first election law, or the National Assembly Members Election Act (March 17, 1948), was enacted by the interim legislative assembly under the American Military Government. The only restriction on campaigning stipulated in the law was prohibition of electioneering by election commissioners and public officials. The US State Department and the American Military Government in South Korea helped to draft the bill, and naturally the law contained no campaign restriction for candidates or voters under the influence of American-style liberal democracy.22 The amendment to the law in 1951 introduced a prohibition on house-to-house visits, but the revised law was still largely liberal.23 The Syngman Rhee government tried to introduce extensive campaign reg-

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ulations including a ban on pre-period electioneering starting from 1952.24 The government’s attempt was initially unsuccessful because the governing Liberal Party was a minority in the National Assembly. However, the new House of Representatives Election Act (January 25, 1958), enacted after the introduction of a bicameral system, contained many provisions to regulate campaign activities such as prohibition of pre-period campaigning, prohibition of campaigning by any person other than the candidate and a limited number of campaign workers, and prohibition of various campaign methods such as signature campaigns. The 1958 election law also introduced spending limits and a requirement to report campaign expenditures as well as provisions on publicly managed campaign activities. Interestingly, the 1958 law was enacted through bipartisan negotiations and compromise. The conservative main opposition, Democratic Party, changed its previous position on electoral campaign regulation when a third party, the Progressive Party, was gaining popularity.25 Various restrictions on campaigning were largely modeled on the Japanese election law. Although the main rationale for the restrictions on campaigning was to limit corrupt opportunities and to ensure fairness, the law also created substantial incumbency advantage. The 1958 House elections consolidated a two-party system as the number of independent and minor-party-affiliated legislators plummeted.26 The military junta led by Park Chung-hee further strengthened campaign regulations by introducing the “principle of comprehensive restriction” in 1963.27 The revised law stated, “Any election campaign activities are forbidden except for those that are stipulated by this law.” The election law enacted in 1972, right after Park Ching-hee’s Yushin declaration that abolished direct presidential elections and gave the president the authority to appoint a third of the National Assembly members, further tightened campaign regulations. The law allowed only campaign posters, campaign bulletins, and joint campaign speech meetings that were posted, distributed, and organized by the National Election Commission. The revised election law in 1981 under the Chun Doo-hwan government only marginally expanded campaign opportunities by adding hanging banner to the menu of legally allowed campaign methods. Partial liberalization of campaign regulations took place after the democratic transition of 1987.28 The new law enacted in 1988 added campaign leaflets to the list of permitted campaign tools and increased the number of permitted banners and campaign workers. During the legislative process, however, campaign regulation was not a key issue. Other issues, such as district magnitude (single-member or multiple-member

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districts), adjustment of electoral district boundaries, and separate counting of absentee ballots, were more salient, according to the legislative minutes. More revisions were made in 1991 under the catch phrase of “tying money, untying mouths.” The 1991 revisions added to the list of legitimate campaign methods broadcasting of candidate careers, political party campaign speech meetings, and campaign speeches in open places. The 1991 revisions also emphasized the need to reduce the costs of election campaigns, strengthening the provisions to prevent vote buying and increasing the penalties for violations. In this context, the campaign period for National Assembly elections was shortened from eighteen to seventeen days, contrary to the goal of “untying mouths.” A major overhaul of election law took place in 1994. The new law called the Act Concerning Public Officials Election and Prevention of Electoral Corruption replaced the existing laws for National Assembly, presidential, and local elections. As the name of the new law indicates, its primary focus was preventing electoral corruption rather than expanding freedom of electioneering and voters’ right to know.29 The new law further strengthened the provisions against bribing voters and increased transparency of campaign finance. On the surface, the new law also made an important improvement to liberalize campaign regulation by removing the principle of comprehensive restriction. However, the law prescribed detailed regulations on every possible campaign method. During the legislative process, the main opposition party did not show much interest in deregulation either. In fact, the provision of prohibiting distribution or display of documents, pictures, and the like, to influence elections from 180 days before the election day to the election day, was introduced at the request of the opposition party.30 Another major revision to the law was made in 2004, in the aftermath of revelations of huge amounts of illegal campaign contributions given to presidential candidates by major chaebol, or family conglomerates, in the 2002 presidential election.31 The 2004 revisions not only strengthened provisions to prevent and punish vote buying but also further tightened various campaign regulations, including restrictions on political party activities during the campaign period and a total ban on political parties’ local branch organizations at the district level. In 2005, another revision of the law introduced an “internet real name registration system” in order to effectively police online activities such as pre-period campaigning and posting of false or slanderous messages. On the other hand, there was a bit of loosening of regulations against pre-period campaigning in the 2004 and subsequent revisions. The 2004 law introduced a new institution called “preliminary candidacy” and allowed prelimi-

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nary candidates a limited set of campaign tools such as direct phone calls, mailing out one campaign material to not more than 10 percent of the households, and direct distribution of name cards in person. However, the introduction of preliminary candidacy has provided grounds for stricter prosecution of any campaigning activities before registering as a preliminary candidate.32 Korea’s Constitutional Court is generally credited with enhancing human rights and political freedoms, especially during the early years of post-democratic transition.33 The Court has made some important rulings regarding the election law, including on the issue of proportional representation seat allocation and discrimination against independent candidates in candidacy deposit requirements.34 However, the Court had not made any substantial contributions to liberalizing campaign regulations until very recently, except for campaigning on the internet.35 In its ruling in December 2011, the Court declared that the prohibition of distribution or display of documents, pictures, and the like, to influence elections should not be applied to the internet. Interestingly, the primary rationale for this decision was that the internet is not expensive. It is unclear why online campaigning and off-line campaigning should be treated differently considering both campaign methods can be regulated under the total spending limit, and the discrimination against offline campaigning could be a violation of equal treatment before the law. Apart from internet campaigning, the Court has consistently upheld various restrictions on campaigning, based on concerns about overheated and expensive election contests.36 Recently, on July 21, 2022, the Court ruled unconstitutional the prohibition against holding “other meetings” (other than hometown fraternity meetings, clan meetings, alumni meetings, social gatherings or picnics) to influence elections during the election period. The Court also ruled that some of the provisions against distributing or posting advertisements and posters to influence the election for a period of 180 days before the election were inconsistent with the constitution. It is unclear whether the ruling is an indication that the Court’s traditionally illiberal stance on campaign regulation will change to a substantial extent or only to a minor extent in the future. In summary, South Korea’s election law was liberal at first, but it has continuously increased the extent of campaign regulations, except for short periods of partial deregulation immediately after the democratic transitions of 1960 and 1987. This trend is reflected in the changes to the legal campaign period, as Table 3.3 shows. When the pre-period campaigning ban was first introduced in 1958, the legal campaign period was

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Table 3.3

Changes in Campaign Period for the National Assembly Elections in Korea, 1948–1991 Campaign Period

1948 1958 1960 1963 1970 1972 1988 1991

No restriction 19 days 24 days 22 days 16 days 12 days 14 days 13 days

Source: National Laws of the Republic of Korea, http://www.law.go.kr.

nineteen days for legislative elections. It was increased to twenty-four days right after the Student Democratic Revolution of 1960, but was reduced repeatedly to twenty-two days in 1963, to sixteen days in 1970, and to twelve days in 1972. It was slightly increased to fourteen days in 1988, just after the democratic transition of 1987, but was reduced again to thirteen days in 1991. Interestingly, democratization initially brought about slight deregulation but was followed by re-regulation, as this change of campaign period illustrates. The trend in prosecutions for election crimes in each National Assembly election shows an interesting pattern (see Table 3.4). The number of people investigated and indicted by the prosecution was relatively small during the hard-authoritarian period from 1972 to 1987. However, this number increased after the 1987 democratic transition, and it peaked in the seventeenth National Assembly elections in 2004. The number of investigated people in 2004 was 3,797, higher than the average of 2,081, and that of indicted people was 2,829, more than four times the average of 650. In particular, the indictment rate (the proportion of investigated people who were indicted) reached an astonishingly high level of 74.5 percent, more than double the average of 31.2 percent. These numbers have slightly declined in the subsequent elections, but they are still much larger than for most previous elections. Another interesting trend can be seen in the number of lawmakers who lost their seats because of election law violations. Such cases were very rare before the 1987 democratic transition. After a member of the fourteenth National Assembly (1992–1996) lost his seat because of a conviction for violating the election law, the number of such cases rose to six for the fifteenth National Assembly (1996–2000) and to nine for

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Table 3.4 Results of Election Crime Investigations for National Assembly Elections in Korea, 1948–2012 Number of Number of People Investigations Indicted 1948 1950 1954 1958 1960 1963 1967 1971 1973 1978 1981 1985 1988 1992 1996 2000 2004 2008 2012 Average

769 349 1,363 2,566 3,612 1,370 7,694 3,036 2,071 456 309 167 656 1,045 1,995 3,749 3,797 1,990 2,544 2,081

214 41 57 210 881 40 1,349 571 380 151 79 42 79 427 713 1,552 2,829 1,283 1,448 650

Percentage of People Indicted

Number of People Arrested

27.8 11.7 4.2 8.2 24.4 2.9 17.5 18.8 18.3 33.1 25.6 25.1 12.0 40.9 35.7 41.4 74.5 64.5 56.9 31.2

184 18 59 27 477 12 239 69 189 46 12 9 24 43 175 139 423 68 115 123

Number of Elections 0 0 0 3 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 1 6 9 11 15 10 3

Sources: National Election Commission, The History of Elections in Korea, vol. 7; National Election Commission, White Paper for the 20th National Assembly Elections.

the sixteenth National Assembly (2000–2004). Then, that number rose to eleven for the seventeenth National Assembly (2004–2008), fifteen for the eighteenth National Assembly (2008–2012), and ten for the nineteenth National Assembly (2012–2016), according to data from the National Election Commission.37 The increase in prosecutions for election-related crimes after the democratic transition is in contrast to the decline in vote buying practices. In fact, vote buying practices were rampant during the first few presidential and legislative elections after the democratic transition, according to post-election surveys of voters’ experience of being given cash, gifts, meals, or free travel tours. However, the percentage of voters who experienced such practices declined steadily from around 18 percent in the 1992 National Assembly elections to around 3 percent in the 2004 National Assembly elections, and to below 1 percent in the 2008

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and 2012 National Assembly elections.38 Compare this with the overall trend of election crime prosecutions, which rose steadily between 1992 and 2004 and only slightly decreased in 2008. Thus, the increased number of prosecutions during this period was not because of an increase in vote buying but in spite of a decline. This Korean trend is contrasted with the Japanese trend of a steady decline of the total number of election crime investigations in tandem with the decline of vote buying cases (see Chapter 2). Although Japanese election campaign regulations have become more restrictive over time during the postwar period, the number of people prosecuted for election crimes has declined over time. In 2011, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Opinion and Expression, Frank la Rue, issued a special report on Korea, which recommended that the Korean government “fully guarantee the right of freedom of expression in the crucial period leading up to elections.”39 However, after his harsh criticism of the decline in freedom of expression, including abuse of electoral defamation, Korean prosecutors intensified prosecution of electoral defamation and insult cases. The number and proportion of prosecutorial investigations of electoral defamation and insult cases in the National Assembly elections rose from 400 (20.1 percent of all election crime investigations) in 2008 to 652 (25.3 percent) in 2012 to 1,129 (35.5 percent) in 2016, surpassing the number of vote buying cases of 656 (20.7 percent) in the same year.40 The increase in prosecutions of electoral defamation and insult cases was accompanied by politically biased prosecutions, especially for presidential elections.41 From the overview of the historical evolution of election campaign regulations and enforcement in Korea, a couple of interesting questions arise. First, why did democratization not bring about liberalization of campaign regulations in Korea? Note that Japan also did not liberalize restrictive campaign rules after democratization imposed by the postwar American military occupation, but that Taiwan has liberalized most of the campaign regulations of the authoritarian period since its democratic transition. So, what explains the diverging paths of campaign regulation between Korea and Japan on the one hand and Taiwan on the other hand? Second, why has Korea pursued more rigorous enforcement of campaign regulations than Japan, while both countries have maintained similarly restrictive rules? In particular, why has Korea increased prosecution of electoral crimes, including even administrative offences and candidate defamation and insult, while Japan (as well as Taiwan) has taken a more lenient approach to administrative offences, focusing on prosecution of vote buying cases?

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The answer to the first question can be found from existing studies of campaign regulations in Korea and Japan and my comparative historical study of campaign regulations in Korea and Taiwan. During the democratic transition in both Korea and Japan, opposition parties had a substantial presence in the legislature, and opposition and ruling party lawmakers both shared a vested interest in preserving the incumbency advantage provided by restrictive campaign rules.42 In Taiwan, however, the newly-formed opposition party had few legislative seats and hence demanded radical liberalization of campaign regulations. As a consequence, the ruling Kuomintang (KMT) leadership strategically accommodated the opposition’s demand for a liberal electoral regime.43 Regarding the second question of Korea’s stricter enforcement of election campaign rules, including administrative offences, let me offer some speculative explanations. First, the differences in the democratization process in Korea and Japan led to differences in the power of law enforcement authorities. While democratized Korea inherited overdeveloped law enforcement authorities of the authoritarian period, democratized Japan did not because of the US occupation’s interventions to promote demilitarization and democratization. The overdeveloped law enforcement authorities such as the police, the prosecution, and the election management body in Korea have the capacity to take a more prosecutorial approach than in Japan. Second, the differences between the presidential system of Korea and the parliamentary system of Japan seem to partly explain the stronger prosecutorial power of Korea. The executive dominance vis-à-vis the legislature in Korea, compared to the relatively more powerful legislature in Japan, seems to enable the former’s more prosecutorial approach. Third, the enduring effect of the Cold War due to the division of the Korean nation into two states, and the escalating tensions due to the North’s nuclear and missile tests, have enabled conservative South Korean governments to suppress civil liberties and freedom of expression to a considerable degree. The trend of increasing prosecutions for election law violations reflects Korea’s low status in overall freedom of expression.

Conclusion Korea’s stringent election campaign rules and rigorous prosecution of excessive campaigning not only restrict freedom of political expression ahead of elections but also undermine fairness in electoral contests. It is vital for a liberal democracy to guarantee its citizens the right to know

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and free speech, including freedom of electioneering for candidates, political parties, civil society groups, and individuals. Ensuring a level playing field between rich and poor candidates should be realized not through restricting freedom of electioneering but through other tools such as campaign spending limits and public support for televised debates. Korea’s excessive regulations may contribute to reducing the gap in campaign opportunities between resource-rich and resource-poor candidates, but they lead to unfair competition between incumbents and challengers on the one hand and between major and minor parties on the other. In addition, enforcement of these regulations can be politically abused to the advantage of the governing party. Indeed, there is evidence for political bias in the prosecution of candidate defamation and insult cases.44 These findings suggest that excessive campaign regulations should be considered a kind of electoral malpractice as well as a form of suppression of free speech. Previous studies of electoral integrity and malpractice have not generally recognized the importance of campaign regulations in ensuring free and fair elections. If the important effects of campaign regulations are taken into account, Garnett and colleagues’ Perceptions of Electoral Integrity index for Korea should be downgraded.45 The comparative politics literature on electoral systems has also neglected the topic of campaign regulation, largely because most Western scholars are unaware of the unique electoral campaign rules in Korea and Japan and because scholars in these countries discuss the topic mostly as a special legal issue without presenting it as a topic for comparative political research. However, the Korean case shows that campaign regulations can have a significant impact on both the freedom and fairness of electoral competition, and this should be a topic for the study of electoral malpractice and electoral integrity. A comparison of the historical evolution of campaign regulations in Korea with those in Japan and Taiwan suggests that incumbency advantage created by restrictive rules also has strong path dependence. There is no reason why incumbent legislators should find removing the restrictive regulations to be in their own interest. Korea’s more prosecutorial approach to election crimes, in contrast to Japan’s more lenient approach, is probably due to the differences in the relative power between the executive and the legislature as well as the strength of authoritarian legacies of overdeveloped law-enforcement authorities. Cold War legacies that still constrain freedom of expression in Korea may be another reason. Considering the vested interests of the legislators and law enforcement authorities, substantial liberalization of campaign regulation is

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unlikely to happen in the near future. In this regard, the role of the Constitutional Court will be important in reforming the undemocratic electoral campaign rules. While the Court has repeatedly supported the importance of freedom of political expression ahead of elections in the abstract, it has in practice tended to accept justifications for restricting free speech in order to ensure fairness of electoral contests. However, the Court should recognize that suppression of free expression ahead of elections produces unfair advantages for incumbents and major party candidates at the expense of new entrants and minor party candidates.

Notes 1. Huntington, The Third Wave. 2. Shin and Moon, “South Korea After Impeachment.” 3. Garnett, James, and MacGregor, “Perceptions of Electoral Integrity.” 4. Plasser with Plasser, Global Political Campaigning. 5. Election laws and various election reports are compiled by the Association of World Election Bodies (A-WEB; http://aweb.org/eng/main.do) and the ACE Electoral Knowledge Network (http://www.aceproject.org). 6. Curtis, Election Campaigning Japanese Style; Hrebenar, Japan’s New Party System. 7. You and Lin, “Liberal Taiwan vs. Illiberal South Korea.” 8. The online databases for the national laws of the Republic of Korea (http://www.law.go.kr), Japan (http://law.e-gov.go.jp/cgi-bin/idxsearch.cgi), and Taiwan (http://law.moj.gov.tw/eng) provide not only the full text of current laws and regulations but also all the previous laws or legislative history. All the descriptions of the current and previous versions of the election laws of Korea and Japan have been confirmed with the information from these websites. For Taiwan, old law books have also been utilized. 9. Plasser with Plasser, Global Political Campaigning. 10. The election law of the Philippines limits campaign period to ninety days for presidential elections and forty-five days for legislative and provincial elections. While pre-period campaigning is prohibited by law, the Supreme Court’s decision in 2009 has effectively legitimized premature campaigning. See Asian Network Free Elections (ANFREL), “Philippines 2010” p. 73. 11. La Rue, “Report of the Special Rapporteur.” 12. Chen and Wang, A Study of Campaign Regulations. 13. Song, “The Origin of the Regulatory Election Campaign Law.” 14. You and Lin, “Liberal Taiwan vs. Illiberal South Korea.” 15. La Rue, “Report of the Special Rapporteur.” 16. Haggard and You, “Freedom of Expression in South Korea.” 17. Soma, The History of Japan’s Electoral Rules”; Mobrand, “The Politics of Regulating Elections.” 18. Kim, “A Study of Freedom and Fairness of Electoral Campaigning”; Soma, The History of Japan’s Electoral Rules. 19. Haggard and You, “Freedom of Expression in South Korea”; Seo, “Institutionalization of Limited Competition.”

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20. Haggard and You, “Freedom of Expression in South Korea.” 21. Park and You, “Criminal Prosecutions for Defamation and Insult.” 22. Park, “Election Law.” 23. Song, “The Origin of the Regulatory Election Campaign Law.” 24. Seo, “Institutionalization of Limited Competition” 25. Ibid.; Song, “The Origin of the Regulatory Election Campaign Law.” 26. Seo, “Institutionalization of Limited Competition.” 27. Yoo, “The Institutional Change and Continuity of Election Campaign Regulations.” 28. Ibid. 29. Seo, “Institutionalization of Limited Competition”; Mobrand, “The Politics of Regulating Elections.” 30. Seo, “Institutionalization of Limited Competition.” 31. Mobrand, “The Politics of Regulating Elections”; Yoo, “The Institutional Change and Continuity of Election Campaign Regulations.” 32. An aspiring candidate for National Assembly found herself in trouble when she handed out her name cards to a small group of people about six months before the April 2012 election. One of the persons who received her name card reported it to the police. The police eventually dropped the case, because only two name cards of her were collected from the group. If ten or more name cards of her had been collected, she would have been subjected to criminal prosecution and possible loss of her seat in the National Assembly after being elected. 33. Ginsburg, Legal Reform in Korea. 34. Yoon, Law and Democracy. 35. Mobrand, “The Politics of Regulating Elections.” 36. Chon, “Standard of Judicial Review.” 37. National Election Commission, The History of Elections in Korea; National Election Commission, White Paper for the 20th National Assembly Elections. 38. You, Democracy, Inequality, and Corruption. 39. La Rue, “Report of the Special Rapporteur.” 40. You and Lin, “Liberal Taiwan vs. Illiberal South Korea.” 41. Park and You, “Criminal Prosecutions for Defamation and Insult.” 42. McElwain, “Manipulating Electoral Rules”; Freeman, “Information Governance and Election Campaining” ; Seo, “Institutionalization of Limited Competition”; Soma, The History of Japan’s Electoral Rules; Yoo, “The Institutional Change and Continuity of Election Campaign Regulations.” 43. You and Lin, “Liberal Taiwan vs. Illiberal South Korea.” 44. Park and You, “Criminal Prosecutions for Defamation and Insult.” 45. Garnett, James, and MacGregor, “Perceptions of Electoral Integrity.”

4

Taiwan: Raising the Bar Kharis Templeman

ELECTIONS IN TAIWAN ARE SOME OF THE BEST-MANAGED IN THE WORLD today. There are few effective limits on the right to vote, the participation of opposition parties and candidates, or campaign advertising and canvassing for votes, and the process of voting and counting is lowtech, transparent, efficient, accurate, and fair. Elections are competitive and fiercely contested, but winners and losers alike nonetheless accept the results as decisive and conferring the legitimate right to rule, and there are no reserved domains in which unelected officials exercise undue influence over government policy. Comparative indices confirm these qualitative impressions. Taiwan ranks near the top of countries in Asia in the most recent Perceptions of Electoral Integrity index, above Australia and Japan and slightly behind only Korea and New Zealand. The Varieties of Democracy project Electoral Democracy Index score for Taiwan has risen in recent years to near the maximum, close to those of Korea and Japan. Freedom House gives Taiwan its highest score for electoral processes, and 15 out of 16 on political pluralism and participation. And the Bertelsmann Transformation Index ranks Taiwan third among all countries in its database for Political Transformation, behind only Estonia and Uruguay, including perfect scores for free and fair elections and association and assembly rights. Taiwan was not always such a paragon of electoral integrity. As late as 1992, unelected officials held the presidency and the majority in the legislature, and only a single party, the Chinese Nationalist Party

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(Kuomintang [KMT]), had ever controlled the central government. Taiwan’s elections included signification restrictions on campaign activities and the media, vote buying in elections was rampant, and the judiciary and prosecutors were under the sway of the ruling party. Nevertheless, the professional management of the electoral process under the aegis of the Central Election Commission (CEC) was already a hidden strength of Taiwan’s emerging democracy, one that smoothed the way for the transition to multiparty politics and the introduction of competitive elections for the central government. Unlike in many other third-wave democracies such as Indonesia and the Philippines, the independence and integrity of Taiwan’s CEC was never in question during this transition, and both the ruling and opposition parties could be confident that the votes would be counted fairly. In this chapter, I consider how this evolution occurred. Many of Taiwan’s current exemplary election practices were actually introduced by the hegemonic KMT itself during the authoritarian era. From 1949 to 1987, Taiwan was under martial law, opposition parties were banned, and the central government was not subject to direct elections. But contested local elections were still held, and they were important for both the foreign and domestic legitimacy of the regime. Though the KMT initially engaged in blatant manipulation of these elections during its early years on Taiwan, over time it shifted tactics, eschewing the most brazen violations in favor of more subtle interventions in the rules of the electoral game. As the reputational costs of arresting non-KMT candidates and stuffing ballot boxes rose, the KMT leadership pivoted toward the cooptation of the opposition and the use of vote buying and patronage to win elections. A key moment in this process came in 1980 with the passage of the Civil Servants Election and Recall Act and the establishment of the Central Election Commission to oversee all elections in Taiwan. With these reforms, the KMT leadership sought to eliminate electoral fraud, ensure a free and accurate count of the vote, and bolster the domestic legitimacy of elections—and they largely succeeded. At the same time, the party leadership was more willing to introduce these crucial reforms because they themselves were still not vulnerable to electoral defeat at the central level, which remained walled off from electoral competition, and because most of the party’s candidates enjoyed massive resource and advertising advantages over the nascent political opposition. Only later, well after the improvements in voting and ballot counting procedures, were other important reforms introduced: the liberalization of speech and assembly laws, the relaxation of restrictions on campaign

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activities, improvements in campaign finance regulation, changes to the electoral system, and finally the prosecution of vote buying, which led to its gradual decline in prevalence and effectiveness. Thus, the Taiwan case demonstrates how a high-quality system of election management can be established even under a repressive autocracy.

Electoral Integrity and Taiwan’s Political Evolution The KMT began its time on Taiwan as a party in exile. It lost control of mainland China to the communists in 1949, fleeing with over a million refugees across the Taiwan Strait and reconstituting the Republic of China on Taiwan with its “temporary” capital in Taipei. After the declaration of martial law, elections were suspended indefinitely for the top bodies of the Republic of China (ROC), including the National Assembly (which chose the president, Chiang Kai-shek) and the Legislative Yuan. Nevertheless, in part to retain the support of the United States, the regime also wanted to maintain at least the façade of democracy, and so shortly after stabilizing the security situation on the island in 1950, it introduced contested elections for offices below the central government level. Although it was not threatened with electoral defeat at the central level, the KMT nevertheless immediately faced a disadvantageous demographic situation: the “mainlanders” who had come over with the party in 1949 dominated the party and state but made up only about 15 percent of the electorate in Taiwan. Thus, the KMT sought from its earliest days on Taiwan to incorporate native islanders (benshengren) into its party networks. Contested local elections helped serve this purpose: they channeled potential opposition to KMT rule into competition that did not threaten the regime, helped identify popular local leaders to recruit into the party, and provided information to the leadership about its overall level of popularity. Elections in Taiwan went through three distinct periods under KMT rule. During the “hard authoritarian” years of the 1950s and 1960s, local electoral competition was allowed, but the KMT leadership frequently employed the security apparatus to arrest or intimidate potential opponents it did not like. For instance, in 1960, the liberal critic (and mainlander) Lei Chen, the founder of a newspaper called Free China, attempted to start a new political party in contravention of the ban then in place. Rather than allow the new party to compete, Chiang Kai-shek simply ordered it to be shut down and had Lei

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arrested and sentenced to a long prison term. In other instances, party agents engaged in blatant fraud during the vote-counting process. For instance, in 1954, the independent candidate Kao Yu-shu won the Taipei mayor’s election, becoming the most prominent non-KMT officeholder in Taiwan. When he ran for reelection in 1957, however, he was defeated through what was almost certainly widespread electoral fraud—sudden power failures during the vote count in polling stations provided an opening for party agents to stuff ballot boxes with additional votes for his opponents. This event led to widespread distrust of the counting process, and the KMT leadership later sought to increase confidence in election results by allowing each candidate to nominate their own poll workers to count votes. Helped by this change in the rules, Kao ran for and won again the Taipei mayor’s office in 1964, when his poll workers in addition to those of a friendly opponent’s were able to prevent a repeat of the 1957 fraud.1 But Kao’s victory was the exception; in most elections, the KMT’s official nominees won without much suspense. As increasing numbers of the permanent mainlander representatives who held seats in the Legislative Yuan became incapacitated or died of old age, the KMT decided in 1969 to introduce what they termed “supplementary” elections to that central government body. This reform marked the beginning of a transition toward a period of softer authoritarian rule in Taiwan. By the early 1970s, the KMT was less able or willing simply to arrest all opponents to its rule, and it was also acutely sensitive about its declining international and domestic legitimacy. In 1971, the ROC lost control of the China seat in the United Nations Security Council to the People’s Republic of China (PRC), and in 1972, US president Richard Nixon traveled to Beijing in a sign of warming ties between the former enemies. In 1975, Chiang Kai-shek himself died and was succeeded as party leader (and eventually, president) by his son, Chiang Ching-kuo. The younger Chiang accelerated a process of “Taiwanization” of the KMT, seeking to increase the numbers of benshengren who held high-level posts, and he refocused the regime’s energies on development at home rather than preparing for a war to reconquer mainland China. He also placed greater emphasis on the presence of regular, contested elections as a demonstration of the regime’s “democratic” credentials to foreign audiences. Under these changing external conditions, summary arrests of opponents and blatant electoral fraud became more costly to the party leadership. They also led to an increasing divergence of interests between the party center and local KMT factions, which had few compunctions about

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manipulating the electoral process to ensure their candidates won. A particularly dramatic illustration of this changing dynamic occurred during local elections in 1977. In Taoyuan County, a former KMT member named Hsu Hsin-liang defected from the party and ran as an independent for the mayor of Chungli City. As the votes were being counted in his race, rumors began to spread that KMT agents were once again stuffing extra votes in ballot boxes, and a large riot broke out. In the end, Hsu was declared the winner in the mayor’s race over the KMT nominee, probably helped by the public protests. Hsu’s win was especially concerning to the KMT because it was also the first time that independent candidates attempted to coordinate their campaigns with one another across the island; to get around the prohibition on new political parties, they began calling themselves the “Dangwai,” or “outside the party.” Dangwai candidates won four county executive races in 1977, an alltime high, and KMT leaders interpreted this outcome as an indication of the party’s declining popularity and of a need to rethink its recruitment and nomination strategies. The pressure to improve electoral administration increased further when the US announced in December 1978 that it was switching diplomatic recognition to the PRC. Shocked by this surprise move by the ROC’s staunchest ally, Chiang Ching-kuo indefinitely suspended the supplementary legislative elections planned for later that month. On the one-year anniversary of the suspension in December 1979, Dangwai supporters took to the streets to call for the reinstatement of elections, the lifting of martial law, legalization of opposition parties, and introduction of direct elections for the central government. The regime cracked down hard. It arrested the leaders of the protest and other Dangwai figures, and many were subsequently sentenced to long prison terms, dealing a significant short-term blow to the budding democracy movement in Taiwan. Nevertheless, over the same time period, the KMT leadership started a parallel effort to shore up its domestic and international legitimacy by improving the integrity of elections. In early 1980, the KMTdominated legislature moved forward with two important reforms to the electoral process. The first was the passage of the Civil Servants Election and Recall Act, which centralized and codified what had previously been a mishmash of electoral administrative executive orders, practices, and norms and gave them the force of law. The second was the creation of the Central Election Commission, the first “independent commission” to be established under the ROC constitutional system. The CEC assumed legal authority for managing all aspects of the electoral

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process, including determining the voter registration lists, setting the terms of candidate eligibility, regulating campaign activities, setting up polling stations and recruiting poll workers, designing ballots and ballot boxes, and overseeing the voting and counting on election day. These activities had up to that point been handled by county-level commissions supervised by the Ministry of Interior and had been much more susceptible to interference by KMT local party branches. Together, these two laws transferred election management out of the hands of local county and city governments and into the authority of the new CEC, which was staffed by central government appointees. With these reforms, KMT leaders sought to eliminate electoral fraud, ensure a free and accurate count of the vote, and bolster the domestic legitimacy of elections. At the same time, the party center was willing to introduce these crucial reforms in part because they themselves were still not vulnerable to electoral defeat at the national level, which remained walled off from electoral competition. In addition, a fair count was actually beneficial to most of the party’s candidates: they already enjoyed massive resource and advertising advantages over the nascent political opposition, including plenty of funds to buy votes and a pliant judiciary willing to look the other way when they did. The third period of KMT rule coincided with Taiwan’s gradual transition to democracy. That transition began in September 1986 with the founding of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), which was established by a group of Dangwai leaders gathering to decide on their nominations for the year-end supplementary legislative elections. Rather than crack down on the new party, which was technically illegal, Chiang Ching-kuo decided to allow the DPP to organize and compete for votes under their new banner, and the next year he announced the lifting of martial law and the legalization of opposition parties. Other important reforms followed: the release of political prisoners, gradual liberalization of speech and assembly laws, relaxation of restrictions on campaign activities, improvements in campaign finance regulation, and changes to the electoral system and other political institutions, including the direct election of the president. One reason that the KMT leadership (headed by Chiang Ching-kuo until his death in January 1988, and Lee Teng-hui after that) was willing to allow greater electoral competition was that it still enjoyed a massive resource advantage over the opposition. It also had a long track record of running in and winning contested elections at the local level. Ironically, the KMT’s ability to buy votes also made it more willing to risk allowing elections for the presidency and national legislature, and

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to lift most restrictions on campaign activities. In the 1980s the CEC still imposed strict limits on public election rallies, leafleting, and advertising, which made the regulatory scheme at the time look much closer to that of present-day Japan or Korea. But the opposition DPP made these regulations a central target of its pro-democracy protests, and as part of the gradual liberalization of the political system, the KMT leadership eventually agreed to remove some of the remaining martiallaw-era prohibitions on speech and assembly. Taiwan’s constitutional court also issued several rulings in favor of a broad interpretation of civil and political rights, making some of the remaining limits unenforceable in practice and moving Taiwan toward a much more laissezfaire electoral regulatory regime. As a result, by the 1990s the main form of electoral malpractice in Taiwan was not abuse of the voter registry, vote fraud, campaign restrictions, libel laws, or selective prosecution of opposition figures, but vote buying. Only much later, after the KMT lost the presidential election in a shock upset in 2000, did vote buying begin to decline in prevalence and effectiveness. That final step on the path to high electoral integrity was helped along by two developments. First, under the first DPP president Chen Shui-bian (2000–2008), local prosecutors were given more discretion and resources to investigate vote buying. The number of cases reported and charges brought soared during the 2000s, and several prominent elected politicians were convicted and removed from office. As a result, the risks to candidates of buying votes increased. Second, the KMT and DPP both supported reform of the electoral system used to elect the legislature. Prior to 2008, legislators were chosen using the single nontransferable vote (SNTV) system from large magnitude districts. This system, which was also used in Japan until 1993, and Korea prior to democratization, has several well-known drawbacks. Chief among them is that it heightens intraparty competition and weakens party discipline: it incentivizes candidates to develop a personal (as opposed to party) vote, and it promotes the development of vertically integrated factional structures that are only loosely under the control of the party. In Taiwan, this system has also been widely blamed for the pervasiveness of vote buying: candidates who cannot be confident of support from their own party’s base have turned to monetary exchanges, either with local vote-brokers or individual voters themselves, to ensure they will win enough votes to secure a seat. The 2008 electoral reform replaced SNTV with a mixedmember parallel system, raising the share of the district vote a candidate needs to win a seat and reducing the marginal value of vote buying

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relative to other, more legitimate ways to make mass appeals. As a consequence, vote buying appears to have declined in frequency and effectiveness over the last decade. In the rest of this chapter, I review the strengths and weaknesses of each step of the electoral process in present-day Taiwan: how the electorate is defined, how electoral competition is regulated, and how voting and counting are conducted. The most apparent weaknesses of Taiwan’s electoral process today are related to malapportionment and disproportionality of the electoral system, and to the regulation of campaign finance and vote buying. Nonetheless, these problems are not especially severe by comparative standards, and vote buying has noticeably declined in prevalence and effectiveness over the past two decades to the point where it is no longer a consistent threat to electoral integrity. Moreover, many other electoral practices in Taiwan are consistent with best practices around the world: voters are registered automatically and voter rolls are accurate and up to date; there are few restrictions on forming new parties, registering to run, or holding campaign activities; parties and candidates receive public subsidies which help level the financial playing field; and the voting and counting processes are exceptionally transparent and efficient.

Defining the Electorate The first stage of the electoral process at which electoral malfeasance can occur is in how the right to vote is defined and enforced. Around the world, malpractice at this stage usually occurs through two processes: inequitable registration and access to polling stations which effectively disenfranchise parts of the electorate; and malapportionment, gerrymandering, or other manipulations of the electoral system which systematically benefit some political groups over others. Neither is very severe in Taiwan today. Voter Registration and Access Taiwan’s voter rolls are generated twenty days prior to election day from the comprehensive national household registration system. This system, known in Chinese as the huji zhidu, assigns every citizen a national identification number that is linked to a unique “household” (huji) at an address within the territory of the “free area” of the Republic of China (in addition to the island of Taiwan, this includes the offshore islands of

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Kinmen, Matsu, Penghu, Green and Orchid Islands.) The system is maintained and regularly updated by agents of the Taiwanese state, and it is how citizens access state services and benefits such as health care, unemployment, social security, and public education. As a consequence, the huji zhidu provides as close to a complete accounting of all eligible voters as possible, ensuring that each voter is registered in one (and only one) jurisdiction, that newly eligible voters (those turning twenty years of age by election day, or acquiring citizenship) are automatically registered to vote, and that those who have exited the electorate (through death, or suspension2 or termination of their household registrations) are dropped from the rolls. The direct link between national identification cards and the registration system also ensures that all voters already have an official identification to show3 when they arrive to vote—they must present it to receive their ballots— and impersonating another voter is exceptionally rare. The main drawback of this system is the lack of an absentee ballot or early voting option. Voters who do not live at their official place of residence (and there are many Taiwanese who do not) have to return there to cast their ballots—in some cases necessitating long and arduous journeys back to their hometowns for election day. The practical effect of this rule is to increase the burden of voting on the subsets of the electorate who are typically absent from their official households: students away at college, active-duty military personnel, overseas residents (including in mainland China and further abroad), businesspeople on trips, and so forth. However, two other features of Taiwan’s electoral process mitigate this problem somewhat: elections are typically held on Saturdays from 8:00 A.M. to 4:00 P.M.,4 and most anywhere on the island is accessible within a day’s travel, so that casting a vote can usually still be accomplished with a weekend trip home.5 Malapportionment, Gerrymandering, and Disproportionality The second way electoral integrity can be undermined at this stage is through the electoral system itself, via malapportionment, gerrymandering, and disproportionality. On this dimension, practices in Taiwan are not ideal, but these problems are also not particularly severe by comparative standards. At every level of government, from the president to county magistrates and city mayors, town and township heads, and village and ward chiefs, executives are directly elected to a four-year term by a simple plurality vote. Thus, malapportionment and gerrymandering

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only affect legislative and council elections, and they are most severe in the elections to the Legislative Yuan, Taiwan’s national parliament. The Legislative Yuan is a unicameral assembly which since 2008 has been elected using a mixed-member parallel system, with voters casting two separate votes, one for a candidate in their district, the other for a national party list. The single-member district (SMD) seats comprise a little under two-thirds of the total (73 of 113) and are elected using simple plurality rule. The party list seats make up about 30 percent (34 of 113) and are distributed under closed-list proportional representation using the Hare quota (largest remainder) formula with a minimum threshold of 5 percent. The remaining six seats are reserved for indigenous representatives, elected by indigenous voters from two separate three-seat multi-member nation-wide constituencies using the SNTV system. Legislative Yuan districts vary a lot in population size. The Civil Servants Election and Recall Act discourages severe malapportionment of single-member districts, but it also lists the even distribution of voters as only one of several competing goals, including keeping together significant communities of interest and guaranteeing that every county and city is represented by at least one legislator. As a consequence, the actual number of voters in each constituency varies significantly across the country. For instance, the offshore islands of Penghu, Kinmen, and Matsu are all in separate counties and therefore entitled to their own representatives, even though Penghu has less than 90,000 voters, Kinmen has less than 120,000, and Lienchiang County less than 11,000, putting the electorate there at less than one-twentieth the size of the median district on the main island of Taiwan, which has about 250,000 voters. At the other extreme, the most populous electoral district, Yilan County, has over 362,000 voters. As a consequence, in the 2020 Legislative Yuan election, the legislator elected from Yilan represented over thirty times the number of people as the legislator from Matsu. The same rule leads to malapportionment elsewhere as well, although not quite so severe: the rural counties of Taitung and Hualien, for instance, are each represented by their own legislators, despite the size of the electorate falling significantly below the median in both. Another source of malapportionment, albeit one that is more defensible on other normative grounds, are the indigenous reserved seats. About 2.4 percent of Taiwanese hold official indigenous status, but the reserved seats make up 5.3 percent of the total in the Legislative Yuan—so the vote of an indigenous voter is worth more than twice as much as a voter in the median nonindigenous legislative district.6

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This inequality in the size of Taiwan’s legislative districts is especially problematic because it maps onto the partisan divide in Taiwan: the smaller districts of Kinmen, Lienchiang, Taitung, and Hualien, as well as the indigenous reserved seats, tend to be much “bluer,” or proKMT, than the electorate as a whole.7 Thus, since 2008, the KMT has enjoyed a modest bonus of between three and five seats in the legislature from this malapportionment—one that helped deliver the party a supermajority in the legislature in 2008, and cushioned the blow of its defeats in 2016 and 2020. At lower levels of the political system, representatives are still chosen under the old SNTV system in multimember districts (MMDs). In clear contrast to Japan, where malapportionment among MMDs played an important role in keeping the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) in power until the electoral reform in 1993,8 in Taiwan seats have routinely been added or reallocated to ensure a roughly equal distribution of representatives. As noted earlier, the SNTV system has other wellknown drawbacks that continue to bedevil local council elections: it creates stronger incentivizes for candidates to buy votes and sort into factions within parties, and it generates difficult coordination problems for both parties and voters, which can result in a distinct advantage to the party that more accurately forecasts its expected vote share and gets its supporters to evenly distribute their votes across all the party’s candidates. But on the whole, the apportionment of seats across local council districts has remained reasonably equitable. In contrast to Malaysia and Singapore, gerrymandering has been only a minor problem for electoral integrity in Taiwan. Since the switch to the two-vote system in the 2008 legislative election, the manipulation of SMD borders to maximize partisan advantage has generally been kept in check by the Central Election Commission, which has authority over how district boundaries are drawn. This is not for a lack of trying: in the first round of districting in 2007, both the KMT and DPP pushed aggressively for the CEC to draw the boundaries that were most favorable to their own electoral prospects. In the end, the parties and the CEC resolved the issue by drawing lots; the KMT’s map for Pingtung County was adopted, while the DPP’s was for Taoyuan, and the map of the small Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) for Taipei County.9 Nevertheless, the requirement that townships and districts serve as (relatively large) building blocks for districts within counties and cities has meant that there are simply not many different ways to manipulate boundaries for partisan gain, and gerrymandering is not especially severe despite the use of SMDs to elect most legislators.10

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A potential concern for the future is that the CEC has recently proven susceptible to pressure from incumbent legislators who have opposed changes to their constituencies. Article 35 of the Civil Servants Election and Recall Act requires that the CEC reapportion electoral districts at least once every ten years. In the most recent adjustment before the 2020 elections, the CEC shifted two seats to account for changes in population: Tainan and Hsinchu County gained a seat, while Pingtung and Kaohsiung each lost one, which necessitated completely redrawing the districts in these four localities. However, the CEC did not adjust the boundaries anywhere else to account for population changes, even though in some localities the electorate has become increasingly unevenly distributed across constituencies. In New Taipei, for instance, eligible voters per legislative district in 2020 varied from only 216,000 (Legislative Yuan sixth district) to about 355,000 (Legislative Yuan first district). In 2018, the CEC apparently gave in to demands from incumbent legislators not to redraw their constituency boundaries,11 all but guaranteeing that this malapportionment will continue to get worse; without reapportionment in the future, this trend could eventually lead to severe violations of the principle of one person, one vote even within counties and cities. The Legislative Yuan electoral system is also majoritarian in its net effects, though not to the extreme degree of Malaysia and Singapore. The proportional representation (PR) tier of Taiwan’s mixed-member system makes up only a little under one-third of all seats, and it is not compensatory—that is, the PR seats are not used to “compensate” parties that are underrepresented relative to votes won in the SMDs, but instead are allocated solely based on each party’s share of the second ballot votes. This design allows for significant divergence between overall party vote and seat shares in the legislature. The most extreme election outcome to date was in 2008, when the KMT won 72 percent of the seats in the Legislative Yuan on only 53 percent of the district vote, while the DPP won only 24 percent of the seats on 39 percent. In 2016, this advantage was reversed: the DPP won 60 percent of the seats on 45 percent of the district vote, while the KMT won only 31 on 39. This disproportionality has contributed to “manufactured” majorities in the Legislative Yuan as well: in 2020, the DPP won 55 percent of the seats and maintained its majority despite winning only 46 percent of the district vote, and 33 percent of the PR vote—the latter a 10point drop from 2016. Nevertheless, the PR tier is still large enough to mitigate somewhat the majoritarian effects of the SMDs. It has tended to bolster the over-

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all seat share of the party that comes in second in the most district races, and it also provides an opportunity for small parties that cannot compete in most SMDs to win seats via the second ballot. Thus, despite macrolevel incentives driving Taiwan toward a two-party system—a president directly elected without a runoff, a unicameral legislature now elected concurrently with the president, a long-standing unidimensional cleavage between pro- and anti-China camps, and an increasingly nationalized party system—at least two smaller parties have held enough seats to form their own party caucuses in every legislative term except for the seventh, from 2008 to 2012. Finally, it is worth noting that Taiwan has long had a gender quota for all multi-member districts. For the Legislative Yuan, this quota is now enforced in the party list tier, where at least half of all party nominees must be women. This rule guarantees that at least 17 of 113 legislators will be women—a significant drop from the previous rule under the old SNTV system in place before 2008, when the quota was 25 percent of seats in each multimember district. Nevertheless, Taiwan’s share of female legislators is still quite high by comparative standards: in the term beginning in 2020, 41 percent were women. At lower levels, councilors and township representatives are still elected using the SNTV system with a 25 percent gender quota. There is good evidence that the existence of these quotas has helped gradually to increase women’s participation in politics, to the point where the share of female officeholders far surpasses the minimum requirements now in Taiwan’s national parliament.12

Regulating Electoral Competition In contrast to Japan and especially Korea, Taiwan’s campaign regulations are quite lenient in practice. It is relatively easy to establish a new political party, run for office, hold campaign events, advertise for one’s campaign, and canvass for votes. The electoral rules on the books still impose quite strict limitations on campaigning for office—a holdover from Taiwan’s authoritarian era—but in practice most of these restrictions have long ceased to be enforceable. For instance, the official campaign period for the presidency is still only thirty days long, but under Taiwan’s liberal free speech and assembly regime, candidates can and frequently do hold election rallies, parades, and demonstrations well before that period. Indeed, Taiwanese politics often feels like it is in a state of a permanent election campaign, with public appeals and rallies

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and prominent displays of campaign posters months or even years before the date of the next election. Registering Parties and Candidates Since the late 1980s, it has been straightforward under Taiwanese law to establish a new political party. Registration of a new party requires holding a founding assembly, drafting a party charter, and submitting a membership roster of at least a hundred people. The ease with which new parties can be founded means that they have multiplied over the past thirty years, so that in 2019 there were over 300 political parties on record.13 A new Political Parties Act was passed in 2017 that tightened the requirements for political parties to retain legal standing, including holding a party assembly at least once every four years and submitting a declaration of party finances that meets actuarial standards. Parties are also prohibited from investing in or managing for-profit businesses—a provision aimed at the KMT, which for many years used assets from its party-linked businesses to fund its party activities.14 In order to qualify for the ballot, individual candidates must register with the CEC and pay a deposit. The requirements for registration vary based on the type of office. The rules for the presidential election are the most restrictive: prospective candidates must be at least forty years old, must have maintained a residence in the ROC free area for at least fifteen years, and cannot be a naturalized citizen (the electoral law explicitly rules ineligible naturalized immigrants from mainland China, Macau, or Hong Kong). Access to the ballot is also restricted for presidential elections and favors candidates of the major political parties. All parties which obtained at least 5 percent of the party list vote in the previous Legislative Yuan election, or which ran a ticket that won at least 5 percent in the last presidential election, have an automatic presidential ballot line. Other aspiring candidates are required to collect valid signatures equivalent to 1.5 percent of the total electorate within forty-five days to qualify. All candidates must also pay a large deposit of NT$15 million, or about US$500,000, that is to be refunded within ten days after the election unless the candidate fails to win at least 5 percent of the vote.15 (Any fines that the CEC assesses for violations during the campaign can be withheld from this deposit.) The signature and deposit requirements are high enough that independent candidacies are rare: not since 2000 has an independent managed to qualify for the presidential ballot.16 For legislative district elections, candidates must be at least twentythree years old and reside in the district where they intend to run at the

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time of registration (though not once they are elected). They also cannot be active-duty soldiers, electoral personnel, or serving jail time for a serious crime. Most candidates are nominated by a political party, but party affiliation is not required to run, and many district races include several independent candidates as well as the major party nominees. Legislative district candidates must pay a deposit—set by the CEC at its discretion— that is subject to forfeit if they do not win more than one-tenth the vote share of the winner. In practice, this rule means that many candidates lose their deposits after the votes are counted. Nevertheless, the deposit requirement remains low enough that many independent candidates with little shot at winning still run. In the 2020 Legislative Yuan election, for instance, the CEC set the deposit amount at NT$200,000 (about US$6,250), and in over half of the single-member districts, at least five candidates qualified for the ballot. In the most extreme case, in Kaohsiung’s third district, eleven candidates ran; of these, six won less than 1 percent each, and so had to forfeit their deposits. (As in the presidential race, the CEC also can withhold part of these deposits to cover any fees it has assessed for campaign violations.) For the legislature’s proportional representation seats, parties must meet at least one of the following criteria for their list to appear on the ballot: 1. The party nominated a presidential ticket in the last election, and its candidate won at least 2 percent of the total vote. 2. The party has won at least 2 percent of the party list vote for the last three consecutive legislative elections. 3. The party has at least five legislators in the current legislative term. 4. The party has nominated at least ten candidates across all geographic districts. In recent years, these criteria have forced new parties, most notably the New Power Party (in 2016) and the Taiwan People’s Party (in 2020) to nominate additional “sacrificial” candidates in districts to qualify their party list for the ballot, adding to the financial and logical hurdles that new small parties face in competing for the legislature. Candidates also cannot run for more than one type of election at the same time. This clause (Election and Recall Act, Article 25) precludes the possibility of so-called best loser or zombie candidates for the Legislative Yuan—a common phenomenon in Japan, where candidates who lose their district races are sometimes still able to enter the Diet by simultaneously running on the party list.17

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Below the national level, similar rules apply: candidates must meet residency and age qualifications and submit a deposit in order to register, but there are no other practical barriers to running. The CEC has the discretion to set the size of the deposit. In recent years it has ranged from NT$200,000 for city/county executive races to NT$2 million for special municipality mayors, and from $12,000 for city and county councilors to NT$200,000 for special municipality councilors.18 Overall, Taiwan’s candidacy rules appear to strike a reasonable balance between allowing access to the ballot for serious candidates, including from the leading opposition parties, while still discouraging completely frivolous ones. They also include several provisions that increase the value of belonging to a political party, and they tend to privilege the larger, longer-established parties over smaller ones and independent candidates. Campaigning When it comes to campaigning for office, there is significant divergence in Taiwan between the letter of the law and accepted practice. In theory, the Election and Recall Act places strict limits on the length of the campaign periods for each type of elected office. The longest, for president, is only thirty days. Candidates for the Legislative Yuan, mayors and county executives, and city and county councilors are allowed only fifteen days before the election to campaign, and candidates for lower offices, only five.19 In practice, however, these restrictions have been superseded by Taiwan’s liberal constitutional protections for free speech and assembly. The CEC has not attempted in the democratic era to regulate the speech or political activities of candidates before the official start date of the campaign—and if it did, it would probably end up losing in court. Candidates can still hold public rallies, advertise, or solicit support ahead of party primaries as well, and in practice they are allowed to (and usually do) put up campaign billboards and flags well before the official campaign period begins. There remain a handful of important restrictions that the CEC does continue to enforce during the official campaign period. Campaign activities are limited to between the hours of 7:00 A.M. and 10:00 P.M. Civil servants cannot participate in campaign activities, and campaign offices cannot be located in public buildings.20 Campaign materials cannot be displayed on public property, including roads, bridges, and parks, except as explicitly permitted by the local government. The CEC continues to

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enforce a polling blackout for the ten days prior to the election—no polls can be announced during this period, although campaigns and other pollsters can still conduct them privately (Article 53)—and no campaign activities of any kind are allowed on election day itself (Article 56).21 Rather than attempt the quixotic task of preventing campaign rallies or forbidding advertising on private billboards, Taiwan’s election regulators instead have focused much of their limited capacity on trying to detect, deter, and punish the most pernicious violations of campaign laws—especially vote buying. Candidates are not allowed to provide “gifts” to a voter worth more than NT$30 (about US$1); they may pass out pens, tissue paper, notebooks and other cheap merchandise as campaign publicity, but are forbidden to distribute anything more substantial. The election law also explicitly forbids the exchange of money for a promise to vote a certain way (Articles 99 and 100). Taiwan has a long tradition of candidates paying people for their votes, especially for local offices, and this practice became extremely pervasive in the early 1990s as the island democratized and the KMT nomination was no longer sufficient to deliver victory to its candidates. But over the past two decades, local prosecutors have made investigating vote buying allegations a top priority, and several winning legislative candidates have subsequently been convicted and stripped of their seats.22 Indirect evidence suggests the effectiveness and prevalence of vote buying has steadily declined over the last two decades, though it likely continues to be practiced in some local elections and in the remaining indigenous SNTV seats.23 Campaign Finance One area where limits and enforcement remain quite lax in practice is in campaign financing. The Political Donations Act (PDA), first adopted in 2004, permits individuals, political parties, civil associations, and businesses to donate to individual political campaigns, though public-owned enterprises and businesses seeking government contracts cannot. There is also now an explicit ban on donations from foreign individuals and businesses (Article 7), including those based in mainland China, Hong Kong, or Macau. Campaign donations to all candidates are capped at NT$300,000 (about US$10,000) for individuals, NT$2 million for businesses, and NT$1 million for civil associations, of which at most US$100,000 (NT$1 million, NT$500,000) can go to any one candidate (Article 18). Donations under NT$10,000 (about US$500) are not required to be reported (Article 14). Donations directly to political parties are also permitted and capped at NT$300,000 per individual, NT$3 million per

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business, and NT$2 million per civil association (Article 17). Notably, the period of time in which donations can be made to individual candidates (though not to political parties) is limited by law: to one year prior to the election for aspiring presidential candidates, ten months for the legislature, eight months for county- and city-level offices and township heads, and only four months for township and village representatives (Article 12). Separately, the Election and Recall Act imposes a cap on campaign spending, enforceable via fines levied by the CEC. Nevertheless, in practice, the reporting and disclosure requirements for these donations and expenditures are quite weak, undercutting the effectiveness of spending limits. The PDA gives the authority to collect information about campaign donations to the Control Yuan, which has few enforcement powers. Candidates are supposed to submit a comprehensive list of their campaign donations and expenditures within seventy days after the election, and to keep all donations in special accounts monitored by the Control Yuan. There are few penalties for misreporting, however, and when campaigns exceed the donation caps, the Control Yuan can only impose fines. In addition, the Control Yuan does not make the detailed campaign reports public, allowing donors to contribute anonymously.24 In practice, this design means that most campaign reports have only the roughest approximation to the true amount of funds, their sources, and the total expenditures, and enforcement of campaign finance restrictions, to the extent it does occur, comes mostly from prosecutors investigating candidates and parties for violations of other laws—especially vote buying and covert foreign influence— rather than from the CEC or the Control Yuan. Taiwan also provides public funding for political parties and individual candidates. For political parties, this funding is distributed annually based on the party list vote in the last legislative election: NT$50 per vote earned, for all political parties obtaining at least 3.5 percent of the vote. For candidates, a one-time subsidy is provided after the election: all candidates winning at least one-third of the winning candidate’s vote share receive NT$30 per vote, paid out at least thirty days after the final results are certified.25 The practical effect of these subsidies is to give the large parties, and candidates who run under their banners, a significant financial advantage over new parties, small parties, and independent candidates. Media Regulation Since the transition to democracy, Taiwan’s media regulators have had a very light touch, and news outlets have been free to publish contro-

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versial stories and critical editorials without fear of censorship or retaliation. No state body oversees print media, and the National Communications Commission (NCC), an independent agency responsible for regulating television and radio broadcasting, has generally not interfered with programming. This laissez-faire approach to the media industry has changed somewhat in recent years, as the ruling DPP has become increasingly alarmed at allegations of PRC interference in election campaigns and close coordination between some traditional media outlets and Beijing—particularly during the 2018 local elections. In response, the executive branch has stepped up enforcement of foreign influence laws to combat the spread of disinformation online, the DPP-led legislature has passed several new laws and amendments tightening reporting requirements, and the NCC has become more assertive about fining TV outlets for unbalanced news coverage.26 In November 2020, it also took the unprecedented step of denying a license renewal to a deep blue, pro-unification news channel, CtiTV, effectively taking a news station off the air for the first time in the democratic era.27 While there were fears that this shift in the NCC’s approach would eventually lead to a significant chill in freedom of expression and the press, in hindsight it appears to have been a reasonably calibrated reaction to a serious outside threat to the integrity of Taiwan’s electoral process. At present, however, Taiwanese voters still enjoy access to media offering a wide variety of coverage and opinions that span the political spectrum, from pro-unification to pro-independence. There is no notable state censorship of private media companies, and both parties and individual candidates of all political stripes can appeal directly to voters without facing restrictions.

Voting and Counting One of the great strengths of Taiwan’s election management system is its procedures for voting and for counting the ballots. Polling stations are usually in public buildings, which tend to be centrally located within the precinct—schools, community centers, markets, town halls, and so forth. Because these exist in any town or village, no matter how small or remote, access to them is not systematically different across Taiwan. Election law requires that most poll workers be public schoolteachers or government employees, who if requested must serve in this role, and who are paid a small honorarium for their time.28 They are responsible

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for setting up the polling stations, checking identifications against registrations, and ensuring voters receive the right ballots. All polling stations open at 8:00 A.M. and close at 4:00 P.M. The 4:00 P.M. cutoff is strictly enforced: those voters still waiting in line are permitted to cast a ballot, but anyone still outside is not allowed in the door. During this period, there are strict rules against voter intimidation. Campaign materials are not allowed within 100 feet of a polling place, and voters are not allowed to wear any paraphernalia linked to a campaign. Cell phones are not allowed in the voting booth—though this can now be enforced simply by requiring voters to power them down—and no photography is allowed in or around polling stations (though since 2016, photo-taking and recording has been permitted during the vote count after the polls have closed).29 At least one police officer is posted to each precinct to back up election workers enforcing the rules and to maintain order if necessary. Taiwan’s ballot design is also exemplary. The CEC produces a separate ballot for each type of race, distinguished by color.30 Each candidate’s picture, name in Chinese characters, and party affiliation (if any) are listed on each ballot. Candidate and party order is assigned via lottery, conducted by the election commission in each jurisdiction in a public ceremony. The voter indicates her choice by placing a mark in a large blank box below the candidate’s name and picture with a special election stamp supplied in each polling booth. The CEC also has generous guidelines for discerning voter intent—if a voter stamps a candidate’s picture or name instead, or stamps multiple times in multiple places, the vote is to be counted. If a stamp crosses over into another candidate’s box, however, it is invalid. Ballots also cannot be marked with items other than the official stamp, or signed, or otherwise provide markings that could conceivably make it possible to identify who cast a particular ballot. This ballot design, and the permissive guidelines for what counts as a vote, mean that the spoiled (invalid) vote count is quite low, ranging from 0.5 percent to 2 percent in any given precinct.31 Control over printed ballots is carefully monitored. They are delivered to the polling place three days before the election and kept under lock and key until the morning of the election. The number of ballots supplied to each polling station is at least equivalent to the total number of voters registered there, plus a small set of extras. (When the count is concluded, the polling supervisor must report the total number of unissued ballots as well, and these are returned to the CEC headquarters along with the ballots cast.) The most unique and symbolically powerful part of Taiwan’s elections is the public vote count, which takes place at the polling stations

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immediately after the polls have closed. After the last vote has been cast, the poll boxes are sealed and moved to the center of the room. A rope or other barrier is drawn across the room to separate the poll workers from observers (both from the campaigns and any interested members of the public), who are then allowed into the polling place to watch the count proceed. The boxes are then opened, ballots pulled out one by one and held high so that they are visible to all observers, and the name and number of each candidate or party receiving a vote is called out and marked on a paper at the front of the room. The count proceeds until all votes in each box have been recorded, and then the empty box is shown to the audience to confirm no ballots have been missed. The number of votes on each sheet are then totaled up and final counts posted on an official slip outside the polling station, and the poll supervisor calls in the precinct results to the CEC. The counting process takes, on average, 2–3 hours for a national election, and the results for the entire country are typically finalized in about six hours. The greatest drawback of this system is that it is laborintensive: the 2020 general elections required over 200,000 poll workers for an electorate of 19.3 million people.32 However, it has many other advantages: it is low-tech, transparent, efficient, fast, and accurate, and nearly impossible to manipulate without being spotted. The only serious administrative problems to occur during elections in recent years have involved referendums.33 In December 2017, the legislature lowered the requirements for qualifying a referendum for the ballot, and there was a rush to put this new political tool to use. In November 2018, an unprecedented ten referendums were held on the same day as Taiwan’s consolidated local elections, which now feature concurrent elections for all offices below the central government level. Voters received as many as fifteen separate ballots (ten referendum ballots plus up to five for local races), and the voting process slowed to a crawl. Many voters faced long waits and were still standing in line to vote as the counts began in other precincts—an almost unprecedented situation for Taiwan. After widespread criticism and complaints, the head of the CEC resigned to take responsibility, and the legislature eventually amended the law again to require referendum votes to be held separately from other elections.34

Conclusion The key innovations in Taiwan’s electoral process developed over a period of more than seven decades. The household registration system

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and the SNTV system were holdovers from the Japanese colonial era, as were the initial stringent limits on campaign activities. The practice of counting the ballot boxes at the polling stations was introduced in the early martial law era by KMT liberal reformers who were mostly given free hand to write the regulations for local elections.35 The requirement that each candidate be allowed to nominate some of the poll workers was introduced in 1960, after Kao Yu-shu’s suspicious defeat in 1957, and was partly responsible for his second victory in the Taipei mayor’s race in 1964.36 Other reforms were introduced during the “soft authoritarian” period: most importantly, the passage in 1980 of the Civil Servants Election and Recall Act and the creation of the Central Election Commission, which put election law on a statutory basis and hastened the professionalization of election management. The liberalization of campaign and media regulations came later; they, rather than the independence of the electoral commission, were major points of contention during the long transition to democracy, but they had largely been resolved by the time the first direct presidential election was held in 1996. These reforms did not completely level the electoral playing field. The KMT still enjoyed enormous resource advantages over the other political parties, and it remained the favorite to win any given race. But the reforms did raise the possibility that the long-time ruling party could actually lose power under the right conditions. In the 2000 presidential election, to the surprise of many, the KMT did in fact lose power, ushering in the next phase of Taiwan’s political evolution. The remaining electoral reforms introduced during this period are mostly related to party financing and vote buying, and they have further strengthened the integrity of elections in Taiwan. Considered in comparative perspective, the Taiwan case demonstrates how past authoritarian practices do not necessarily have to leave a negative legacy for contemporary politics. Indeed, the Taiwan experience suggests the opposite: the KMT regime built a high-quality system of election management precisely because it wanted to strengthen the legitimacy of elections—elections that it was confident it could win in a free and fair contest. One of the great ironies of Taiwanese politics is that such a long period of authoritarian one-party rule has left at least one positive legacy for democracy today.

Notes 1. Ahern and Gates, The Anthropology of Taiwanese Society; Su, “Angels Are in the Details.” Kao’s repeat success was so disturbing to the KMT leadership that

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Taipei was then converted into a directly administered municipality, which changed the mayor’s office from an elected to an appointed position. Kao was nevertheless allowed to keep his post until 1972, and he later joined the KMT. 2. ROC residents normally must have established residence in Taiwan for the previous six consecutive months to be eligible to vote. ROC passport holders who have lived abroad for more than six consecutive months will have their residency suspended and are not eligible; they may, however, apply at their local government office to be included on the voter rolls for the next election. See Presidential and Vice Presidential Election and Recall Act, art. 12. 3. One exception is overseas residents; they may show a passport in lieu of a national identification card, provided they have applied to vote. Civil Servants Election and Recall Act, art. 14. 4. This practice is by custom, not by law; the Election and Recall Act does not specify a required date and leaves this decision up to the Central Election Commission. 5. The introduction of absentee balloting is particularly fraught because of the large number of Taiwanese who live and work in the People’s Republic of China (PRC). It would be hard to ensure that ballots sent to and from the PRC in the mail would be secure, and that votes cast there would be free of undue interference from the Chinese Communist Party. Moreover, the prospect of several hundred thousand votes cast from mainland China deciding the outcomes of close elections in Taiwan should give pause to even the staunchest advocates of absentee balloting. 6. On the reserved indigenous seats, see Templeman, “When Do Electoral Quotas Advance Indigenous Representation?” 7. See Batto, “Sources and Implications of Malapportionment.” 8. On this point, see Scheiner, Democracy Without Competition. 9. Shih, “Su, Wang Break Electorate Deadlock.” 10. See Batto, “Partisan Politics and Redistricting.” 11. See Batto, “The CEC Abdicates Its Duty.” 12. Huang, “Gender Quotas and Women’s Increasing Political Competitiveness.” 13. Huang and Hetherington, “Several Parties Have Yet to Make Charter Amendments.” 14. “Legislature Passes Political Parties Act.” 15. Presidential and Vice Presidential Election and Recall Act, art. 31. In the most recent presidential election, in 2020, perennial candidate James Soong won only 4.16 percent of the vote, so he failed to meet the threshold and duly forfeited his deposit. 16. This was James Soong, in his first of five attempts at the presidency (he also ran in 2012, 2016, and 2020, and in the vice president slot on the KMT ticket in 2004). This signature requirement also had real political consequences for the 2020 race: the former DPP vice president Annette Lu, unhappy with President Tsai’s moderation on cross-Strait issues and nursing a series of other grudges against the party, declared her own independent run for president. There was some speculation that she might pull votes away from the DPP, but in the end she was unable to gather enough signatures to qualify, and she had to abandon her candidacy before it formally began. See Yun, “Annette Lu Withdraws Presidential Bid,” p. 3. 17. Pekkanen, Nyblade, and Krauss, “Electoral Incentives in Mixed-Member Systems.” 18. The large deposit required for prominent offices briefly became a salient issue in 2018. The social activist Fan Yun declared her candidacy for the Taipei mayor’s race but struggled to raise the NT$2 million (US$62,500) required for the deposit. She later quit the race, complaining bitterly that this requirement put candidates from small parties, and especially young activists, at a disadvantage.

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She proposed changing the law to allow signatures to be submitted instead of a deposit. See Maxon, “Minor Parties Call for End to Election Deposits.” 19. Civil Servants Election and Recall Act, art. 40. 20. These restrictions were introduced in 1980 to forbid what was previously a common practice: KMT officials would use state resources for partisan purposes. 21. This requirement has been quite aggressively enforced. In 2012, for instance, the Facebook page of the campaign of incumbent President Ma Ying-jeou posted a message early on election day reminding supporters to head to the polls and vote for Ma. The CEC interpreted this as a violation of the “no campaigning” restriction and fined the Ma campaign NT$500,000. See Huang, “2020 Elections,” p. 3. 22. After the 2008 elections, five different legislators were convicted of vote buying and removed from office. One legislator each was convicted of vote buying after the 2012 and 2016 elections—both in the indigenous constituencies. 23. For instance, the Varieties of Democracy project includes a variable measuring the prevalence of vote buying by year; it shows a significant decline in Taiwan since 2008. 24. On this point, see especially Chen, “Money in Taiwanese Politics.” 25. Civil Servants Election and Recall Act, art. 43; Presidential Election and Recall Act, art. 41. 26. For more details, see Templeman, “How Taiwan Stands Up to China.” 27. The NCC justified this action by noting a repeated pattern of violations of the terms of its license from CtiTV, including a failure to adhere to a previous agreement to maintain editorial independence and balanced news coverage. CtiTV continues to broadcast via a YouTube channel, and its sister station, CTV, remains on the air. See “NCC Decides to Shut Down CtiTV News Station.” 28. Su, “Angels Are in the Details.” 29. Gerber, “Ban on Photography During Vote-Counting Dropped.” 30. For instance, in the 2020 elections, the presidential ballot was colored pink, the district legislative race ballot yellow, the indigenous highland ballot blue, indigenous lowland ballot green, and the party list ballot white. The different colors help poll workers to assign voters the proper ballots (important for the legislative races) and to sort the ballots during counting. 31. Author calculation, from 2020 legislative election results, available at Central Election Commission website, https://db.cec.gov.tw/histMain.jsp?voteSel =20200101A2 32. Chung, “CEC to Have 1,346 More Polling Stations Next Year,” p. 3. 33. The first referendums held in Taiwan, in 2004 and 2008, also sparked heated partisan fights over the voting process and the validity of the referendum power itself. 34. “Civic Group Leaders Slam Referendum Act Amendments.” 35. Su, “Angels Are in the Details,” p. 294. 36. Ibid., pp. 297–298.

5

Mongolia: When Manipulation Backfires Michael Seeberg

COMPARED TO MANY OF THE OTHER CASES IN THIS BOOK, ELECTIONS IN Mongolia have been relatively well-run. Notably, four periods of oneparty control in the legislature and executive have not tempted political elites to abuse their authority, and an incumbent government party has peacefully transferred power to the winning opposition four times during Mongolia’s eight parliamentary elections. Two presidents up for reelection have stepped down upon defeat at the ballot box, four oversized government coalitions have been formed in times of political crisis, and both presidents and parliaments have exercised their vetoes over policy changes but neither misused nor disrespected this power. Using firsthand sources,1 this chapter seeks to shed light on Mongolia’s institutional resilience and how it has shaped interactions between key political actors. The management of elections in Mongolia reflects trends in northeast and southeast Asia and Latin America. Like many other countries in Asia, Mongolia’s electoral system tends toward the majoritarian end of the spectrum rather than proportional. Mongolia did introduce a proportional element to its electoral system in 2011, but it was used only once, in the parliamentarian elections in 2012. That exception aside, electoral reforms in Mongolia have been confined to changes to electoral rules, district magnitude and voting processes within the original majoritarian institutional arrangements.2 Rule changes in Mongolia, primarily at the national level, have been frequent and have tended to reflect the preferences of the incumbent government party,3 but the changes have

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often backfired and led to landslide victories by the opposition. Mongolia’s progress on electoral integrity is best characterized as “two steps forward, one step back.” Changes to core electoral institutions in Mongolia have not always been elegant and have sometimes fallen into the grey zone of malpractice, but the major political parties have continued to respect their opponents’ right to compete, and political elites have remained respectful of basic democratic norms and practices. This chapter seeks to reveal the institutional underpinnings of electoral democracy in Mongolia, by building on Huntington’s work4 on political institutions and organizations in society and the proliferating literature on electoral integrity.5 It focuses on the institutions that regulate access to power, such as electoral laws and the General Election Commission (GEC), and the exercise of power under the semi-presidential constitution.6 The analysis shows how elements in the constitutional framework and the functioning of core electoral institutions have promoted power sharing as well as checks and balances in the political system. A political culture of tolerance has developed and deepened over time, and political opponents have on the whole managed to resolve political crises through dialogue and compromise.

Sound and Clean Elections Mongolia lies in a geopolitically vulnerable location squeezed between two authoritarian behemoths. Mongolia has a Buddhist heritage and a relatively small, ethnically homogenous population. It was under de facto Soviet rule from 1921 to 1989, and following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, it experienced one of the most massive economic downturns in the region. Many Mongolians subsequently found economic safety in traditional nomadic lifestyles, and while a recent boom in mining has created impressive economic growth rates, citizens still live on a per-capita income of US$10 a day. Since it began the transition to democracy in 1990, Mongolia has held eight contested elections for both the parliament and the presidency. International observers have consistently praised Mongolia for holding free and fair elections.7 From its first democratic election in 1992 and well into the 2000s, Mongolia featured one of the highest electoral democracy scores in the region. According to the Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) electoral democracy index, Mongolia was among the best-rated electoral regimes in the region. Since 1992, Freedom House has classified Mongolia as an electoral democracy along with

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Indonesia, Japan, Philippines, South Korea, and Taiwan. This has been a stable pattern since Indonesia joined the class in 1999. In addition to these expert scorings, citizens in Mongolia express strong support for democracy as the best form of government. In the fourth wave of the Asia Barometer survey in 2014, more than four out of five Mongolians agreed that “democracy may have its problems, but it is still the best form of government.” Throughout the previous waves of the survey, at least three out of five Mongolians have agreed with this notion. Mongolia has also seen a persistently high voter turnout since democratization. It peaked in the 1992 legislative elections, when an astonishing 95.6 percent of registered voters participated in the first contested elections to be held in Mongolia. Turnout has since declined from this high, reaching a low point in 2012 of 65.2 percent. But it went up to 74.3 percent in the 2016 legislative elections, and 73.7 percent in the most recent 2020 elections, when there were a little more than 2 million registered voters. Considering the lack of any previous democratic experience before the transition to democracy, Mongolia scores surprisingly high on the Perceptions of Electoral Integrity (PEI) index.8 The index is calculated based on forty-nine core items that take into account electoral procedures, boundaries, voter and party registration, campaign media and financing, voting process, vote count, post-election reporting, and electoral authorities.9 The 2021 scoring covers the period from February 3, 2019, to December 31, 2021, including the elections for parliament in 2020 and the presidency in 2021. Mongolia falls in the 91st percentile on the index (ranking 53rd out of 171 countries). Mongolia is listed in the class of countries with high electoral integrity (scoring between 60 and 69 on the 100-point scale) together with the United States, South Korea and Japan, and a handful of long-standing Latin American democracies.

Electoral Integrity In her work on electoral integrity, Pippa Norris suggests three possible categories of explanation for the variation in the PEI index across countries: level of socioeconomic development, international influences, and domestic institutions.10 Mongolia’s moderate level of socioeconomic development and its challenging international environment rule out the explanatory leverage of these two otherwise predominant perspectives.11 This chapter takes up the third perspective, and focuses on the powersharing encouraged by checks and balances in the political system as a

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key source of electoral integrity. This area of research has received less systematic attention in the literature than the two other perspectives. This approach examines how power-sharing and checks and balances built into the constitutional framework can curb political actors’—and especially the governing party’s—abuse of power and manipulation of the electoral rules and practices, and how these institutions affect competition between political parties and political elites and encourage support for democratic rule more generally.12 Mongolia is also notable for frequent changes to its electoral system. These changes fall somewhere on the spectrum between overt manipulation that undermines electoral integrity, and nonpartisan institutional engineering that is intended to improve democratic rule. Sarah Birch defines electoral malpractice as “the manipulation of electoral processes and outcomes so as to substitute personal or partisan benefit for the public interest”13, whereas electoral engineering is institutional changes that are intended to improve democratic accountability, representation or management of ethnic tensions, or enhance civic engagement.14 Some recent changes to electoral rules in Mongolia come close to electoral malpractice but can—so far at least—be justified by appeals to democratic principles. I analyze these reforms within the framework presented by Elklit and Reynolds15 on essential factors in an electoral process that promotes integrity. This framework looks at the electoral process before, during and after elections to get a more complete picture of election quality, and specifically to better capture changes to the electoral playing field that can be undermined by subtle forms of irregularities in de jure as well as de facto ways. They identify eleven decisive steps that the election management body usually has responsibility for carrying out. These steps range from the initial legal framework to the closing post-election procedures, including districting; voter education; registration; the regulation and design of the ballot; and polling and counting, along with some broader areas such as campaign regulation, complaints procedures and the implementation of election results.16 Not all steps are equally important for the core functioning of elections in fledgling democracies. If some essential steps fail, they cause the breakdown of the entire election process. Therefore, they can help us identify when benevolent engineering turns into malevolent malpractice. The essential components are legal framework, election management, access to the ballot, polling, counting the vote, and post-election procedures for resolving disputes.17 The next section examines Mongolia’s electoral integrity on each of these core dimensions.

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Legal Framework of Elections The legal framework of elections in Mongolia has generally ensured that elections are held on a regular schedule for both the parliament and the president. However, last minute changes to the electoral law in 2016 made it difficult for the GEC to implement the new system in time. The electoral framework is broadly perceived to be legitimate, but the changes made to the electoral law just two months before the 2016 elections were viewed with deep concern among non-state actors and the international community. Also, the switch back to a multimember district (MMD) system in December 2019 before the June 2020 parliamentary elections was concerning. Countries in the West do also make radical changes to their electoral systems—France, for example, moved repeatedly back and forth between majoritarian and proportional elections after World War II, and during the 1990s, New Zealand, Israel, Venezuela, Italy, and Japan have all made major reforms.18 Thus, it was not so much the radical changes to the electoral law that was worrisome, but the timing of the changes. Table 5.1 maps the different electoral systems used in Mongolia for the eight parliament elections held beginning in 1992. Until 2011, changes to Mongolia’s legislative framework of elections were within the family of the majoritarian system. The first democratic elections in 1992 used the rare block vote, where voters cast between two and four votes in each of the twenty-six districts depending on the district size. This system is known to exaggerate the first-past-the-post bias toward the biggest parties, because voters have a tendency to cast all of their votes for candidates from one party.19 In the 1996, 2000, and 2004 elections, the seventy-six members of parliament were elected using a pure single-member district plurality-rule system.

Table 5.1 Electoral Systems Used for Elections to Parliament in Mongolia, 1992–2020

System

1992

1996

2000

2004

2008

2012

2016

2020

MMD  (block  vote)

SMD

SMD

SMD

MMD  (block  vote)

Mixed SMD MMD  MMD/  (block  SMD  vote)

Source: Author. Note: MMD = multimember district system; SMD = single-member district system.

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In 2008, the electoral system was changed back to the block vote. Popular discontent with the outcome of that election resulted in postelection violence with five deaths and hundreds of injuries. This incident forced the major parties to get together and find a compromise on a more representative system that could prevent similar political crises in future elections. A proportional element was introduced to the majoritarian system, in which twenty-eight of seventy-six total mandates were distributed to political parties proportionally to their countrywide vote share on a closed party list. The remaining forty-eight seats were filled based on a plurality vote in twenty-six districts with district magnitudes ranging from one to three mandates. Moreover, a 30 percent gender quota was introduced for political parties’ candidate lists. Electronic voting machines also were used for the first time to speed up the count and report totals automatically to the GEC. The results of the 2012 parliament elections reflected the intent of the amendments to the electoral law put in place in 2011. The proportional element awarded a third party significant representation for the first time: the newly formed Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party (MPRP) won eleven seats. In addition, the gender quota requirement ensured that another eleven women won seats in parliament in addition to the five who won by the regular formula. In December 2015, the parliament formally approved additional minor changes to the electoral law after an involved process with many public hearings. This legislation was passed in full accordance with the long-standing requirement that the parliament must approve changes at least six months before the next elections set for June 2016. Among the changes was the introduction of a ban on publishing election polls in the days before the elections. However, a previous clause forbidding further amendments to the law less than six months before the election was removed. Thus, the parliament opened a loophole for further changes. In April 2016, the constitutional court struck down the electoral law, despite the fact that it had enjoyed cross-party support in 2011 and 2015. The court ruled that the proportional element of the electoral system was unconstitutional because it did not fulfill citizen’s rights to directly elect their representatives. This judicial move followed in the wake of the parliament and the court’s joint dismissal of the chief justice since 2012, Jugnee Amarsanaa, in February 2016 for a minor procedural violation. Even though no law required the parliament to act on the constitutional court’s rulings at any given time, the parliament needed only two weeks to turn it into a new sweepingly

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amended electoral law. On May 5, 2016—less than two months before the elections—the parliament utilized the fact that the clause barring further changes to the electoral law was left out in the 2015 law and changed the electoral system back to a pure majoritarian system with all members of parliament elected from single-member districts using plurality rule. The ban on publishing polls was lifted, but too late for polling bureaus to get funding to produce any results. The gender quota was lowered from 30 to 20 percent. The deadline for delineating election districts was reduced from 150 to 45 days before the election day, and citizens living abroad were prevented from voting, effectively disenfranchising 150,000 citizens. The amendment left a huge workload for the GEC to implement the new law. To address concerns over the counting machines’ accuracy and integrity, the amendment to the law stipulated that up to 50 percent of polling stations would be subject to manual recounts. The procedures describing the manual recount, however, were only finalized two days before the election. This maneuver could be interpreted as deliberately keeping the GEC busy with other tasks instead of monitoring political parties’ campaign activities. Ironically, this cumbersome electoral engineering had the complete opposite effect from what the incumbent government party, the Democratic Party (DP), had intended. The Mongolian People’s Party (MPP, the successor party to the former communist party, MPRP) instead won a landslide victory and reduced the DP to a spectator in parliament. This strategy was somewhat analogous to 1995, when MPRP was the governing party. It initially conceded to pressure from the opposition and introduced a proportional element to the majoritarian-based electoral system. That electoral law stipulated that twenty-four out of the total of seventy-six seats were to be elected by proportional representation, while the system would maintain a simple majority vote in single member districts for the remaining fifty-two seats. However, in January 1996, the MPRP suddenly backtracked and unilaterally amended the electoral law to remove the element of proportional representation, despite strong protests from the president and opposition. In the June 1996 parliament elections, a coalition of opposition parties nonetheless won a landslide victory, despite the incumbent party’s attempt to manipulate the system to stay in power. The difference in 2019 was that the MPP succeeded in using electoral changes to consolidate its majority in the 2020 elections, in part by also redrawing the district sizes to increase the number of seats elected from MPP’s rural support bases.

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Considered as a whole, these frequent and significant changes to the electoral system go against best practice. A new system should at least be in place for three consecutive elections to give the institution time to “settle in,” show good and bad sides, and give journalists, candidates and voters time to get used to how the new system works.20 The frequent changes in the electoral system have nevertheless not led to prolonged one-party dominance or prevented opposition parties from contesting and winning the elections. The continued pluralism of Mongolian democracy hints at an underlying modus vivendi across parties that has persisted and deepened even though institutions and electoral practices have sometimes worked against it. The majoritarian-based electoral system has produced two parties that are a serious threat to defeat each other in each election. As such, the majoritarian system—along with the built-in institutional features that favor party cohesion discussed below—has helped deepen a pattern of rotation in office and helped consolidate democracy in Mongolia.

Election Management, Including Vote Counting Mongolia’s GEC is responsible for managing all the aspects of the electoral process, including the vote counting. In this role, it has been perceived by both parties and voters to be broadly fair and impartial. It has developed a reputation for competence and effectiveness during elections, and its conduct has been reasonably transparent.21 In 2016, the commission partnered with ten civil society organizations to improve the quality of elections through the Voter Education Center to engage in voter education prior to the elections; the Mongolian Information Development Association to develop and test the automatic counting machines; the Mongolian National Federation of the Blind to implement Braille ballot covers and magnifying lenses and improve access for all to polling stations and voting booths; and the Open Society Forum to deploy 260 independent observers to polling stations all over the country. The introduction of automatic counting machines implemented after the turbulent 2008 parliament elections has also helped raise confidence that the election results are being reported accurately and fairly. Mongolian authorities and international observers have expressed confidence that the technology produces results with accuracy, integrity and reliability. Vote counts are sent electronically and also called in to the GEC, and this enables the commission to announce the results by the end of the election day. In the 2016 elections, manual recounts were

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held in a handful of areas to act as a check on the machine counts; they found similar results. Dragging out the reporting of the count has in the past created discontent among citizens. For instance, in 2008, violence erupted in part because of a long delay in reporting the results. Thus, the electronic vote counting system has helped raise confidence in the work of the GEC and improved trust in the electoral process. The current way members of the GEC are selected is also an improvement over past practice. In the first election in 1992, the GEC consisted of fifteen members recruited entirely from the former communist party, MPRP. During the 1996–2000 period, when MPRP was in opposition, only a single commissioner was appointed by the DP, the new ruling party; the other fourteen MPRP-affiliated members had their five-year mandate renewed twice. In 2000, MPRP members chaired the GEC and fifty out of the total of seventy-six electoral district committees (and fifteen out of twenty in the capital, Ulaanbaataar). Until then, no by-laws regulated the GEC’s activities, and all the commission’s meetings were closed to the press and the public. In 2001, the number of members was reduced to eleven. In 2006, a new Law on the General Election Commission of Mongolia was adopted, which established the current structure of the commission with nine members who serve for six-year terms.22 Generally speaking, the current selection and appointment procedures of the GEC’s chief and commissioners are perceived to be transparent.23 The commission’s members are all approved by the parliament but nominated by different bodies: The parliament’s Standing Committee on State Structure nominates five members, the president nominates two members, and the supreme court nominates two members. Members are nominated from among civil servants who have documented prior electoral experience (they must have a valid training certificate issued by the GEC). The chair and secretary are appointed from among the nine commissioners based on the recommendations of the speaker of the parliament. Appointments based on nominations from different branches of the state have served to build in a checks-and-balance mechanism into the electoral system. Together with the partnership with civil society and supportive technology, these reforms have strengthened political elites’ and citizens’ confidence in the GEC as a professional, capable election management body. Nevertheless, there are still irregularities reported during every election at lower levels of the GEC. There are twenty-six Territorial Election Commissions (TECs) with eleven commissioners each. Numbers from 2008 provided by the GEC indicate that the two major parties DP and

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MPP had equally strong representation in these TECs.24 In the division election committees that are each responsible for a single voting station, the GEC also reported an equal representation of members affiliated with one of the two major parties.25 However, these lower-division commissions are all chaired by appointees directly subordinated to political officials at the regional level, indicating a worrisome lack of impartiality and susceptibility to partisan influence. For instance, after the landslide victory of the opposition MPP in the 2016 parliament elections, 76 percent of the TEC members were replaced by the new ruling party, including all but three of the twenty-six TEC chairs. The GEC’s performance is at the heart of making democracy work in Mongolia. If an electoral management body builds up a reservoir of support from political elites through its actions, these actors learn that they can still regain office via electoral competition in the future if they lose at the ballot box. Thus, Mongolia’s experience with competitive elections has been self-reinforcing. Several peaceful turnovers of power, along with the realization that the opposition is usually a threat to win office the next time around, has over the long run led to greater moderation among the ruling and opposition parties and has kept the incumbent government from pushing for authoritarian alternatives.26 The establishment of this pattern, in turn, has provided political elites with a longer time horizon beyond short-term electoral gains. Extending political elites’ time perspective has spurred a more programmatic approach to politics, and it has incentivized the government of the day to broker compromises with the opposition on more radical reforms. Thus, the impartiality of the GEC has been paramount to political actors’ constructive interaction in and between elections.

Access to the Ballot, Constituency Demarcation, and Campaign Regulation In general, parties and candidates can register for elections without bias, but there are important exceptions. The electoral law explicitly disqualifies several categories of people from running for office. People on the salary list of the government, such as civil servants, teachers, and doctors are all barred from standing for election unless they resign six months prior to the elections. Moreover, candidates must be twenty-five years old to run for a seat. Thus, people who are wellqualified to run for office are not always able to register easily and without inconvenience.

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A central feature of access to the ballot is that it is effectively controlled by the political parties. To qualify for the ballot and to have a chance of winning a seat, a political party affiliation is usually essential. In practice, this grants political parties a monopoly on the authority to nominate candidates—in every election since 1992, no more than three independents have won a seat. Since 2000, voting in parliament has been by public ballot, enabling parties to better discipline their members. Only parties represented in parliament can nominate candidates for the presidency. Furthermore, the Mongolian parliament law stipulates that only political parties can form caucuses within the parliament, thus strengthening party cohesion. The 2016 election law further increased the advantages enjoyed by the two largest parties. It reduced the period of campaigning from twentyone to seventeen days, creating an even higher hurdle for new parties to overcome in planning and executing their campaign activities. Only parties with a strong organization can campaign countrywide and appeal to a widely dispersed population on such a limited timetable. Campaign platforms and activities must be approved by a state agency and comply with an exhaustive list of “permitted campaign methods” stipulated in the election law, such as a limited number of campaign offices and campaigners who must work on a voluntary basis, restrictions on the size and number of pages of campaign materials (but with exemptions for material that highlights the achievements of the government), and the removal of all banners and campaign material no later than two days before the elections. Moreover, state funding for campaigning is only available to parties already represented in parliament. Those features systematically disadvantage new parties and independent candidates. Gerrymandering has also been an occasional problem for electoral integrity. Prior to the 2020 elections, there were some irregularities in the drawing of constituency boundaries in several districts. One constituency in the capital Ulaanbaataar (Baganuur) was divided into four incoherent districts that were then attached to different non-contiguous constituencies in Sukhbaatar district. In Uvs, one constituency was divided into three noncontiguous parts located in different corners of the rural province. Moreover, Khentii province, with 46,589 voters, was divided into three constituencies, whereas neighboring Dornod province, with 49,276 voters, was only divided into two. These examples are hard to make sense of other than as attempts to bend the rules in favor of incumbents.27 Moreover, fifty constituencies deviated more than 15 percent from the country’s average number of voters per constituency, which raises concerns about malapportionment as well.28

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Polling and Election Results Mongolians have consistently turned out to vote in high numbers. Moreover, civil society organizations have played an instrumental role in making elections accessible via education and physical access for all. The biggest problem of polling in Mongolia is the risk of vote buying, not so much at the polling station, but long before election day. Until recently, parliament members were assigned two billion tugrik (US$850,000) each election period that they could spend in their constituency. This practice ended after the 2012 elections, but only after a huge spike in funds made available, rising from the initial 10 million tugrik (US$4,200) per member of parliament after the 2004 elections.29 These resources gave incumbent members an advantage at the ballot box, because they could spend money with no oversight or public rationale for any purpose they liked in their constituencies.30 The constitutional court ruled this practice unconstitutional in 2007, and President Tsakhiagiin Elbegdorj vetoed a substitute proposal to keep the system of direct district spending in 2010. However, the parliament did not act accordingly on these actions before the 2012 elections.31 During the 2012 campaign, a more subtle form of cash handout became popular. The government announced in early May—less than two months before the elections—that the Mongolian people should have a ten per cent ownership of the Tavan Tolgoi mine, a new mining venture. Accordingly, every citizen received 1,072 shares. The intention to let citizens have direct ownership in the natural resources of the country was generally a good one, but it also looked suspiciously like a form of vote buying. Three weeks before the 2016 elections, these shares were in fact used to enrich individual voters, when the government decided to buy back 30 percent of each citizen’s shares for a total of 300,000 tugrik (US$155). Prior to the elections, 72.7 percent of the shareholders had applied to sell back their part of the shares to the government. It was reported that members of parliament also provided citizens in rural areas of the country transportation to banks to claim and sell their shares.32

Institutional Underpinnings of Power-Sharing A final core feature of election quality is the ability to resolve disputes in a way that ensures democracy remains “the only game in town.” On this dimension, Mongolia stands out, particularly in how political parties

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have interacted with one another, and how the president has weighed in. The Mongolian parliament has seen four handovers of power in eight elections for parliament during the last quarter of a century (in 1996, 2000, 2012, and 2016). All losing governments have accepted defeat and become a constructive opposition in the next parliamentary term. In five periods—including the current—the turnovers have even produced unified government, with one party controlling both a majority in parliament and the presidency. During 2000–2004, 2008–2009 and since the most recent presidential elections in June 2021, the MPP, the renamed former communist party, has been fully in control of both bodies, whereas the DP controlled both branches during 1996–1997 and 2012– 2016. These periods of single-party control of the government could have led to democratic backsliding, but thanks to the institutional underpinnings vested in the management of elections and features in the constitutional framework, the majority party in each case did not attempt to entrench its power in line with the recent trend set by executives in, for example, Central Asia, Russia, Turkey, and Venezuela. Moreover, there have been significant turnovers at the local level—not least in the capital, where power has regularly alternated between the same two major parties that also dominate politics at the national level. Mongolian political parties have consistently showed a willingness to compromise and to come together in times of crisis. Since 1990, a party with a parliamentary majority has formed oversized coalition governments (as opposed to the available minimal winning coalition option) in 2008 and 2014. The government formed after the political crisis surrounding the violent 2008 elections was oversized as a muchneeded compromise to ensure power-sharing among the rival political forces. Alternations in the presidency demonstrate a strong commitment by incumbents to respect the outcome of elections and accept defeat. Twice, a president up for reelection has lost his bid and conceded defeat even when the winning margins were thin.33 Moreover, in the 2017 presidential run, the two major parties both held open internal nomination procedures for candidacies.34 Between elections, these checks-andbalances mechanisms are also in place. An overview of presidential vetoes shows that this division of power over policy making seems to work as intended. From 1994 to 2013, the president issued a total of fifty-three vetoes, out of which thirty-seven were accepted by parliament. The remaining 27.7 percent of the vetoes were overridden by a two-thirds majority in parliament.35 However, presidents have in general not stood in the way of reforms, and they have mostly played a constructive role in solving major political crises.

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The balance between the president and parliament was, however, changed in 2000, when amendments to the constitution reduced the president’s role to a figurehead who can consult with the prime minster but who has no formal say in the approval of the prime minister and the cabinet. Since that reform, the president has retained some prerogatives on foreign policy—he or she nominates ambassadors that are approved by parliament and represent the state in foreign relations. The president also leads the work of the National Security Council flanked by the speaker of parliament and the prime minister, and he or she is the commander in chief of the armed forces. Moreover, the president nominates judges to the constitutional court to be approved by parliament. The only real unilateral appointment power of the president is the prosecutor general, who is appointed for a six-year term. The control of this office is an important institutional check, because the prosecutor general is empowered to bring cases against government officials, including members of parliament, for charges of corruption. Moreover, the president can propose legislation to parliament and veto legislation, but a two-thirds majority of parliament can override such a veto. Only a parliamentary decision backed by two-thirds of its members can dissolve the house. The president cannot sign decrees singlehandedly but needs the consent of the prime minster as well. Thus, the parliament has been the strongest body vis-à-vis the presidency since the first democratically enacted constitution, but the 2000 amendments skewed the balance of power even more in favor of the prime minister and parliament.

Conclusion Electoral rules and practices are at the heart of an open polity. Surprisingly little has been said about countries that hold free and fair elections and have broad respect for democratic limits between elections, but otherwise are characterized by moderate levels of socioeconomic development and that are surrounded by authoritarian neighbor countries. Empirically, this chapter shows that Mongolia’s electoral integrity compares favorably to many of the other cases in this book. Mongolia does not often appear in comparative studies of democratic transition and consolidation; it is often overlooked in regional studies of east and southeast Asia and the postcommunist world, and also in theoretical work on electoral integrity. This is unfortunate, because there is much to learn from such an unusual “least likely case” of successful democratization.

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Taken together, the separation of powers between the president and parliament in Mongolia’s semipresidential regime has been beneficial for democracy. Few countries in the third wave of democratization have managed to progress so far down a democratic pathway with such strong legislative powers vis-à-vis the president. It has helped democratic consolidation to have a president who has real balancing powers—such as veto and some appointment powers, especially of the judiciary—and the podium of the presidency, but not much beyond that. Those checks on power give Mongolia’s political system a kind of underlying stability, where disagreement never escalates into a regime crisis that, for example, involves appeals for military intervention on behalf of political elites. Scholarship on comparative constitutional frameworks, and particularly semi-presidential systems, often emphasizes the negative effects of such a system. 36 Scholars underscore that fights between presidents and parliaments often lead to stalemate and crisis. But in Mongolia, at least, the semi-presidential system has helped preserve and strengthen democratic institutions. The fact that the government party handed over power to the opposition four times in competitive elections, two presidents stepped down upon defeat at the ballot box, four oversized government coalitions were formed after crisis, four periods of one-party control have not resulted in democratic backsliding, and the president and parliament have respected each branch’s veto powers suggest that a strong norm of tolerance dominates the political culture in Mongolia. Ljiphart’s influential work37 on consociational democracy suggests that this political culture in Mongolia might have been nourished because political elites have learned that they all have a fair chance of winning elections. They can communicate with each other and find ways to compromise in times of political crisis. Future work should seek to better understand if similar institutional underpinnings have bolstered democratic regimes in other countries such as Indonesia, Ghana, and Mauritius characterized by moderate levels of socioeconomic development and authoritarian neighbors.

Notes 1. The author is grateful to Ch. Enkhbaatar for invaluable comments on earlier drafts of this article, and to D. Undrakh for facilitating field research in Mongolia. The author is indebted to the people he interviewed in Ulaanbaatar in June–July 2015 and June–July 2016. They include P. Amarjargal, Arslan, P. Badamragchaa, O. Batbayar, S. Bayaraa, B. Bayartsengel, E. Bulgan, S. Choinzon, Dashdemberel, S. Erdenebat, D.

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Ganbat, G. Gunjidmaa, M. Gankhuyag, Meloney Lindberg, S. Luvsandendev, H. Naranjargal, S. Oyun, D. Oyunchimeg, B. Purevdorj, Daniel Schmücking, Ch. Sodnomtseren, D. Suhgerel, P. Tsetsgee, Ashleigh Whelan, and Yalagch. 2. Hicken, “Asia and the Pacific.” 3. Diaz-Cayeros and Magaloni, “Party Dominance and the Logic of Electoral Design”; McElwain, “Manipulating Electoral Rules to Manufacture Single-Party Dominance”; Remmer, “The Politics of Institutional Change.” 4. Huntington, Political Order in Changing Societies. 5. See, for example, Elklit and Reynolds, “A Framework for the Systematic Study of Election Quality”; Norris, Electoral Engineering; Norris, Why Elections Fail. 6. Mazzuca, “Access to Power Versus Exercise of Power.” 7. International Republican Institute, “Mongolia Parliamentary Elections July 2, 2000” and “Mongolia Parliamentary Elections June 29, 2008”; OSCE/ODIHR EOM Mongolia, “Election Observation Mission Interim Report,” “International Election Observation Mission to Mongolia,” and “Mongolia Parliamentary Elections.” See also Enkhbaatar et al., Assessment of the Performance of the 1992 Constitution of Mongolia, pp. 136–137. 8. Norris, Why Elections Fail, p. 14. 9. Garnett, James, and MacGregor, “Perceptions of Electoral Integrity.” 10. Norris, Why Elections Fail, chaps. 3–4. 11. See Fish and Seeberg, “The Secret Supports of Mongolian Democracy.” 12. Norris, Why Elections Fail, p. 21. 13. Birch, Electoral Malpractice, p. 12. 14. Norris, Electoral Engineering, p. 15. 15. “A Framework for the Systematic Study of Election Quality.” 16. Ibid., p. 151. 17. Ibid., p. 155. 18. Norris, Electoral Engineering, p. 22. 19. Elklit, “Is the Degree of Electoral Democracy Measurable?” 20. Taagepera, “The Tailor of Marrakesh,” p. 58. 21. OSCE/ODIHR EOM Mongolia, “Election Observation Mission Interim Report,” “Mongolia Parliamentary Elections,” and “International Election Observation Mission.” 22. General Election Comission of Mongolia, “Chronicle,” https://gec.gov.mn /en/index.php?page=chronicle. 23. Enkhbaatar et al., Assessment of the Performance of the 1992 Constitution of Mongolia, p. 70. In the 2008 parliament elections, there were 286 members of TECs nationwide, out of which 100 represented the DP and 92 represented the MPRP. International Republican Institute, “Mongolia’s 2008 Parliamentary Elections,” https://www.iri .org/resources/mongolias-2008-parliamentary-elections/. 24. OSCE/ODIHR, “Mongolia, Parliamentary Elections.” 25. Cappocia, Defending Democracy. 26. OSCE/ODIHR, “Mongolia, Parliamentary Elections.” 27. Enkhbaatar et al., Assessment of the Performance of the 1992 Constitution of Mongolia, p. 57. 28. This number was raised to 100 million tugriks per MP in 2006, 250 million tugriks in 2007, 500 million in 2008 and to billion tugriks in 2009–2012. Enkhbaatar et al., Assessment of the Performance of the 1992 Constitution of Mongolia, pp. 81, 197.

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29. Enkhbaatar et al., Assessment of the Performance of the 1992 Constitution of Mongolia, p. 45. 30. Ibid., p. 81. 31. See Jagarsaihan, “Stop Zaisan-ing the Elections,” http://jargaldefacto.com /article/stop-zaisan-ing-the-elections. 32. Punsalmaagiin Ochirbart in 1997 and Nambaryn Enkhbayar in 2009. 33. See “MP Erdene Wins the Democratic Party’s Chairmanship Election,” https:// www.pressreader.com/mongolia/the-ub-post/20170201/281547995618329. 34. Enkhbaatar et al., Assessment of the Performance of the 1992 Constitution of Mongolia, p. 103. 35. See, for example, Moestrup, Semi-Presidentialism in Comparative Perspective; Elgie, “Semi-Presidentialism, Cohabitation, and the Collapse of Electoral Democracies.” 36. Lijphart, Democracy in Plural Societies.

6

Singapore: Tilting the Playing Field Netina Tan

ELECTIONS IN SINGAPORE ARE FREE BUT UNFAIR. SINGAPORE IS A CLASSIC electoral authoritarian regime that has been governed by the People’s Action Party (PAP) uninterruptedly since 1959. The PAP has won an average of 61 percent of the popular vote shares and 98 percent of legislative seat shares in the last thirteen general elections without resorting to violence, vote rigging, or banning opposition parties. The basis of the PAP’s hegemonic rule stems from the mass support for its clean, technocratic, and paternalistic governance.1 It has produced clean and competent leaders without corruption scandals since the 1960s. Despite this, the PAP’s leaders capitalize on its long-term incumbency and manipulate electoral rules to seal its electoral victory.2 Why do the PAP leaders manipulate? Which strategy is favored over others? What explains the changes in its strategies over time? This chapter answers these questions by exposing the PAP’s subtle and sophisticated manipulation of electoral rules, which have a direct impact on voting processes, voters, and outcomes. Clearly, there are many other reasons that explain its electoral hegemony, such as the PAP’s long-term incumbency and effective technocratic governance. Following Cheeseman and Klaas, 3 this chapter will not highlight incumbency advantages such as access to state resources, the government’s monopoly over the media, politicians’ media coverage over the opposition, pork-barreling, or election promises that have been discussed and highlighted elsewhere. 4 Instead, this chapter focuses on electoral misconduct, defined as the more covert, illegitimate, and

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undemocratic forms of tilting the playing field that favor the PAP at the expense of others. In this chapter, I highlight three dominant strategies that vary in coerciveness ranging from the use of the rule of law to intimidate, bankrupt and disqualify opposition leaders from the parliament; to regular tweaking of electoral rules to co-opt, silence, and undermine opposition party support; to the opaque maintenance of the Elections Commission and Electoral Boundary Reviews Committee under the prime minister’s office, which facilitates gerrymandering and changes in district magnitude without accountability. I argue that the PAP’s key modus operandi is to engage in low-risk, opaque pre-electoral misconduct of manipulating rules and actions to restrict political competition. The chosen strategy also depends largely on the leadership of the day—that is the prime minister’s leadership style and his tolerance of the public opposition threat. For example, under Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew’s strongman rule (1959–1990), the PAP arrested and detained political leaders without trial and frequently filed law suits to bankrupt and disqualify opposition leaders from elections.5 Later under Prime Minister Goh Chok Tok’s rule (1991–2004), the PAP moved toward more subtle manipulation of electoral rules and boundaries to suppress rising opposition support and competition.6 While Lee Hsien Loong’s premiership (2004-present) was expected to bring about more liberalization and a level playing field, the PAP returned to the law to dampen opposition challenges. Given the rise of opposition members of parliament (MPs), the PAP leaders turned to devising new rules to regulate online speech to silence dissent on social media and changing electoral rules.7

Why Manipulate? Singapore puzzles observers as it is unclear why it would need manipulate elections if indeed the PAP government is competent and enjoys mass support? Here, I propose three key reasons. First, elections are always uncertain and make rulers, however popular, nervous.8 The ability of citizens to change their government is the hallmark of democracy. Regardless of the degree of electoral competitiveness, elections are rooted in the assumption that the source of power belongs to the people to choose their government. Electoral victory matters greatly to the PAP because winners can claim the mandate to rule.9 The PAP perceives the elections as an endorsement of their performance. Any

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decline in their popular vote is thus seen a threat to its legitimacy. That is why the PAP leaders often demanded a “strong mandate” from voters, as seen in the last 2020 pandemic elections. Despite the call, the PAP’s popular vote share dropped further from 69.9 percent in 2015 general elections to 61.2 percent.10 Second, the PAP government manipulates because elections allow them to maintain a legislative supermajority to control policy outcomes and project what Magaloni’s calls an “image of invincibility” to discourage party splits.11 Party cohesion is a top priority for the PAP. Despite the defection of old backbencher such as Tan Cheng Bock to challenge the PAP, family divisions over former Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew’s residential estate, leadership succession problems, the PAP is careful to project an image of unity and cohesion.12 Finally, hegemonic parties are often governed by a small elite coalition. An elite split would mean some of the ruling elites would lose their social privileges, and their personal fortune and career.13 In Singapore, the ruling elite is a small network of senior civil servants, military officers, members of parliament, academics, and businesspeople sustained through a distribution of state-owned board directorships, senior government positions, spoils, and patronage.14 A split in the elite coalition would undermine public trust in leadership but also its popular vote share. Unlike in other competitive electoral democracies, where losers can tolerate and wait another four to five years to compete in the next election, the stakes are so high for the ruling elites that the risks are intolerable. This explains why the PAP leaders often warned voters of the risks of party alternation and unsustainability of “revolving door” politics where parties take turns to form government.15

From Litigation and Co-optation to Manipulation Aside from establishing a compliant Elections Commission, there are many tools which an autocratic incumbent can use in the toolkit to suppress electoral competition. In Singapore, I will highlight three dominant strategies, namely litigation, co-optation and manipulation used by the PAP to dampen opposition challenge. The preference of one strategy does not preclude another. Sometimes, all the three strategies are used simultaneously, other times, one is preferred over another, depending on the incumbent’s patience and tolerance for opposition. Regardless of the strategy, the key aim is to silence dissent and dampen opposition support. While pre-independent electoral politics in Singapore was vibrant,

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competitive, and rambunctious.16 This changed after the Rendel Constitution extended the franchise of Singaporeans and more parties competed with various techniques and organizations.17 In the country’s first full general election, the PAP won a landslide victory, capturing fortythree out of fifty-one seats, and began its path toward political hegemony. Since the 1960s, the total number of active parties has waxed and waned. Despite having an average of six to seven parties contesting in the last thirteen general elections, the PAP has dominated the electoral arena since 1959. Presently, Singapore has about thirty-eight registered parties, but only five to seven parties are active between elections.18 Aside from PAP, only the Workers’ Party (WP), the Singapore Democratic Party (SDP), the Singapore People’s Party (SPP), and the Singapore Democratic Alliance (SDA) have won seats in the parliament and maintain online activities.19 Most observers such as Freedom House notes that while Singapore’s electoral and legal framework allows for political pluralism it “constrain[s] the growth of credible opposition parties and limits freedoms of expression, assembly, and association.”20 Strategy One: Excluding Opposition Through Lawsuits (1970s–1980s and 2020s) Despite the universality of Singapore’s legal rules governing candidacy, the PAP has used the law to legally exclude opposition leaders from politics.21 This strategy of excluding opposition through lawsuits and fines was most evident under Lee Kuan Yew’s premiership (1959– 1990). A lawyer by training, Lee was notorious for using libel and defamation to silence media and cripple opposition members.22 In Singapore, defamation is both a criminal offence and a civil action.23 Under Section 45 of the constitution, a person who is an undischarged bankrupt or has been convicted of an offence and either sentenced to imprisonment for one year or fined S$2,000 is ineligible to stand for parliament.24 This provision effectively allows the incumbent leader to legally disqualify opposition leaders from losing its parliamentary position or stand for elections if their legal suits end up bankrupting them or if they faced fines or imprisonment.25 The PAP has had a successful track record in winning lawsuits against opposition members and international media outlets critical of its government26 The long list of opposition leaders who have been sued, bankrupted, jailed or barred from competing in elections include Barisan Socialis candidate Harban Singh; United Front leader Seow Khee Leng; former leader of the WP and a senior district judge Joshua Benjamin

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Jeyaretnam27 (JBJ); Ho Juan Thai, a WP candidate; Tang Liang Hong, a lawyer and WP member; and leader of the SDP Chee Soon Juan. The WP under JBJ’s leadership was viewed as a threat and menace to the PAP, and especially to Lee Kuan Yew who described him as “a poseur, always seeking publicity, good or bad.”28 Another thorn in the PAP’s side was a former psychology professor Chee Soon Juan.29 Chee has had many brushes with the law, often standing trial for defamation, participating in illegal gatherings or speaking without permit, amongst many other charges. Described as “cancerous cells” that could “infect” the parliament30 by former prime minister Goh Chok Tong, Chee was eventually declared bankrupt after failing to pay $500,000 in libel damages awarded to Lee Kuan Yew and Goh Chok Tong. He was barred from elections for six years, until 2015.31 More recently, the significant lawsuits include the S$33.7 million lawsuit against the newer batch of opposition WP leaders and currently an on-going trial against WP MPs for lying in Parliament. The WP is the first opposition party that has managed to win a Group Representative Constituency (GRC) for the first time in 2011 GE and winning an unprecedented total number of nine seats in parliament after the 2020 general elections. However, the elected MPs Low Thia Khiang, Sylvia Lim, and Pritam Singh soon got into legal troubles for breaching their fiduciary duties for mismanaging their town council in Aljunied in October 2019.32 To date, the PAP leaders have yet to lose a defamation suit against the opposition figures. Strategy Two: Co-optation Through Constitutional Amendments (late 1980s–1990s) Aside from the rule of law, the PAP is also known for amending the Constitution and introducing innovative schemes to co-opt critics. Since 1980s, the four schemes that the PAP has cleverly devised to co-opt and weaken the opposition are the Non-Constituency Member of Parliament (NCMP, 1984); the Nominated Member of Parliament schemes (NMPs, 1990); the Group Representative Constituency (GRC, 1988); and the Ethnic Quota Housing Policy (1989). Introduced incrementally and mobilized together, the strategy of co-optation has allowed the PAP to keep its perceived enemies close and keep the opposition leaders on guard public. This was significant since the Singapore Parliament was totally void of opposition presence for seventeen years. Besides, the guaranteed inclusion of ethnic minority MPs through the GRC scheme offered an image of diversity and inclusion.

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Non-Constituency Member of Parliament. In May 1984, the constitution was modified to introduce the NCMP scheme, which allows the “best opposition loser,” with the highest percentage of votes to sit in the Parliament. The NCMP scheme ensures three to six opposition leaders in the PAP-dominated House. Over the years, the total number of the NCMP seats in its jurisdiction has risen to twelve. Since 2016, a NCMP is a nonelected MP with similar voting powers as elected MPs.33 They are able to vote on constitutional changes, supply bills on government spending, money bills, votes of confidence, and motions to remove the president from office. However, given that Singapore has both single and multimember constituencies, the actual process of who is eligible as “the best loser” in the group representative constituency is unclear.34 Besides, the response to the NCMP scheme from both the public and opposition members has been lukewarm and not well received by the opposition members, the alleged beneficiaries of the scheme. In fact, former opposition leaders Chiam See Tong an J. B. Jeyaretnam have refused to accept the NCMP scheme and won the 1984 elections as elected MPs, when the scheme was first introduced. Critics argue that the NCMP scheme masks the reality of an uneven playing field and used as a ploy to co-opt opposition politicians into the PAP’s folds to play by the incumbent’s rules. Besides, the NCMP scheme also reinforces the image of the opposition members as “second-class”35 MPs as they do not represent any constituency and may deter voters from voting for the opposition as the scheme assures the Parliament of the opposition voice, regardless of their vote. Since 1984, only twelve opposition leaders have taken up NCMP seats in parliament. Nominated Member of Parliament. Another electoral innovation is

the Nominated Members of Parliament (NMP) scheme introduced in 1990. The NMPs are appointed by the president of Singapore to represent nonpartisan views in parliament, specifically a special select committee to promote representation from varied social, business and civil society communities. Initially, there was provisions for only six NMPs, and the number increased to nine by 1997. Unlike the NCMPs who compete in elections, the NMPs are independent, nonpartisan, and “distinguished” persons who have knowledge, expertise, or practical experience in society. The NMPs have limited voting powers and are allowed to vote on all issues except those pertaining to public funds, amendment of constitution, votes of no confidence in the government and removal of president from office. The scheme was institutionalized

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in 2009 as the PAP leaders claimed that the NMPs have raised the quality of debate in the House and even outshone the opposition. The new schemes that allow nonelected MPs in the House suggest inadequacy in the existing system.36 Besides, it also signals to the public that the presence of opposition is insufficient or necessary.37 Both the schemes have been criticized for eroding the democratic principles of representation and accountability and undermining the presence of the opposition.38 Yet, the government has institutionalized the NMP scheme, as a way to discourage Singaporeans from joining opposition politics.39 Group Representative Constituency. The GRC is another electoral abnormally.40 From 1965 to 1987, Singapore was spatially divided into single-member constituencies (SMCs) based on simple plurality. Since the 2020 general elections, it has evolved to fourteen SMCs and seventeen GRCs. This scheme effectively turned Singapore’s single-member seats based on plurality system to a mix of single and multimember constituencies based on plurality party block vote rule. Depending on the proportion of ethnic minority groups in each constituency, each party contesting in the group constituency will field a team of three to six members, with at least one ethnic minority of Indian, Malay or mixed descent. The GRC scheme works as an ethnic quota that ensures that at least one ethnic minority is guaranteed a seat in the multimember constituency. In each GRC, each voter has only a single vote to cast for a party list and the party with the most votes will have its entire slate elected. This plurality party block vote rule is unique as it is used in three other African states in Cameroon, Chad and Djibouti.41 As I have argued elsewhere, what makes this electoral system particular vulnerable to manipulation is that the frequent, opaque changes in electoral boundaries and the number of single member and group seats before each election puts the opposition parties in a significant disadvantage.42 While any plurality-based districting scheme can be manipulated via standard gerrymandering tools to a greater extent than under the proportional representative (PR) system,43 a multiseat plurality party block vote system has the additional wrinkle of allowing for variable district magnitude, which is highly conducive to partisan gerrymandering.44 Ethnic quota housing policy. Less frequently discussed in Singapore’s electoral studies is the introduction of ethnic quota on the public housing, also known as the Ethnic Integration Policy (EIP), in 1989, a year after the GRC scheme was passed. This ethnic housing quota effectively

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prevents any ethnic minority group from exceeding 20 percent in any housing block or estate.45 As about 80 percent of all housing in Singapore is owned by the state and public housing is widely dispersed around the island, this housing quota meant that ethnic groups such as the Malays and Indians will always constitute a minority in any electoral constituency.46 The EIP used in conjunction with the GRC scheme works as a gerrymandering “cracking” tool that ensures ethnic minority voters are always a minority in any district and cannot be mobilized by any party based on ethnic-based issues. Strategy Three: Manipulation of Electoral Rules Non-Independent Elections Commission (1960s–present). A perennial problem with the electoral integrity of Singapore is the perceived lack of independence of the Elections Department, which reports directly to the prime minister’s office since 1968.47 While most countries have created independent commissions as part of the global movement to depoliticize the organization of the elections and redistricting, Singapore’s Elections Department has bucked the trend. The lack of separation of powers between the current government and the department raises questions on the biases or arbitrariness of the electoral boundary changes made prior to the elections. Opposition leaders are disenchanted, as SDP chief Chee Soon Juan once noted: “The PAP wins because elections here are neither free nor fair,” especially with reference to the ELD’s lack of autonomy.48 Singapore’s Elections Department does not have a transparent electoral boundary delineating process but gives the prime minister the power to specify the names and boundaries of electoral divisions. The lack of transparency and avenues for public deliberation and appeal makes it difficult for the opposition parties to assess and prepare their constituencies adequately for the campaign. As Lehoucq reminds us, electoral governance typically breaks down when the same party controls the executive and the legislature and when there is no alternative channel to appeal the delimitation decisions.49 The lack of an independent and transparent elections management body suggests that the PAP enjoys an incumbent advantage and can devise new rules to maximize its electoral outcome as discussed next. Short campaign period. Most countries have constitutional provisions

for delimitation. Yet Singapore’s statutes do not prescribe a specified time period beyond which boundary revision has to be considered. In

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contrast, Malaysia has legislations to ensure that there are at least seven months to two years between boundary report and election. But none is stipulated for Singapore. As Table 6.1 shows, the Elections Commission released a short, fourteen-page report on boundary changes on July 24, 2015, only about a month before the election writ was issued on August 25. It did better in the 2020 general elections, giving a three-month notice before the election writ. The short time period between the issuing of electoral boundary report, electoral revisions, and nine days of the campaign period are more likely to disadvantage the resource-poor, smaller opposition parties who have to scramble to find candidates to stand in the newly created constituents and learn about the new rules and registration requirements. Despite mainstream media portraying the short campaign period as disadvantageous to the PAP,50 opposition leaders argue that the short campaign leaves them with little time to plan for the rallies or build ties with the constituents.51 High electoral deposit. Apart from the rules governing candidate eli-

gibility, Singapore’s law requires candidates to place a large monetary

Table 6.1 Timeline for 2015 and 2020 General Elections in Singapore 2015 General Elections July 24

Aug. 20

Aug. 25

Sept. 1

Sept. 10

EBRC  report  released

ELD revises  spending limits  and poster/banner  rules

Parliament  dissolved,  election writ  issued

Nomination day, Cooling-off  and campaign  day  period begins  

Sept. 11 Polling  day

2020 General Elections Mar. 13

May 4

June 8

EBRC ELD ELD  report  implements  adjusts  released  temporary  rules of  arrangement  paid  for pandemic  internet  election  election  advertising

June 18

June 23

ELD Parliament  releases  dissolved,  guidelines  election  for general  writ  elections  issued  under  Covid-19

June 30

July 9

July 10

Nomination Cooling- Polling  day, and  off day  day  campaign  period  begins

Sources: Compiled by author from ELD, 2015 press release; EBRC, 2015 white paper; Min Kok Lee, “Polling Day on Sept 11.” Notes: The EBRC report details new boundary changes.

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deposit to stand for legislative election. In the 1948 Legislative Council election, a deposit amount of only S$500 was required of each candidate.52 But by the 2011 general elections, the deposit amount had increased to S$16,000. While the government’s rationale to impose monetary deposit is to screen out farcical candidates, the large sum is viewed to privilege resource rich PAP candidates and deter the poorer opposition candidates from participating. Thus far, only independents or opposition party candidates have forfeited their deposits53 (see Table 6.2). This precedence discourages candidates from joining the opposition, which exacerbated the problem of uncontested seats, especially in the 1990s. In fact, more than 50 percent were uncontested seats in the 1991 and 2001 GEs because of the new electoral schemes and high electoral deposits. The high number of uncontested seats resulted in a disproportionate number of PAP MPs assuming office by default while more than half of the electorate did not exercise their right to vote. Due to public dissatisfaction with low electoral competition, the electoral

Table 6.2

Electoral Deposits for Candidates in Singapore, 1968–2020

Year

Deposit Amount ($)

1968 1972

500 500

3 22

1976 1980 1984

1,200 1,500 1,500

3 7 2

1988

4,000

5

1991

6,000

5

1997

8,000

2

2001 13,000

2

2006 2011 2015 2020

0 1 2 6

13,500 16,000 14,500 13,500

Number of Candidates Who Forfeited Deposit

Names of Parties (Number of Candidates) Workers Party (1); Independent (2) Barisan Socialis (1); United National Front   (19); Workers Party (1); Independent (1) United People’s Front (2); Independent (1) United Front (2); United People’s Front (5) Angkatan Islam (1); United People’s   Front (1) Angkatan Islam (1); Pertubuhan   Kebangsaan Melayu Singapura (2);   United People’s Front (2) Pertubuhan Kebangsaan Melayu Singapura   (1); Independent (4) Democratic Progressive Party (1); Singapore   People’s Party (1) Democratic Progressive Party (1);   Independent (1) 0 Singapore Democratic Alliance (1) Independent (2) People’s Voice (5), Independent (1)

Sources: Singapore Elections Department and various Singaporean media sources.

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deposit required for each candidate was lowered from S$16,000 (CA$15,000) to S$13,500 (CA$12,500) in the 2020 general elections.54 For the first time since 1965, all 89 seats were contested in the 2015 and 2020 general elections. The increase of candidates also resulted in more losing their deposits. In fact, a total of six candidates—a five-person People’s Voice GRC team (12.17 percent of the vote) in Pasir-Ris Punggol and an independent candidate in Pioneer SMC (2.78 percent) lost their deposits in the 2020 general elections.55 Gerrymandering and changing district magnitude. The Electoral

Boundary Review Committee (EBRC) is part of the Elections Department and typically consists of senior civil servants who are appointed by the prime minister.56 This stands in contrast with other electoral commissions in Malaysia and the region, where members are appointed by the Speaker of the House or the Head of Judiciary. The lack of the nonpartisan Elections Commission and Boundary Review Committee thus raises concerns on the timing and arbitrary changes in the electoral boundary delineation process.57 In most countries, delimitations typically occur every eight to twelve years after their decennial census or changes in the number of registered voters or administrative boundaries. Yet Singapore changes its electoral boundaries, every four to five years, before every election. The frequency of boundary changes is highly unusual for a small country with only 729 square kilometres and 2.5 million electors. Besides, the process is totally opaque and requires no public consultation during reapportionment exercises or minimum period between reapportionment and the calling of elections.58 While the legislature typically plays a role in approving or rejecting the proposed boundary changes in countries such as Canada, Malaysia, and the United Kingdom, Singapore’s delimitation only requires executive approval, without the need for parliamentary debate or adjudication by the courts. The lack of checks or public scrutiny leaves the redistricting open to “charges of political influence.”59 The absence technical or nonpartisan experts such as statisticians, academics or judges in the redrawing of boundaries also raises questions on the principle of vote equality and partisan pressures. It is unsurprising that Singapore’s redistricting has been described as “deeply unfair” and “unrepresentative, arbitrary, and lack voter equality. The system for delineating them lacks transparency, is extremely arbitrary, and heavily disadvantages non-governing parties.”60 The frequency in the changes of boundaries and constituencies sizes intensified after 1988. As Table 6.3 shows, the government made multiple

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Table 6.3

Distribution of Single-Member and Group Representative Constituencies (SMCs, GRCs) in Singapore, 1988–2020

General Election

Total Seats

SMC Seats ($)

GRC Seats

GRC Magnitudes

September 23, 1988 81 August 31, 1991 81 January 2, 1997 83

42 (51.9) 21 (25.9) 9 (10.8)

39 (48.1) 60 (74.1) 74 (89.2)

November 3, 2001

84

9 (10.7)

75 (89.3)

May 6, 2006

84

9 (10.7)

75 (89.3)

May 7, 2011

87

12 (13.8)

75 (86.2)

September 1, 2015

89

13 (14.6)

76 (85.4)

July 10, 2020

93

14 (15.1)

79 (84.9)

13 × 3-MP GRCs 15 × 4-MP GRCs 15 5 × 4-MP GRCs 6 × 5-MP GRCs 4 × 6-MP GRCs 14 9 × 5-MP GRCs 5 × 6-MP GRCs 14 9 × 5-MP GRCs 5 × 6-MP GRCs 15 2 × 4-MP GRCs 11 × 5-MP GRCs 2 × 6-MP GRCs 16 6 × 4-MP GRCs 8 × 5-MP GRCs 2 × 6-MP GRCs 17 11 × 5-MP GRCs 6 × 4-MP GRCs

Source: Author.

changes to the number of SMCs and the district magnitude of the GRCs. My studies elsewhere show that changes in the electoral geography allow the PAP to compensate for declining vote share and to reduce the dangers of opposing challenge.61 There are many ways which a ruling party is advantaged by redrawing boundaries and changing the sizes of the GRCs by winning seats through a “stacking” form of gerrymandering—fragmenting the opposition strength and submerging its strength within a stronger pro-PAP larger constituency.62 For example, the number of SMCs, sites of more intense electoral competition were drastically reduced, from forty-two to a low of nine by the 2000s. Since 1988, the more competitive SMCs with over 40 percent oppositional voting have been arbitrarily eliminated or absorbed into neighbouring pro-PAP GRCs, making them less competitive (e.g., Braddell Heights, Bukit Batok, Changi, Nee Soon

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South, Ulu Pandan, and Yuhua after 1991; Bukit Panjang, Fengshan, Paya Lebar, Punggol, and Whampoa after 1988). Other suspicious creations of constituencies include the eight additional SMCs created for the 2011 elections.63 In particular, the formation of three new SMCs (Radin Mas, Yuhua, and Sengkang West) and one older SMC (Bukit Panjang) were most dubious, as they are crafted literally inside or on the edges of the respective PAP GRC strongholds of Tanjong Pagar, Holland-Bukit Timah, and Chua Chu Kang. It is hard to imagine a rationale for creating an SMC inside a GRC other than the PAP’s wish to assuage the mass demand for more SMCs without affecting its own seat-winning abilities. In other areas, the PAP is advantaged by drawing constituency into which it can “pack” the opposition such as in Hougang GRC or Potong Pasir SMC by concentrating many voters into a single electoral district to reduce their influence in other districts.64 The PAP also gains advantage by increasing the size or district magnitude of the GRCs over time, from thirteen groups of three members in 1988 to fifteen groups of four to six members by 1997 (see Table 6.3). As my work with Grofman shows, the rise in mean district magnitude is paralleled by a rise in aggregate-level swing ratio65 over the same period. In the pre-GRC period, the average aggregate-level swing ratio is 2.2; in the post-GRC period, the mean aggregate-level swing ratio is 3.1. This nearly 50 percent increase in aggregate-level swing ratio means that, for any given vote share, the PAP’s seat share will be higher. Increasing district magnitude makes it more likely that the plurality party will capture all the seats.66 The unfair implications of changing district magnitude or bigger GRCs were implicitly acknowledged by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong when the average number of MPs per GRC was reduced from 5.4 to 5 by 201167 as he said the changes “should lower the hurdle for parties intending to contest the election.” Given the public dismay over the lack of electoral competition in large GRCs, the number of six-member GRCs was finally eliminated in the 2020 general elections, for which the sizes of the GRCs shifted from five to four MPs (Bishan-Toa Payoh), six to five MPs (Ang Mo Kio, Pasir Ris-Punggol), or four to five MPs (west coast, east coast). Gerrymandering to affect the distribution of opposition electoral strength reduce the opposition’s ability to gain representation. Some districts can be dissolved while others can be redrawn more efficiently to redistribute the PAP’s voting strength.68 In general, if a party can control the line drawing process, and it has the potential to vary district magnitude, all else bine equal, it will prefer a mix of SMCs and MMDs, but the balance will vary with the electoral geography.69

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The wide variation in registrants per seat or malapportionment70 in Singapore was another well-known problem, especially in the earlier years.71 Thus far, my work with Grofman found that in the two earlier elections (1988–1991), the PAP shows a few higher points in vote share in the most underpopulated GRCs and SMCs than in the most overpopulated ones, but no such pattern is found in the subsequent elections (2006–2020). On balance, we find no clear evidence for the use of malapportionment as a partisan tool.72

Perceptions of Electoral Integrity Does pre-electoral malpractice undermine Singaporeans’ trust in their electoral institution and process? Campaign media is largely pro-government. In 2018, the Perceptions of Electoral Integrity (PEI) index ranked Singapore’s quality of elections as “moderate,” placing it at 95th position out of 166 countries for 2018.73 Globally, Singapore’s government has developed an international reputation for its strong rule of law, ranking highly in international indices such as World Bank Governance indicator.74 Similarly, World Bank ranked Singapore highly for its integrity and effectiveness to enforce contracts, protect property and minority investor rights.75 However, the PAP government’s penchant for using a legal rules to prosecute opposition leaders is seen as repressive76 For example, according to the Bertelsmann Transformation Index (BTI), Singapore’s rule of law is weak, with a score of onlt 6.3 out of 10, especially in separation of powers (3 out of 10) and independent judiciary (5 out of 10).77 Legal scholars contend that Singapore’s “soft constitutional law” permits the courts to play a marginal role in constitutional politics, despite being empowered to strike down unconstitutional legislation, and are reluctant to intervene in matters deemed politically sensitive by a powerful executive, even where fundamental rights are implicated.78 Worthington argues that Singapore’s judicial system is hegemonized by a number of political bureaucratic strategies and interprets its role according to the political executive,79 while Freedom House reports that Singapore’s “electoral and legal framework that the PAP has constructed allows for some political pluralism and considerable economic prosperity, but it effectively limits opportunities for the growth of credible opposition parties and constrains freedom of expression, assembly, and association.”80 Domestically, public opinion and trust in the PAP government has declined over time.81 Three waves of public opinion data from Asian

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Barometer conducted in 2006, 2010, and 2014 show a gradual decline in trust in Singapore’s electoral institutions. Further, a 2019 Edelman Trust Barometer also indicates that only 67 percent of Singaporeans trust the PAP government, a statistic much lower than the 77 percent reported in 2011. Overall, Singaporeans are less confident in the Elections Department. The Asian Barometer survey results show that the percentage of positive responses of those who have “a great deal of trust” and “quite a lot of trust” in Singapore’s Election Commission fell from 76.5 percent in 2006 to 43.6 percent by 2010. Additionally, the total number of respondents who considered the elections as “free and fair” or “free and fair with minor problems” also declined, from 85.3 percent in 2006 to 77.4 percent by 2014. Similarly, those who think that elections always offer or offer a real choice between different candidates most of the time have also decreased, from 48.6 percent to 35.3 percent (see Table 6.4). The Asian Barometer survey findings reflect a general disenchantment with Singapore’s electoral integrity. The PAP’s dip in popular vote shares from 69.9 to 61.2 percent in 2020 indicates a dissatisfaction with the unfair electoral tactics against the opposition.82 In two local surveys conducted by the National University of Singapore and the Institute of Policy Studies before and after the 2015 elections, Singaporeans were found more concerned with the government’s governance and policy responsiveness, especially the need for more transparency.83

Table 6.4

Trust in Elections and Electoral Institutions in Singapore, 2006, 2010, and 2014

Question 1. Trust in the   Election   Commission 2. Freeness and   fairness of the   last national   election 3. Elections offer   a real choice   between different   parties/candidates

Cumulative Responses

2006 (%)

2010 (%)

2014 (%)

A great deal of trust; Quite a    lot of trust Not very much trust; None at all Completely free and fair;   Free and fair with   minor problems Free and fair with major   problems; Not free and fair Always; Most of the Time Sometimes; Rarely

76.5

43.6

n/a

21.8 85.3

30 77.8

n/a 77.4

6.9

5.8

8.1

48.6 43.8

35.3 58.9

42.9 46.5

Source: Asian Barometer surveys.

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Conclusion This chapter has focused on the manipulation of rules—changes in the constitution and electoral laws to co-opt, intimidate, inconvenient, or disqualify opposition leaders, so to suppress electoral competition. The PAP shows how incumbents can devise rules to maintain mass support in elections without tolerating the judicial interference or opposition challenge. Aside from establishing a compliant Elections Commission, the PAP has deployed strategies such as litigation, co-optation, and manipulation to dampen opposition support. Used together or separately, the litigation culture, gerrymandering, and strict campaign rule leave little room for opposition parties to compete effectively. The PAP’s modus operandi is to engage in low-risk, opaque pre-electoral misconduct of manipulating rules and actions to restrict political competition in a legal but highly unfair way. Yet despite public opinion showing declining trust in the electoral process, it is unlikely the PAP will be voted out anytime soon.

Notes 1. Chua, Political Legitimacy and Housing: Singapore’s Stakeholder Society; Morgenbesser, “The Autocratic Mandate”; Worthington, Governance in Singapore; Tan, “Singapore.” 2. Tan, “Manipulating Electoral Laws in Singapore”; Tey, “Moulding a ‘Rational Electoral Contest Regime Singapore Style’”; Tey, “Singapore’s Electoral System”; Thio, “Choosing Representatives”; Mauzy, “Electoral Innovation and OneParty-Dominance.” 3. Cheeseman and Klaas, How to Rig an Election. 4. Chua, “Not Depoliticized but Ideologically Successful”; Fetzer, “Election Strategy and Ethnic Politics”; Tan, “Choosing What to Remember in Neoliberal Singapore.” 5. Ramakrishna, “Original Sin”?; Hor, “The Freedom of Speech and Defamation”; Tremewan, The Political Economy of Social Control in Singapore; Lingle, Singapore’s Authoritarian Capitalism;; Mauzy and Milne, Singapore Politics Under the People’s Action Party. 6. Rodan, Singapore Changes Guard; Cheong, OB Markers;Peh and Goh, Tall Order;Welsh et al., Impressions of the Goh Chok Tong Years in Singapore. 7. Barr, “Beyond Technocracy”; Chong, “‘Back Regions’ and ‘Dark Secrets’ in Singapore”; George, “Consolidating Authoritarian Rule”; Nasir and Turner, “Governing as Gardening”; Tan, “Singapore in 2014.” 8. Przeworski, Why Bother With Elections? p. 8. 9. Morgenbesser, “The Autocratic Mandate.” 10. Lee, “GE2020”; Toh, “Singapore GE2020.” 11. Magaloni, Voting for Autocracy, p. 15.

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12. Tan, “Minimal Factionalism.” 13. Przeworski, Why Bother With Elections? p. 9. 14. Tan, “Meritocracy and Elitism in a Global City”; Barr, “Beyond Technocracy”; Worthington, Governance in Singapore. 15. Tan, “Democratization and Embracing Uncertainty.” 16. Chiew, “Nation-Building in Singapore,” p. 46. 17. In 1955, the island was divided into twenty-five constituencies and the electorate increased from 48,000 in 1951 to 300,000 voters. Yeo, Political Development in Singapore, p. 253. 18. The Workers Party (WP) and PAP have fought in the founding national election in 1968. Thus far, only the Singapore Democratic Alliance (SDA), National Solidarity Party (NSP), Singapore People’s Party (SPP), the WP, and the People’s Solidarity Party (PSP) have gained seats in the post-independence Singapore. 19. The NSP, formerly a part of the SDA, had one nonconstituency member of parliament from 2001 to 2006. 20. “Freedom in the World: Singapore.” 21. IBA, “Prosperity Versus Individual Rights?” pp. 28–29. The PAP has pointed out that countries such as Australia (Constitution sec. 44) have similar provisions. But the disqualification in Australian constitution does not apply to fines, but limited to jail terms. 22. For a summary of the key lawsuits, see Gomez (2006); Worthington (2001); IBA Report (Jul 2008); Rodan (2009); and Mauzy (2002, pp. 134–136). 23. While the Defamation Act 1957 covers defamation, libel and slander from a civil perspective; Section 499 of the Penal Code makes defamation a criminal offense. Singapore Statutes Online, “Defamation Act (Chapter 75),” 75 § (1957), https://sso.agc.gov.sg/Act/DA1957. 24. Singapore Statutes Online, “Constitution of the Republic of Singapore” (1965), https://sso.agc.gov.sg/Act/CONS1963. 25. The International Bar Association (IBA) reports that countries are moving towards making defamation a civil instead of criminal offence. But Singapore continues to make defamation a criminal offence to impose limitations on freedom of expression through heavy fines and prison sentences. IBA, “Prosperity Versus Individual Rights?” pp. 26–27. 26. Silverstein, “Singapore”; IBA, “Prosperity Versus Individual Rights?” 27. For the lawsuits against JBJ and his party members, see the WP’s website, http://www.wp.sg/our-history/ 28. Lee, From Third World to First, p. 148. 29. Three months after contesting a by-election against Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong in 1992, Chee was sacked for allegedly misappropriating research funds, a charge he denied and protested through a hunger strike. The head of the department who accused Chee of the crime was also a PAP member of parliament. 30. Cited in Rodan, “Goh’s Consensus Politics of Authoritarian Rule,” p. 63. 31. For more on the PAP’s legal suits against Chee, see IBA, “Prosperity Versus Individual Rights?” 32. An SDP opposition leader, John Tan, was disqualified from 2020 general elections as he was fined for contempt of court in 2019. Also see “AHTC Trial.” 33. “Why NCMPs Were Not Given Equal Voting Rights.” 34. For example, it wasn’t clear who will take up the two NCMP seats from the “best losers” five-member Progress Singapore Party (PSP) team from West Coast GRC in the 2020 general elections. Bakar, “GE 2020.”

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35. Quah, “Singapore in 1984,” p. 223. 36. Rodan, “Goh’s Consensus Politics of Authoritarian Rule,” p. 63. 37. Mutalib, “Constitutional-Electoral Reforms and Politics,” p. 663. 38. Ibid. 39. Chua, Political Legitimacy and Housing; Tremewan, The Political Economy of Social Control, p. 172; Rodan, “Elections Without Representation.” 40. Tan, “Manipulating Electoral Laws in Singapore”; Tan and Grofman, “Electoral Rules and Manufacturing Legislative Supermajority.” 41. Djibouti uses the same system as Singapore, but without any SMDs, and its MMDs have a much wide range of magnitude (four to thirty-five seats) than in Singapore (four to six seats). While Singapore has a mix of single- and multimember constituencies, Djibouti only has multimember constituencies. This rule was also attempted in Turkey, for four national elections from 1946 to 1957. 42. Tan, “Manipulating Electoral Laws in Singapore,” p. 635. 43. Birch, “Electoral Systems and Electoral Misconduct.” 44. Birch’s work highlights how a majoritarian electoral rule, the two-round ballot system, operating well in democracies such as France, can also be used to sustain electoral autocracies in power. 45. Sim, Yu, and Han, “Public Housing and Ethnic Integration.” 46. Prior to the EIP, the PAP government had relocated Malay villagers from their traditional enclaves in Kampung Glam, Geylang Serai, and Jalan Eunos to more urbanized areas as part of the country’s urban and housing redevelopment plans. Massive village demolitions and resettlements took place between 1961 to 1984. More than 230,000 households were resettled while more than 40 percent of public housing flats were built. About 5,000 households were relocated to the housing areas in Chai Chee, Haig Road, and Geylang Bahru. Chua, Political Legitimacy and Housing; Gamer, The Politics of Urban Development in Singapore; Yuen, “Singapore Social Housing.” 47. First established in 1947 under the chief secretary’s office during British colonization, the ELD was expanded to include the Registry of Political Donations after 2003. Elections Department of Singapore, “Elections Department Singapore,” https://www.eld.gov.sg/our_journey.html. 48. Chang, “Acceptance of a ‘Fair Electoral System.’” 49. Lehoucq, “Can Parties Police Themselves?” p. 36. 50. Tan, “Short Campaign Period Unlikely to Work.” 51. Koh et al., “Opposition ‘Ready for Polls.’” 52. If an unelected candidate does not secure more than 12.5 percent of the votes polled, his election deposit will be forfeited and this will be paid into the Consolidated Fund Elections Department. Elections Department Singapore,“Candidate FAQs,”https://www.eld.gov.sg/faq_candidates.html. 53. Candidates who secured less than 12.5 percent of the valid votes in their constituency will forfeit their deposits. 54. The electoral deposit was reduced from S$16,000 to S$14,500 in 2015 due to a 3 percent reduction to the MP’s salary. The formula to compute the election deposit was changed in the 2020 general elections to be based on the fixed monthly allowance payable to an elected MP for the month, rounded to the nearest S$500. Previously, the computation was a sum equal to 8 per cent of the total allowances payable to an MP in the preceding calendar year, rounded to the nearest S$500. Ho, “Singapore GE2020.” 55. Elections Department Singapore, “2020 Parliamentary General Election Results,” https://www.eld.gov.sg/finalresults2020.html.

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56. In Westminster parliamentary systems, the commission and boundary commission members are typically made up of a diverse group of academics, members of judiciary, electoral officers, or senior judges. 57. Tey, “Singapore’s Electoral System”; Rodan, “Elections Without Representation.” 58. Prior to 1984, the average length of this period was five and a half months. After 1984, the government no longer had to get parliamentary approval of changes in the number of MPs. In 2001, elections were called a day after the announcement of new boundaries. See Tung, “How Gerrymandering Creates Unfair Elections,” for the lead time between the announcement of new boundaries and elections. 59. Handley, “A Comparative Survey,” p. 270. 60. See Tung, “How Gerrymandering Creates Unfair Elections” for the lead time between the announcement of new boundaries and elections. 61. Tan and Grofman, “Electoral Rules and Manufacturing Legislative Supermajority”; Tan, “Pre-Electoral Malpractice, Gerrymandering, and Its Effects,” pp. 168–190. 62. In 1991, Kampong Glam SMC was mysteriously dissolved, revived in 1996 and dissolved again in 2001. Likewise, Bukit Timah SMC also underwent several boundary changes. It first merged into a GRC in 1997, then recrafted as an SMC in the 2001 election and reconfigured into another Holland-Bukit Timah GRC in 2006. When comparing the vote share results of these constituencies over the different time periods, the PAP’s vote share in Kampong Glam improved from 67 percent to 76 percent for 1997 after boundary changes, while Bukit Timah was uncontested by the opposition for three elections (1997, 2001, and 2006) after boundary changes. 63. They are Hong Kah North, Mountbatten, Pioneer, Punggol East, Radin Mas, Sengkang West, Whampoa, and Yuhua. 64. Tan and Grofman, “Electoral Rules and Manufacturing Legislative Supermajority.” 65. The aggregate-level swing ratio for a party with a vote share at or above 50 percent is simply the ratio of seat share above 50 percent to vote share above 50 percent. 66. This positive link between -level swing ratio and mean district magnitude is theoretically expected for multiseat plurality systems. Tan and Grofman, “Electoral Rules and Manufacturing Legislative Supermajority.” 67. Li, “PM: Lower Hurdle for Opposition Parties.” 68. Potong Pasir SMC was viewed as a pro-opposition district and experienced no boundary changes. 69. As a dominant party begins to lose support, the attractiveness of concentrating opposition strength in a few districts ceded to the opposition rises. 70. The plus or minus 30 percent from ideal used in Singapore provides great room for manipulation. If the largest district is 130 percent of ideal and the smallest district is 70 percent of ideal, then the largest district can be twice as large as the smallest (130/70 = 1.86) 71. Tan, “A 30 Percent Deviation Is Too Wide.” 72. In contrast, with a plus or minus 5 percent legal limitation, as in US legislative districting, the worst-case scenario is 105/95 = 1.11. Grofman, “Criteria for Districting a Social Science Perspective,” p. 77. 73. The Perceptions of Electoral Integrity (PEI) index measures electoral laws, electoral procedures, district boundaries, voter registration, party registration, media coverage, campaign finance, the voting process, and vote count to capture

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an electoral system’s degree of manipulation. Norris, Wynter, and Cameron, “Perceptions of Electoral Integrity.” 74. Singapore has been lauded by international organizations such as World Bank for its strong rule of law, ranked highly at the 94.2 percentile for 2015. 75. Kaufman and Kraay, “Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI) Project.” 76. IBA, “Prosperity Versus Individual Rights?”; Silverstein, “Singapore”; Rajah, Authoritarian Rule of Law. 77. BTI, “Singapore Country Report.” 78. “Soft Constitutional Law in Nonliberal Asian Constitutional Democracies,” p. 776. 79. “Between Hermes and Themis.” 80. “Freedom in the World: Singapore.” 81. Tang, “Reflections on Trust from a Young Singaporean.” 82. “Why So Many Singaporeans Voted for the Opposition.” 83. Ng, ‘Campaigns Had Little Impact on Votes in GE2015” and “Voters in 20s, Above 65, Turned Back to PAP in GE 2015.”

7

Malaysia: When the Whole Menu Is Not Enough Kai Ostwald

MALAYSIA HELD ITS FOURTEENTH GENERAL ELECTION ON MAY 9, 2018. They delivered a result that was all but unthinkable in the country’s prior thirteen general elections: a coalition of opposition parties known as Pakatan Harapan (PH) managed to defeat the coalition build around the previously hegemonic United Malay National Organization (UMNO). This marked the country’s first turnover in power since independence in 1957 and brought an end to the world’s longest-ruling elected government.1 Malaysia is an unusual and important case for the study of electoral integrity. During its decades in power, the UMNO-led coalition— known as the Alliance prior to 1973 and Barisan Nasional (BN) after— entrenched itself in Malaysia’s high-capacity state and reshaped both the broader climate within which political competition occurs and elements of the electoral process, in ways that reinforced its dominance of politics. This created a hybrid regime that was neither fully democratic nor fully autocratic; it has been described as single-party-dominant,2 electoral authoritarian,3 and competitive authoritarian.4 The categorizations reflect the notion that elections were symbolically significant and meaningfully contested by opposition; but biased in ways that advantage the incumbent coalition and inhibit the turnover of power. This began with the manipulation of the broader political climate, where UMNO fostered fear of instability in the wake of a transition and resorted to occasional use of coercion to constrain the space for the

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opposition.5 The electoral process was extensively manipulated: the Perceptions of Electoral Integrity (PEI) index, for example, placed Malaysia in its lowest category of electoral integrity prior to 2018, ranking it 142nd out of 158 countries assessed.6 A large body of research has cataloged these manipulations,7 which highlighted electoral rules,8 district boundaries,9 electoral rolls,10 party registration,11 media,12 and campaign finance.13 The widespread titling of the playing field pre-election reduced the need to resort to extensive irregularities on and after polling day, though these have been noted as well.14 The BN’s 2018 defeat was unexpected and unprecedented. The reform of institutions dominated by UMNO for over half a century will be a complex and drawn-out process, with the outcome of the efforts remaining unclear until well into the future. As such, this chapter describes the electoral landscape prior to the transition, when nearly all aspects of political competition in Malaysia were manipulated to advantage the BN.

Malaysia’s Contemporary Politics Malaysia is a stable, multiethnic, upper-middle-income country with a developmental record that is exemplary in many respects. Its formal political institutions are based on the Westminster parliamentary model. Executive authority rests with the prime minister and his cabinet. The 1957 constitution forms the foundation of state, though it has been amended well over fifty times. The state has a federal structure with power nominally divided between federal and state levels. The federal parliament consists of an appointed upper house (Dewan Negara) and an elected lower house (Dewan Rakyat). General elections, which follow simple plurality rules in single-member constituencies, must be held at least once every five years. New elections are triggered when the king dissolves parliament upon the request of the prime minister. The prime minster, as the head of the party or coalition that controls the lower house, is the head of government. Malaysia is a highly diverse country with historical cleavages along ethnic and religious lines. The population of Peninsular Malaysia is often described in terms of Malay, Chinese, and Indian communities, the latter two originating from large-scale migration in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. 15 Ethnic and religious cleavages play a central role in structuring Malaysian politics.16 The Bornean states of Sabah and Sarawak have large indigenous commu-

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nities, creating a distinct pattern of diversity. The federal constitution recognizes the “special position” of Malays and other indigenous groups, who are collectively referred to as the bumiputera (sons of the soil). This grants Malays effective control of politics. Past episodes of ethnic violence—particularly the May 13, 1969, incident—are a prominent feature of the backdrop against which contemporary politics play out. Malays and other bumiputera currently constitute 69 percent of the population, forming a majority vis-à-vis Chinese (23 percent) and Indians (7 percent). The organization of parties in Malaysia partially reflects this ethnic structure: the BN’s major constituent parties—the United Malay National Organization, the Malaysian Chinese Association (MCA), and the Malaysian Indian Congress (MIC)—were all formed to represent the interests of their respective ethnic groups. Most major opposition parties—the Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS), the Democratic Action Party (DAP), and the People’s Justice Party (Parti Keadilan Rakyat, abbreviated as Keadilan or PKR)—are nominally multiethnic, but in practice are seen as having clear communal appeals.17 The UMNO-clone Malaysia United Indigenous Party (Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia, abbreviated as Bersatu or PPBM) was established in 2016 by several former UMNO members, including former prime minister Mahathir Mohamed, as a vehicle to challenge UMNO. Sabah and Sarawak have local parties that reflect the unique political environment and cleavage structures of East Malaysia, though peninsular parties compete with mixed success as well.18 The Malaysian government is constituted through elections that must be held at least every five years. The federal structure of the country initially called for distinct elections at the federal, state, and local levels, but local elections were suspended in 1965, following which the local tier has been filled with state-appointed officials;19 a proposal to restore local elections post-transition was not pursued.20 The opposition regularly managed to capture state governments, in part due to their unique demographics and political histories.21 The practical effect of this, however, was constrained by a decade-long consolidation of power in the prime minister’s department that systematically hollowed out the autonomy of subnational governments.22 UMNO and its coalition partners secured the two-thirds supermajority required to amend the constitution in all but three general elections prior to the general elections of 2014. Malaysia inherited a strong state from the outgoing colonial administration.23 In its six decades at the helm, UMNO penetrated nearly all

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areas of the state, leaving the line between it and the state all but indistinguishable. This unbroken and largely unchallenged control of the high-capacity state contributed to Malaysia’s developmental successes by unifying factions and facilitating the execution of a coherent developmental program. It is clear, however, that UMNO’s control of the state has insulated it from political challengers and helped to perpetuate its rule. Malaysia’s elections have served several important roles. The popular mandate has provided UMNO with some buffer against domestic challenges, particularly by acting as a release valve for those with opposition predilections. They also have assuaged international critics who are more interested in the presence of elections than their quality. Elections have also at times been useful in resolving internal conflicts around policy disagreements to leadership struggles. This required elections to maintain some degree of competitiveness, if not in substance, then at least in appearance. Opposition parties have been generally free to contest, and blatant abuses of the process have been kept in check, leaving open the (albeit remote) possibility of a turnover in power. Fittingly, the opposition consistently has secured a meaningful share of the popular vote, some presence in the legislature, and control of some subnational institutions. UMNO’s dominance showed cracks in the 2008 and 2013 elections, culminating in the BN losing the popular vote in 2013. A key development was the increasing level of cooperation between opposition parties, who campaigned jointly as the People’s Alliance (Parti Rakyat or PR).24 In addition, civil society became increasingly active, especially through groups like Bersih.25 The inclusion of UMNO clone Bersatu and the East Malaysian party Warisan expanded the opposition’s reach into BN strongholds for the 2018 election under the banner of the Pakatan Haripan (PH) coalition, setting the stage for the unprecedented defeat of UMNO. Malaysia’s electoral process under UMNO was exceptional for the breadth and magnitude of its manipulations, all of which were designed to forestall a turnover in power. The Perceptions of Electoral Integrity (PEI) index incorporates expert assessments of nine dimensions of the electoral process.26 Out of 158 countries in the 2016–2017 wave, Malaysia ranked 142nd in electoral integrity, placing it in the “very low/failed” category together with states that either have single-party systems (like Vietnam) or have experienced political instability (like Afghanistan). This indicates pervasive pro-BN bias in nearly all aspects of the electoral process, the effect of which has been to fundamentally tilt political competition toward UMNO and its coalition partners.

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Political Environment Before discussing electoral manipulation in Malaysia, it is helpful to provide a brief overview of the broader political and electoral environment that provided the BN with extensive advantages. Three aspects are noteworthy. First, the centrality of ethnic identification limited the viability of political movements to shift the basis of competition to other cleavages, disadvantaging several of UMNO’s challengers. Second, many Malay UMNO voters fear losing material benefits and privileges. Third, the looming threat of ethnic tension, together with legal coercive mechanisms frequently directed at government opponents, limited political participation and kept citizens on the sidelines. The collective effect of these factors afforded UMNO and its BN partners substantial advantages, each of which are discussed below. Ethnicity has strongly structured Malaysian politics since colonial period, with UMNO serving as the main political vehicle to lobby for Malay rights.27 Those efforts resulted in the 1957 constitution recognizing the “special position” of the Malays, primarily through symbolic gestures like defining Malays as the indigenous population, enshrining the position of the Malay monarchy, and designating Malay as the national language and Islam—the religion of all Malays—as the “religion of the Federation.” Ethnic riots between Malays and Chinese in 1969 deepened UMNO’s resolve to entrench the political pre-eminence of the Malays, which precipitated the formulation of the New Economic Policy (NEP) in 1971. The NEP institutionalized an extensive range of privileges for Malays, including preferential access to public service employment, education, corporate stock, contract procurement, licensing, and property ownership, among numerous other forms of preferential treatment.28 While the NEP expired in 1991, its core principle of preferential treatment for Malays and other bumiputera was integrated into subsequent development plans. Numerous other programs, including the Federal Land Development Authority (FELDA), the People’s Trust Council (Majlis Amanah Rakyat or (MARA), and the National Entrepreneurs Corporation (Perbadanan Usahawan Nasional Berhad or PUNB), extended the selective benefits conferred to Malays. The extensive material benefits delivered through the NEP and its off-shoot programs have created dense and quasi-clientelist ties between the state and large segments of the Malay community, particularly in rural areas. Every election cycle brings explicit threats from UMNO— whose mandate remains to represent the interests of Malays—that a turnover in government would result in the loss of Malay privileges and

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material benefits. At a party gathering in 2016, for example, Prime Minister Najib Razak asked “What will happen to our race” if UMNO is voted out? “Malays will no longer have anywhere to hang their hopes, they will fall and lie prone, and will be considered lowly and be vagabonds, beggars and destitutes in their own land.” If the country were to fall into the hands of the opposition, “the rights and privileges advocated and defended by UMNO over the years—including the institutions—will become extinct and disappear. Malays and bumiputera will be engulfed in a nightmare.”29 Unsurprisingly, many Malays who had grown accustomed to UMNO’s largess were wary of their material benefits and privileges being scaled back. UMNO likewise warned that the position of Islam would be undermined in the event of a turnover in power.30 The perpetual warnings that Malay and Islamic pre-eminence was under threat entrenched patterns of ethnic voting that disadvantaged secular and non-race-based parties, at least among Malay voters.31 Indeed, the unexpected defeat of the BN in 2018 precipitated large-scale protests against the perceived erosion of Malay privileges32 and generally heightened ethnic tensions.33 Powerful coercive mechanisms were employed to intimidate the BN’s political opponents. This included the colonial-era Sedition Act, which prohibits speech or action that “excite[s] disaffection against any Ruler or . . . any government” or “questions[s] sensitive matters” including “any provisions dealing with the right, status, position, [or] privilege . . . in relation to citizenship, language, the special position of the Malays . . . [and] the Malay Rulers..”34 Opposition figures were regularly prosecuted, resulting in prison time or at least lengthy and resource-consuming legal proceedings. The draconian colonial-era Internal Security Act (ISA) allowed for preventive detention without trial under limited circumstances and was occasionally directed at opposition figures and civil society, including several leaders of the DAP and PAS. In other instances, charges that appeared to be politically motivated impeded opposition politics: opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim, for example, served lengthy prison sentences for sodomy after his first falling out with Mahathir Mohamad and again after the opposition’s 2013 electoral breakthrough.

The Electoral Process The Perceptions of Electoral Integrity index disaggregates the electoral process into numerous dimensions.35 Scores for each dimension are computed through expert surveys. Higher scores denote greater degrees

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of electoral integrity. Figure 7.1 illustrates Malaysia’s performance in each category relative to its Southeast Asian and East Asian neighbors.36 As is evident from Figure 7.1, nearly all parts of Malaysia’s electoral process were manipulated; in several categories, the manipulations were considerably greater in magnitude relative to regional neighbors. Electoral Laws The 1957 federal constitution stipulated a first-past-the-post system that provided the BN with significant electoral advantages, at least in conjunction with biased district boundaries. Proposals to reform the system, notably through a move toward a proportional representation or mixed system, did not gain serious traction under UMNO.37 Malaysia’s legal system is based on English common law and is subject to extensive topdown control. In the late 1980s, then prime minister and UMNO president Mahathir Mohamad removed several key high court judges and amended the constitution to bring the judiciary further under the executive’s control for matters concerning constitutional review.38 Other laws entrenched pervasive pro-incumbent bias that frequently affected the dynamics of political competition. The minimum campaign period, for example, was reduced from twenty-one days in 1971 to only

Figure 7.1

Electoral Integrity in East and Southeast Asia

Source: Data compiled from the Perceptions of Electoral Integrity (PEI) index 7.0, published by the Electoral Integrity Project, http://www.ElectoralIntegrityProject.com.

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seven in 1986.39 While it was increased to eleven days in 2013, the short period substantially advantaged the incumbent government, which could use its platform and machinery to effectively promote itself well before campaigning officially began. Even within the campaign period, restrictive laws constrained political activities in ways that advantaged the BN. Following a 1978 ruling, for example, ceramah (political rallies) could only be held indoors or within an enclosed space. They also required a police permit that occasionally proved difficult to obtain for opposition members. In the run-up to the general elections of 2014, a series of challenges to electoral law were brought forward by opposition politicians and civil society groups.40 While lower courts occasionally returned decisions against the government’s positions, there “was a 100 percent decision rate in favour of the government” in the upper courts. Those decisions were often based on technicalities that avoided serious engagement with the core content of the challenges. Procedures As per Article 113 of the constitution, the Election Commission (EC) is responsible for conducting elections, maintaining electoral rolls, and managing electoral boundaries. While nominally non-partisan, pressures to “consult the government while carrying out its functions” steadily eroded the body’s independence.41 Additionally, the EC was largely staffed by retired civil servants with clear ties to UMNO. Consequently, according to a former EC chairman who joined the opposition, the EC acted as a de facto government department.42 The EC’s partisan bias ensured that electoral procedures advantaged the BN. In 2018, for instance, the EC called for the shortest legally permissible campaign period (eleven days) and set a midweek polling date, which was expected to depress turnout among opposition-leaning voters. Other policies—including a ban on usage of Mahathir and Anwar’s images in most constituencies and official voter guides with an X marked next to the BN—also clearly benefited the ruling coalition. In aggregate, these procedural interventions provided the BN with some vote buffer that may have occasionally swayed outcomes in some competitive districts. While the police and military did not directly interfere with voting procedures, they did occasionally display partisan tendencies, for instance when Armed Forced chief Raja Mohamed Affandi Raja Mohamed Noor urged loyalty among troops and police to the Najib-led BN government at a large dinner for military and police personnel in the weeks before the general elections of 2014.43

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Electoral Boundaries Malaysia’s electoral boundaries have been extensively manipulated to provide the BN with fundamental electoral advantages. The drawing of boundaries to serve partisan interests is pervasive and long-standing, with the EIP expert survey indicating that Malaysia has the world’s most manipulated electoral boundaries.44 In practice, gerrymandering and malapportionment combined to significantly increase the threshold for a turnover via the ballot box. Gerrymandering is the strategic drawing of boundaries to concentrate or divide voters in ways that benefit the incumbent. It affects outcomes in two ways: first, opposition voters are packed into the smallest feasible number of districts to maximize the number of “wasted” votes (i.e., votes beyond those necessary to form a plurality), while pro-government voters are distributed so to form a narrow majority in the largest feasible number of districts (thus minimizing “wasted” votes). This practice is very prevalent in Malaysia.45 Second, boundaries are drawn in such a way as to align the demographic characteristics of districts with the incumbent’s strengths. The 2003 reapportionment exercise, for example, substantially increased the number of ethnically mixed seats so that UMNO could take advantage of changes in Malay voter preferences.46 The subsequent round returned to more homogenous districts to align district demographics with the BN’s evolving political orientation. Malapportionment results from boundaries that create districts with substantially unequal numbers of voters. In districts with more voters, the influence of each vote is diluted. Conversely, in districts with fewer voters, the influence of each vote is amplified. Malapportionment in Malaysia has steadily increased since constitutional limits were relaxed in 1962 and removed in 1973, each time through UMNO-led parliamentary decisions. Its magnitude has risen to extreme levels. In general elections of 2013, the difference between the largest constituency (Kapar with 144,159 voters) and the smallest (Putrajaya with 15,791) was nearly tenfold, despite both being located in the relatively urbanized Kuala Lumpur metropolitan area. The BN dominated the least populous districts in the general elections of 2013: of 222 total seats, it won all of the 37 smallest, as well as 46 of the next 49 smallest districts; by contrast, the opposition fared best in the most populous one-third of districts. Even after controlling for a range of demographic characteristics and the geographic area of districts, the average BN district still had over 20,000 fewer voters than its opposition counterpart, strongly suggesting

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that partisan advantage conferred on the BN has been the primary driver of malapportionment.47 Its effect was to turn a relatively convincing opposition victory in terms of the popular vote in the general elections of 2013 into a commanding 60-to-40 parliamentary advantage for the BN in terms of seats. The sobering takeaway from malapportionment is that it made a turnover in power through elections highly unlikely in the absence of extreme scenarios: a near total collapse in popular support for the BN; a significant shift in voting behavior in overweighted rural districts; or key defections to the opposition. While the reapportionment process concluded shortly before the general elections of 2014 exacerbated malapportionment,48 the BN did, in fact, face a strong decline in popular support and a shift in rural voting patterns toward the opposition due to the key defection of former UMNO prime minister Mahathir Mohamad.49 Voter Registration Malaysia’s voter registration process, which is under the EC’s purview, displayed clear partisan bias.50 Involuntary voter deregistration (i.e., eligible voters removed from the rolls) occurred regularly. In an egregious example cited by Lim,51 more than 300,000 voters—mostly non-Malays— were removed from the rolls just prior to the pivotal 1974 election, thereby increasing the proportion of (UMNO-leaning) Malay voters from 55.7 to 57.9 percent of the electorate. Other examples are less obviously partisan, but likely had a similar effect: the EC announced in the run-up to the general elections of 2014 that voters who registered in 2018 would be ineligible for the May 9 election, thereby disqualifying many opposition-leaning young voters from the election. Suspicious entries in the electoral rolls also occurred. Ong52 and MERAP53 noted instances of multiple entries with very similar or identical names and birthdates in the rolls used for the general elections of 2013, as well as a large number of voters above the age of 100. In other cases, addresses had an improbably large number of voters registered to them, which raised concerns about phantom votes being cast for UMNO and its coalition partners. While illicit voting was never confirmed to have happened, several election monitoring initiatives in the general elections of 2013 reported instances of voters’ identities being doubted.54 Constituency assignments, which were managed by the EC, contributed to pro-BN bias. PEMANTAU55 reported that nearly 10 percent of observed districts had instances of voters being assigned to different constituencies for unexplained reasons. Since this change was frequently

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undiscovered until polling day, it disrupted voting in many places. More concerning was the practice of moving voters from seats that the BN firmly controlled to those that were decided by a slim margin in the previous election.56 In an example from the general elections of 2014, several thousand soldiers were registered to vote in competitive constituencies where new army camps were being constructed, despite the completion dates for those camps—and actual residence in them— scheduled for months to years after the election. As the military was a stable source of votes for UMNO, the new voters could well tip a close election in the BN’s favor. Partisan bias in the EC’s management of the electoral rolls was also evident in its refusal to provide civil society groups with the necessary data to monitor the rolls for inaccuracies.57 A rare instance of political cooperation in 2019, however, introduced comprehensive changes to the electoral rolls: Undi 18, which was passed via constitutional amendment, lowered the voting age to eighteen and introduced automatic voter registration for all Malaysian; at the time of writing it is unclear how it will affect voting outcomes, as no major election has been held post-implementation. Party Registration The Registrar of Societies (RoS) holds the responsibility for overseeing the operation of political parties and other societies. As it reports to the Ministry of Home Affairs, it has frequently displayed partisan tendencies.58 With extensive powers to set and enforce standards of operation for political parties, including the usage of party symbols, names, and internal governance structures, it has the capacity to significantly disrupt and even dissolve parties. Prior to the 2013 elections, for example, the DAP was forced to divert attention from election preparations to address RoS claims that its internal elections from several years earlier violated procedure. Bersatu found itself under similar pressure from the RoS with the 2018 election on the immediate horizon, creating an unwanted distraction during a critical period of the campaign. Media Substantial pro-government bias in the mass media has long benefited the BN.59 While most of Malaysia’s print media is technically private, ownership structures have been clearly linked to the BN. Dominant Malay language papers like Utusan Melayu and Kosmo, which remain influential especially among rural voters, have been partially owned and

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de facto controlled by UMNO. The BN constituent party MCA has a major stake in the English language daily The Star, while the MIC has close ties to the Tamil language paper Tamil Nesan and Makkal Osai. The same pattern holds for the major broadcasting stations, which all have directly or indirectly been tied to BN parties. In addition, various legal measures have shaped media coverage in ways that favored the BN. The 1972 Official Secrets Act prohibits publication of confidential or sensitive material; as the government retains discretion over determining when the measure is violated, it has been able to quickly shut down potentially damaging coverage. The 1984 Printing Presses and Publications Act required all presses to attain licenses from the Ministry of Home Affairs on a yearly basis, subject to the “absolute discretion” of the minister, likewise ensuring that a critical press would not emerge.60 A controversial “fake news” bill, which carries heavy fines and potential prison time for violations, came into effect just one month prior to the general elections of 2014. As the bill granted the government broad latitude to determine what constitutes fake news—defined as “any news, information, data and reports which are wholly or partly false, whether in form of features, visuals or audio recordings or in any other form capable of suggesting words or ideas”— concerns were immediately raised about the chilling effects on discourse critical of the government. Indeed, in referring to the controversial 1MDB financial scandal61 that ensnared Prime Minister Najib Razak, the deputy minister for communications and multimedia suggested that any information on 1MDB that was not verified by the government would be deemed fake news.62 The resulting environment has produced coverage that has often been highly favorable of the BN and critical of the opposition. One study of newspaper coverage of the general elections of 2013, for example, found that for every positive mention of the opposition in the Peninsular English language print media, there were roughly forty positive mentions of the BN; for every negative mention of the BN, the opposition received roughly fourteen negative mentions. 63 The growth of online platforms in the 2000s opened space for political discourse64 and allowed for less biased coverage in some instances.65 Its practical impact was mitigated, however, by a range of factors, including the continued heavy reliance on traditional media by many rural voters and the emergence of organized pro-BN “cybertroopers.”66 The media landscape did appear to open following PH’s 2018 win, but the coalition government’s subsequent collapse saw the return of some of the former patterns.

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Finance Economic reforms initiated in the 1980s created a tight nexus between the state and business elites, making UMNO and its coalition partners major actors in the Malaysian economy. 67 This created fundamental asymmetries in resource endowments, which the BN has leveraged to its advantage throughout the electoral cycle. Most visibly, resource advantages have allowed the BN to support a more elaborate organizational infrastructure and day-to-day operations than is feasible for the opposition. UMNO’s penetration of the state has allowed it to benefit politically from several ostensibly non-partisan large-scale programs. The Federal Land Development Authority, for example, provided support for Malay settlers in designated small landholder areas. These constituted nearly 10 percent of the Malaysian electorate and were an important voting bloc for UMNO.68 Following the 2012 public listing of FELDA Global Ventures Holdings—in which FELDA settlers formed the majority shareholder—each family received an initial payout equivalent to approximately US$5,000 just prior to the general elections of 2013. In the days before GE14, the BN health minister announced incentives of RM4,000 for select FELDA settlers, expressing hopes that the payment would be made in time for the election.69 Malaysia’s civil service—one of the world’s largest relative to population size—constituted roughly 10 percent of the electorate and was a reliable source of votes for the BN. One month before the general elections of 2018, Prime Minister Najib Razak announced that civil servants would receive a bonus salary increment equivalent to one annual raise. Also announced for civil servants was a one-time pension raise of one percent (on top of the 2 percent increase already given earlier in the year); additional religious leave; new grants for the pension associations; and new medical coverage, among other benefits. In another example, the BR1M program, which provided cash payments to low-income households was implemented prior to the general elections of 2013. The BN manifesto for the general elections of 2018 doubled BR1M payments. These strategic payments are reflected in clear increases in federal government expenditure prior to elections,70 despite the state’s vulnerable fiscal position. Each election also brought examples of narrowly targeted investments or distribution of goodies, often in competitive districts.71 Watchdog groups PEMANTAU and Bersih 2.0 compiled a list of election offenses both during and immediately prior to the official start of campaigning for the general elections of 2018.72 These included everything

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from countless giveaways of low-cost items like rice, cooking oil, reading glasses, petrol, bedding, and groceries, to larger ticket items like bicycles, washing machines, flat screen televisions, and tablet computers. They are often distributed by candidates and their team, accompanied by campaign messaging. While this practice was more prevalent among the BN, opposition parties employed the tactics as well.73 Vote Process and Vote Count The widespread pre-election manipulations enumerated above has reduced the need for extensive polling day interference. In addition, the increased use of neutral polling and counting agents in the past two decades has increased the political risks of such tactics, limiting their usage. Nonetheless, at least some polling day malpractices have continued to occur, predominantly in the form of illegal campaigning, suspected phantom voting, and counting inaccuracies. Several election monitoring initiatives document occurrences of these in the general elections of 2013.74 PEMANTAU observers noted illegal campaigning on polling day in nearly half of observed constituencies, as well as widespread instances of cash, cash vouchers, travel allowances, or travel reimbursements being distributed candidate teams or their associates. Known problems with the electoral rolls, together with ostensibly indelible ink that could be easily washed off in some instances, increased concerns about phantom voting. Reported failures in securing ballot boxes through each stage of the vote counting process likewise raised concerns about malpractice, particularly for advanced voting. The general election of 2018 brought its own purported irregularities. Government machinery was again widely used by the BN on polling day. Reports of prohibitively long polling station queues were also widespread, especially for streams reserved for younger voters, which may have selectively inhibited voting among an opposition-leaning bloc. More serious, the EC’s procedures for overseas voting effectively prevented those ballots from being counted: the ballots were sent to distribution points abroad on the first business day after nominations and would be counted only if they arrived back in Malaysia on or before polling day. The short campaign period made that impossible for a great many overseas voters. The impact of these polling day malpractices on election outcomes was almost certainly smaller than pre-election manipulations. Nonetheless, they may have tipped a limited number of close districts toward the BN, and certainly had negative effects on the electorate’s confidence in electoral institutions.

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Conclusion The breadth and magnitude of electoral manipulations in Malaysia make the country a clear outlier, especially relative to states with similar levels of economic development and social stability. Unlike other states in the Perceptions of Electoral Integrity index’s “very low/failed” category, Malaysia is neither a single party system nor has it experienced extensive conflict and instability. To the contrary, as an upper middle-income country that became independent with functional democratic institutions, its poor ranking is the result of politically motivated manipulations alone. What can we learn from studying Malaysia’s electoral process? Under UMNO, Malaysia has provided clear examples of nearly every major type of electoral manipulation, and it clearly illustrates the consequences of these manipulations.75 The overweighting of rural, Malaymajority districts has made it nearly impossible to capture a majority of parliamentary seats without the support of that crucial segment of the electorate. This has significantly constrained the opposition’s viable electoral strategies, in that it required a platform that would maintain bumiputera advantages and preserve the preeminence of Islam. The opposition’s attempt to contest on a “post-race-based politics” strategy in the general elections of 2013, for example, resonated strongly with urban voters and led to a popular vote majority, but also allowed the BN to sweep a large portion of smaller rural seats and win a parliamentary majority by a healthy margin. Only when the opposition was built around former UMNO PM Mahathir Mohamad and his UMNO clone PPBM party in the general elections of 2018 did it attract a sufficient portion of rural Malay votes to be competitive in the overweighted districts.76 In essence, malapportionment has all but guaranteed the continuation of ketuanan Melayu and ketuanan Islam. It also helps to explains why Malaysia had been apparently resistant to democratization via modernization, as the relatively more developed urban areas have been underweighted in electoral competition. With politics appearing to be frozen in a race-based model, many young non-bumiputera voters felt effectively disenfranchised and alienated from politics. This precipitated high rates of outward migration among young and educated Malaysians, leading to a brain-drain problem that exacerbates Malaysia’s struggles to break through the middleincome trap.77 In the general elections of 2014, the frustrations endemic in this segment of the population were compounded by the opposition’s decision to welcome Mahathir and other UMNO defectors, leading to

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the #UndiRosak campaign that called on voters to invalidate their ballots in protest of perceived political stagnation. The BN’s surprising defeat in the general elections of 2018 raises the question of whether the election was less manipulated than in the past, or whether the BN’s manipulations did not work as intended. Neither of these are true. The BN brought the full spectrum of available manipulations into play in the general elections of 2018, in equal or greater magnitude than in previous elections. Those manipulations continued to provide the BN with advantages. The full spectrum of reasons for the outcome will continue to be debated by scholars of democratization. It is clear, however, that discontent with Najib and his inner circle created a strong push factor, while the Mahathir-helmed opposition could credibly promise both reform and continuation of Malay dominance to various audiences, allowing the opposition to retain its base and make inroads into previously impenetrable BN strongholds. The combined push of Najib and pull of a janus-faced, Mahathir-led opposition created a wave that even the full slate of electoral manipulations could not withstand. Following the election, progressive elements within the PH government pushed to reform Malaysia’s electoral process, but the very key to the PH’s success in the general elections of 2014—partial emulation of the BN in order to make inroads into electorally vital districts—would eventually present obstacles to reform and contribute to the return of UMNO less than two years later.

Notes 1. The eleven states of the Malay Peninsula gained independence as Malaya in 1957. They were joined by the territories of Sabah, Sarawak, and Singapore to form the Federation of Malaysia in 1963. Singapore departed the federation in 1965, leaving Malaysia with its current total of thirteen states. 2. Case, “UMNO Paramountcy.” 3. Ufen, “The Transformation of Political Party Opposition.” 4. Levitsky and Way, Competitive Authoritarianism. 5. Means, “Soft Authoritarianism.” 6. Norris and Grömping, “Perceptions of Electoral Integrity.” 7. See Ostwald, “Malaysia’s Electoral Process.” 8. Hai, “Electoral Politics in Malaysia”; Slater and Fenner, “State Power and Staying Power.” 9. Brown, “Playing the (Non)Ethnic Card”; Kai Ostwald, “How to Win a Lost Election”; Huat, “Constituency Delimitation and Electoral Authoritarianism.” 10. MERAP, Malaysian Electoral Roll Analysis Project, 2013, http://malaysianelectoralrollproject.blogspot.ca. 11. Welsh, “Elections in Malaysia.”

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12. Abbott, “Electoral Authoritarianism and the Print Media”; Tapsell, “Media Freedom Movement in Malaysia”; Sani, “Media Freedom in Malaysia.” 13. Gomez, “Electoral Funding”; Gomez, “Monetizing Politics.” 14. PEMANTAU, An Election Observation Report for GE13; Bersih, Findings of the People’s Tribunal; IDEAS and CPPS, “Was GE13 Free and Fair?” 15. Hirschman, “The Making of Race in Colonial Malaya.” 16. Noh, “Malaysia’s 13th General Election.” 17. Weiss, “The Antidemocratic Potential.” 18. Ming, “Malaysian Political Parties and Coalitions.” 19. Tennant, “The Decline of Elective Local Government.” 20. Ostwald, “Local Elections, Decentralisation, and Institutional Reform.” 21. Yeoh, Opposition Subnational Strongholds. 22. Hutchinson, “Malaysia’s Federal System”; Ostwald, “Federalism Without Decentralization.” 23. Slater, “Strong-State Democratization.” 24. Ong, “Varieties of Opposition Cooperation.” 25. Weiss, “Of Inequality and Irritation;; Weiss, “The Antidemocratic Potential”; Rodan, “Civil Society Activism and Political Parties.” 26. Norris and Grömping, “Perceptions of Electoral Integrity.” 27. Ratnam, Communalism and the Political Process. 28. Lee, “Affirmative Action”; Gomez and Saravanamuttu, The New Economic Policy in Malaysia. 29. Quoted in Shukry, “Najib Warns Malay Base.” 30. Liow, “Political Islam in Malaysia”; Hamid, “Political Islam and Islamist Politics in Malaysia.” 31. More seriously, UMNO and several UMNO-aligned NGOs like Ikatan Muslimim Malaysia (ISMA), Perkasa, and the Red Shirts warned of renewed communal tensions should ethnic minorities demand too many concessions from the Malays. 32. Dettman, “Authoritarian Innovations and Democratic Reform.” 33. Chin, “Malaysia.” 34. Means, “Soft Authoritarianism in Malaysia and Singapore.” 35. Norris and Grömping, “Perceptions of Electoral Integrity.” 36. China, Brunei, and East Timor are excluded from the assessments. 37. See, for example, the July 16, 2014, column in Malaysiakini by Bersih chairperson Maria Chin Abdullah, as well as the 2011 submission to the Parliamentary Select Committee on Electoral Reform by Ng Eng Kiat. See also Saravanamuttu, Power Sharing in a Divided Nation;; Horowitz, “Electoral Systems.” 38. Harding, “The 1988 Constitutional Crisis”; Slater, “Iron Cage in an Iron Fist.” 39. Sothi, Law and the Electoral Process; Hai, “Electoral Politics in Malaysia.” 40. Welsh, “From the Streets to the Courtroom.” 41. Hai, “Electoral Politics in Malaysia,” p. 112. 42. See Ramlan and Ling, “Electoral Integrity Low.” 43. PEMANTAU, Election Offenses Listing 3: 25 April 2018, https://www .pemantau.org/wp-content/uploads/Election-Offences-GE14_25042018-edited.pdf. 44. Norris and Grömping, “Perceptions of Electoral Integrity.” 45. Hai, “Electoral Politics in Malaysia”; Huat, “Constituency Delimitation and Electoral Authoritarianism in Malaysia.” 46. Chacko, “Mapping Out Elections for Victory.” 47. Ostwald, “How to Win a Lost Election.” 48. Huat, “Constituency Delimitation and Electoral Authoritarianism in Malaysia.” 49. Abdullah, “The Mahathir Effect in Malaysia’s 2018 Election.”

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50. Hai, “Electoral Politics in Malaysia”; MERAP, Malaysian Electoral Roll Analysis Project; Bersih, Findings of the People’s Tribunal. 51. Hai, “Electoral Politics in Malaysia.” 52. Ming, “10 Major Problems in EC’s Electoral Roll.” 53. MERAP, Malaysian Electoral Roll Analysis Project. 54. PEMANTAU, An Election Observation Report for GE13; IDEAS and CPPS, “Was GE13 Free and Fair?.” 55. PEMANTAU, An Election Observation Report for GE13. 56. Hai, “Electoral Politics in Malaysia.” 57. See the joint media statement by Bersih 2.0 and MERAP from October 16, 2017, “SPR Is Making a Concerted Effort to Stop the Detection of Problems in the Electoral Roll,” https://www.bersih.org/media-statement-16-october-2017-spr-is -making-a-concerted-effort-to-stop-the-detection-of-problems-in-the-electoral-roll. 58. Welsh, “Elections in Malaysia”; Gomez, “Monetizing Politics.” 59. Abbott, “Electoral Authoritarianism and the Print Media”; Brown, “The Rough and Rosy Road. 60. A 2012 amendment to the act grants some additional leeway to presses, but the environment remained highly restrictive. 61. Case, “Stress Testing Leadership in Malaysia.” 62. Beech, “As Malaysia Moves to Ban ‘Fake News.’” 63. Houghton, Watching the Watchdog. 64. Tapsell, “Media Freedom Movement.” 65. Kasim and Sani, “The 2013 General Elections.” 66. Hopkins, “Cybertroopers and Tea Parties.” 67. Gomez, “Monetizing Politics.” 68. Mohamad, “Fragmented but Captured.” 69. See “RM4,000 Incentives for Felda Settlers,” May 7, 2018, https://www .freemalaysiatoday.com/category/nation/2018/05/07/rm4000-incentives-for-felda -settlers. 70. Pepinsky, “Autocracy, Elections, and Fiscal Policy.” 71. Hai and Ming, “Electoral Campaigning in Malaysia.” 72. See “Election Offenses Listing 3: 25 April 2018,” https://www.pemantau.org /wp-content/uploads/Election-Offences-GE14_25042018-edited.pdf 73. Dettman and Weiss, “Has Patronage Lost Its Punch?” 74. Bersih, Findings of the People’s Tribunal; IDEAS and CPPS, “Was GE13 Free and Fair?”; PEMANTAU, An Election Observation Report for GE13. 75. Birch, Electoral Malpractice; Levitsky and Way, Competitive Authoritarianism; Schedler, “The Menu of Manipulation.” 76. Ostwald and Oliver, “Four Arenas.” 77. World Bank, Malaysia Economic Monitor.

8

Cambodia: When the Gloves Come Off Max Grömping

IN SEPTEMBER 2013, THOUSANDS OF OPPOSITION SUPPORTERS TOOK TO the streets of Phnom Penh to protest against what they believed to be a stolen election. Cambodia’s National Election Commission (NEC) had just reaffirmed longtime incumbent Prime Minister Hun Sen as the winner of the July 28 parliamentary election. His Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) gained 68 out of 123 seats. Yet, what would be considered a comfortable super-majority in other countries was a slap in the face for Southeast Asia’s longest-serving head of government. The dramatic opposition gain, stopping just seven seats short of a government defeat, must have come as a profound shock to the prime minister. At the same time, it outraged the demonstrators in Phnom Penh’s Freedom Park. They were spurred on by the allegations of the main opposition Cambodian National Rescue Party (CNRP) that the incumbent had won only through widespread electoral malpractice. These were backed up by a number of independent electoral observer reports.1 The election and its aftermath turned out to be a pivotal moment for the country, as it presented a window of opportunity that might have prompted an opening of the political landscape and a cleaning-up of elections. A unified opposition under the banner of the CNRP garnered significant public support, while international attention and public outrage brought pressure on the regime to reform electoral governance. At the same time, the reinvigorated lobbying of civil society networks presented policy solutions for this purpose. Instead, the opposite outcome

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occurred. The polls triggered a stark reduction in public space, with the introduction of draconian laws against nongovernmental organizations (NGO), a crackdown on independent media, the imprisonment of activists, and the eventual dissolution of the CNRP as the only viable opposition. The government-led dismantling of elections as sites for political contestation ultimately turned a formerly competitive electoral authoritarian political regime into a hegemonic dictatorship.2 How did electoral malpractice in the Kingdom of Cambodia turn from bad to worse in such a dramatic way, so that by 2019 the ruling CPP controlled 100 percent of seats in the legislature, and elections there have become “nothing but a charade”?3 In this chapter, I examine the case of Cambodia to show why, when, and where electoral malpractice occurs under authoritarianism. I argue that the temporal, tactical, and geographic variation of electoral malpractice is at its root an outcome of the three interacting dynamics of motive, opportunity, and control. Thus, when, where, and how electoral malpractice occurs depends on an autocrat’s need to minimize electoral threat, a political opportunity structure that either hinders or facilitates malpractice, and control over local party machines that need to deliver the “requested” fraud within their means. Applied to Cambodia, the chapter shows that the electoral threat of the 2013 and 2017 opposition swings provided the motive to ramp up electoral malpractice to more severe and less sophisticated tactics, while a shift away from “Western” aid dependency toward mass-scale Chinese investment provided the opportunity. This occurred against the backdrop of imperfect central control over a vast network of local ruling party agents, whose ability to deliver “just the right amount” of malpractice could not be relied upon. I first draw on the Perceptions of Electoral Integrity (PEI) and Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) expert surveys to map over time the strategies and patterns of electoral malpractice underlying the maintenance of the political regime. I then develop some new empirical evidence not previously analyzed by other Cambodia scholars to show the spatial patterns of malpractice. Specifically, I draw on domestic election monitors’ reports from the Committee for Free and Fair Elections in Cambodia (COMFREL) to map election day irregularities; and voter registration data by the NEC and 2012 census data to track over- and under-registration patterns. The chapter proceeds by describing Cambodia’s profile of electoral malpractices along the temporal, tactical, and spatial axes.

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Equilibrium and Sudden Decline: Temporal Patterns of Electoral Malpractice Cambodia’s first post–civil war election in 1993 was an international, not a domestic affair. Never before had the international community organized elections in a sovereign country to the extent that occurred here. The country—torn by decades of autocratic rule, civil war, genocide, and foreign occupation—was struggling to rebuild itself. A Vietnamese intervention that ousted the Khmer Rouge in 1979 had ended just four years prior. It left new political elites ready to viciously defend and expand their power under a new electoral framework. At the same time, the international community’s huge investments were riding on the “success” of the first post-occupation polls. Success was understood primarily as preventing the recurrence of armed conflict. The United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC) oversaw the administration of the ‘93 election, after the warring factions including the Khmer Rouge, the royalist National United Front for an Independent, Neutral, Peaceful, and Cooperative Cambodia (FUNCINPEC), the Khmer People’s National Liberation Front (KPNLF), and the pro-Hanoi State of Cambodia (SOC) had agreed to an internationally brokered transition in the 1991 Paris Accord. Hun Sen entered the race in an incumbent role having already served as prime minister with Vietnamese blessings since 1985. Surprisingly, after a violent election campaign, his party emerged only second after FUNCINPEC under Norodom Ranariddh. Using claims of electoral malpractice as a pretense to trigger royal intervention, and installing an unstable powersharing arrangement with FUNCINPEC, Hun Sen gradually jockeyed himself into a position to overtake his coalition partners. He finally ousted Ranariddh in the “coup” of 1997, to which the international community remained grudgingly silent in the interest of stability.4 With unimpeded access to the state’s infrastructure and resources, Hun Sen and his CPP could cement their electoral dominance and control of the legislature, all the while ridding himself of overt reliance on the party itself, for instance by staffing key positions with close relatives. 5 The CPP popular vote share may have fluctuated between 40 percent and around 55 percent from 1998 to 2013, but the party retained a supermajority of seats in the legislature with 52 percent of seats in 1998, 59 percent in 2003, 73 percent in 2008, and 55 percent in 2013. This dominance was largely maintained through various forms of electoral malpractice.

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Figure 8.1 shows the development of electoral malpractice in Cambodia over time since 1993, drawing on data from the V-Dem expert survey. The upper left pane depicts the overall quality of elections in the country, taking all aspects of the pre-election period, election day, and the post-election process into account. The downwardsloping line reveals a steady expansion of manipulation starting in 1993. In the first post-conflict polls there were only some deficiencies and some degree of fraud and irregularities, which, however, did not

Figure 8.1

Electoral Malpractice in Cambodia, 1993–2018

Source: Created by author based on data from V-Dem ver. 9; see Coppedge et al. 2019. Notes: High values = no malpractice; 0 = widespread and decisive malpractice. Variables v2elfrfair_osp, v2elrgstry_osp, v2elfrcamp_osp, v2elvotbuy_osp, v2elintim_osp, and v2elirreg _osp from V-Dem ver. Shown with 68 percent confidence intervals.

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in the end affect the outcome, according to the V-Dem data, which rates the contest as 3 out of 4. After the coup of 1997 and the CPP’s consolidation of power, malpractice substantially increased and became a staple of Cambodian elections. The 1998 polls, although marred by voter intimidation and a repressive media environment, were still considered largely free and fair by international observers.6 Yet by 2003, it had become apparent that the hoped-for gradual transition to democracy had given way to a stable form of competitive electoral authoritarian rule. 7 All elections from 1998 to 2013 were rated around 2 out of 4 in the V-Dem data, as they were characterized by substantial competition but also widespread electoral malpractice. The 2018 poll, finally, saw a dramatic drop in fairness, and signified the country’s recent slide into hegemonic authoritarianism. According to V-Dem data, while the election allowed for a modicum of competition, electoral manipulation was decisive in shaping the outcome (score of 1 out of 4). The other panes of Figure 8.1 give a first glance at the tactics employed to ensure continued incumbent wins since 1998, and why overall electoral integrity experienced such a sharp drop in 2018. Specifically, tampering with the voter register, vote buying, and voter intimidation remained relatively widespread and stable. In contrast, the areas of campaign media and other types of malpractice significantly deteriorated, contributing the bulk to the overall erosion of electoral integrity in the country. Voter intimidation is a frequently used electoral malpractice tool in Cambodia, both at grassroots and national level. Due to the overwhelmingly strong grip of the CPP on devolved administrative units called commune councils,8 party-aligned commune chiefs and other local authorities are in a unique position to exert pressure on the electorate. This includes ostracizing known opposition supporters from the community, refusing to register them, or threatening other sanctions.9 Closely related to this is the engagement of security forces (military and police) in political activity, including election campaigns. It is noteworthy, however, that this particular practice has not worsened over the years but remained rather stable around a score of 2 according to the V-Dem data. Similarly, vote buying and other forms of electoral clientelism are a staple of malpractice at worryingly high levels. There is a long tradition of clientelistic misuse of local development funds and Ministry of Interior resources in Cambodia. The established practice of gift-giving as a coercive tactic is well-institutionalized in the country, and the CPP is ideally positioned to make full use of its strong networks of Commune

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chiefs and local canvassers in this regard.10 The state’s resources provide an ample reservoir for pork-barrel spending and more mundane forms of voter and candidate buying. However, popular perceptions of gift-giving in the context of elections may vary, with ordinary citizens arguably making a distinction between contingent and noncontingent exchanges in electoral mobilization.11 Contrary to these tactics, which enabled stable CPP dominance, the extent of other unspecified irregularities—including multiple voting, intentional lack of voting materials, ballot-box stuffing, misreporting of votes, or false collation of votes—increased substantially over time, as did restrictions on the media. Dramatic occurrences in this regard include the dissolution of the main opposition party CNRP in late 2017, the closure of countless media outlets, and the crackdown on civil society organizations.12 Together, these developments explain the plunge of overall election quality between 2013 and 2018, as well as the crushing CPP victory with 77 percent of the popular vote and 100 percent of the seats. These tactics will be examined in detail in the next section. Overall, this temporal look at electoral malpractice in Cambodia paints a bleak picture of a worsening electoral environment, which started with a modicum of competition and integrity, and, after several electoral rounds with stable albeit serious levels of malpractice, suddenly collapsed into a fully closed electoral arena. What explains this shift in the severity of malpractice? In 2013, the united front of several former opposition parties under the CNRP umbrella and the leadership of Sam Rainsy and Khem Sokha emerged as a serious electoral threat to the ruling party, and likely prompted the regime into action. While it had successfully contained the electoral threat over successive elections with its menu of malpractice, the regime suddenly realized that business as usual might eventually result in its demise at the ballot box. Rattled by the unexpectedly strong turnout for the for-once unified political opposition, Hun Sen implemented measures to eliminate the competition once and for all. Starting with a move from the gerrymandering playbook, the regime split up the opposition stronghold province of Kampong Cham into two new provinces to maximize wasted opposition votes.13 Simultaneously, it increased efforts at neo-patrimonial dominance of marginal areas, and began targeted repression. But despite this, the CPP lost 25 percent of their tightly controlled Commune councils to the opposition in the local elections four years later in 2017. This prompted the regime to take off the proverbial gloves and go into full dictatorship mode.

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Decreasing Sophistication: Tactical Patterns of Electoral Malpractice The long stability of electoral malpractice over two decades in Cambodia is consistent with the findings of a burgeoning literature on the informational function of elections under authoritarian rule. Autocrats strive to collect information about their own and the opposition’s popularity through elections. By employing electoral malpractice sparingly and judiciously, they ensure a modicum of competition to generate as accurate a signal about their opponent’s true level of support as possible. Of course, malpractice is designed simultaneously to minimize the autocrat’s uncertainty over the election outcome.14 At the same time, autocrats may also want to signal their strength and invincibility by engaging in blatant manipulation of the electoral process, regardless of the likelihood of detection and condemnation.15 As such, excessive malpractice—even if unnecessary to ensure the autocrat’s electoral success—may serve the function of demobilizing the opposition. After all, if a dictator is willing to cheat blatantly even at the risk of detection, what else are they willing to do? The sudden decline of election quality from 2013 to 2018 may suggest an increased desire of the CPP to dominate and intimidate any opposition whatever the costs. This is plausible. Yet, as Figure 8.1 has already hinted at, the temporal pattern represents a shift not only in the extent but also the specific tactics of electoral malpractice. Given the range of choices on the “menu of manipulation”16 available to an autocratic leader like Hun Sen, why is a certain tactic used rather than alternative ones? This section unpacks the tactical choices involved in electoral malpractice. The analysis shows that in reaction to the surge in support for the opposition in 2013 and 2017, the regime dramatically decreased the sophistication of its electoral transgressions, opting for ever more blatant tactics. To be sure, compared to other regional autocracies such as Singapore (see Chapter 6), the cognitive complexity of previous tactics in Cambodia—such as massive tampering with the voter registry, voter intimidation, and clientelist practices—have always been at the lower end of sophistication.17 Yet the egregiousness of malpractice increased to new levels after the 2013 polls. To make this point, I draw on the Perceptions of Electoral Integrity dataset.18 This resource is based on a survey of over 3,800 election experts assessing the integrity of electoral contests in 166 countries around the world.19 The survey includes forty-nine measures of electoral integrity covering the whole electoral cycle, summed to an overall PEI score ranging from 0 (worst) to 100 (best). In this overall PEI index, Cambodia

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ranks 160th out of 166 countries, with a score of only 30. For comparison, the global mean is 55, while the East Asian average is 57.20 Worse electoral integrity is recorded only in some countries of sub-Sahara Africa (such as Burundi, Equatorial Guinea, and Ethiopia) or in war-torn Syria. More important, the PEI survey also allows an in-depth look at the country-specific profile of electoral malpractice, because it groups the forty-nine survey items into eleven sequential sub-dimensions that reflect the dimensions of the electoral cycle. Figure 8.2 plots the experts’ evaluation of the 2013 and 2018 elections along these eleven dimensions, measuring integrity on a scale of 0 to 100, and comparing it with the East Asian averages. The graph shows that the integrity of Cambodian elections lags far behind the regional average in every single dimension. The only exception is the dimension of voting-district boundaries, where the country achieves a score of between 32 (2013) and 39 (2018), only slightly lower than the regional average of 50.21 Figure 8.2 allows a step-by-step analysis of the dramatic decrease in the tactical sophistication of electoral malpractice from 2013 to 2018 by showing areas of stable, improving, and worsening integrity. Figure 8.2

Eleven Dimensions of Electoral Integrity in Cambodia, 2013 and 2018

Source: Created by author based on data from Norris and Grömping, “Perceptions of Electoral Integrity (PEI-5.0).”

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Stable and Low-Performing: Procedures, Finance, and Electoral Authorities First, there are some areas of concern that remain constant from 2013 to 2018. Namely, these are issues surrounding the electoral procedures (scored 38 in 2013, 42 in 2018), the voting process (34, 29), campaign finance (18, 12), and the electoral authorities (28, 23). Regarding campaign finance, Cambodia ranks among the lowest ten percentile of countries worldwide, and it is actually at the very bottom in East Asia (regional average of 41). This reflects the opaque party finance regulations as well as highly problematic levels of vote buying and patronage politics in the country. Exchanging electoral support for material benefits delivered to rural communities is a central feature of electoral politics. It is inextricably linked to misuse of state resources, as the permanent incumbent CPP has tied access to state largesse to loyalty at the polls.22 Neopatrimonialism has remained pervasive but stable, shifting little between 2013 and 2018, and indeed in the years before, as the VDem data on vote buying already suggested (see Figure 8.1). Equally stable but poor is the performance of the electoral authorities. Although the National Electoral Commission is in the midrange of staff levels and other capacity indicators in a global comparison of electoral management bodies,23 its independence has often been questioned.24 The NEC reforms of 2015, rather than freeing the institution from political constraints, reinforced its partisanship and political exploitation while leaving many other burning issues from staffing to fiscal and functional independence untouched. Seats on the NEC’s oversight body are awarded based on party allegiance—four from the governing party, four from opposition parties among the legislature, and one jointly picked seat. This electoral management framework provides ample opportunity for partisan influence by whoever controls the legislature. Yet since 1997, the CPP has always been that actor and co-opted possible independent appointees. Consequently, nothing much has changed in this area of electoral malpractice. Improvements? Voter Registration and Post-Election Environment Second, and perhaps surprisingly, there are some areas of improvement from 2013 to 2018. In particular, the voter registration process, rated as fifth worst in the world in 2013 (Cambodia, 13; regional mean, 55) had been ameliorated slightly by 2018 to a score of 27. In 2013, domestic

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election monitoring groups showed evidence from two independent voter-registry audits that more than a million voters, or roughly 10 percent of the electorate, were disenfranchised due to deletions from the voter lists.25 At the same time, up to 18 percent of names on the voter list were invalid, because they were of deceased or nonexistent people. This facilitated massive multiple voting while simultaneously suppressing a very large proportion of the electorate. Compared to this, COMFREL noted a significantly more accurate voter roll in the 2018 polls.26 However, this is merely an outcome of a shift on the overall menu of manipulation to the more heavy-handed tactics of media and opposition repression detailed below. In other words, the CPP has eased its tampering with the voter registry as an unnecessary activity, given that more blatant interference achieves the same or even better results. Furthermore, the post-election environment was evaluated in the PEI survey more positively in 2018 (score of 58) than in 2013 (25). However, on closer inspection, this is due to two specific indicators of the presence of peaceful and violent post-election protest. In 2013, massive CNRP-sponsored demonstrations brought the capital to a virtual standstill for months, whereas 2018 saw little to no dissent. Yet this should be interpreted as the silence of the grave, rather than an endorsement of the election result. Faced with crushing repression, the only protest available to voters was to spoil their ballots—which they did at an unprecedented rate of 8.4 percent of all votes cast.27 Taken together, there was no improvement, but simply a displacement of manipulation from one area to another.

Taking the Gloves Off: Repression of Opposition Parties, Media, and Civil Society Finally, Figure 8.2 confirms the entrenchment of more blatant electoral malpractices noted above. There is a significant drop in the scores regarding the electoral laws (from 29 to 20), party and candidate registration (38 to 23), media (28 to 20), and—most pronounced—the vote count (57 to 32). Taken together, these scores reflect a strong shift in the ruling party’s menu of tactics toward an outright (and successful) effort to neutralize any credible opposition as well as any independent scrutiny of the electoral process. Following the opposition surge of 2013, parliament passed the Law on Associations and Nongovernmental Organizations in Cambodia in

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2015 and amended the Law on Political Parties in 2017. Although the outcome of a supposed compromise between CPP and CNRP, these laws enabled crackdowns on civil society groups, media, and political parties throughout 2017 and 2018. They provided, for instance, legal backing for the banning of parties on trivial grounds and the criminalization of a sweeping range of NGO activities.28 The assault on the opposition began with the arrest of CNRP coleader Khem Sokha in September 2017 on charges of treason, and it culminated two months later with the Supreme Court dissolving the CNRP. This action was made possible by amendments to the Law on Political Parties which enabled the banning of party leaders from politics and even the dissolution of whole parties without hearings or the possibility of an appeal. Some of the new restrictions seemed to have been designed specifically to target the main opposition party. The section compelling parties to distance themselves from members convicted of a criminal charge, for instance, provided grounds for the CNRP’s dissolution following Khem’s arrest. Given the previous disintegration of FUNCINPEC’s supporter base and the fragmentation of other microparties, this meant that Hun Sen ran virtually unopposed in 2018. Meanwhile, a concerted effort to eradicate the most outspoken newspapers and radio stations dismantled the independent media. To be sure, the influence of the ruling party on the media, especially television and radio, had always been strong. A media monitoring effort in 2013 found over 4,000 references to Prime Minister Hun Sen in contrast to 1,200 combined mentions of the two CNRP leaders, Sam Rainsy and Kem Sokha, and only 170 mentions of FUNCINPEC leader Nhoek Bunchhay on the popular radio FM105.29 Cambodian television by and large did not report on opposition rallies or emphasize negative news, such as traffic disruptions or social unrest, even pre-2013. But the 2017 government crackdown on prominent and outspoken media outlets such as the Cambodia Daily, as well as the shuttering of a total of 32 radio stations, meant the CPP enjoyed blanket favorable media coverage. The Cambodian Center for Independent Media (CCIM) reported the erosion of press freedom, with 67 percent of journalists in 2017 saying they did not feel free to report on all subjects without fear of repression, which was an increase from 58 percent in 2015 and 47 percent in 2014.30 The press freedom watchdog Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) also recorded Cambodia’s drop of 15 places on the organization’s press freedom index from 128 in 2016 to 143 in 2019. The crackdown also worsened the degree of ownership concentration in an already concentrated media sector. Now, a handful of individuals

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and companies own the majority of Cambodian media outlets. According to Media Ownership Monitor Cambodia, a collaboration of RSF and CCIM, four major owners dominate the TV market, reaching 78 percent of the national audience. In the printed press, political parallelism runs deep, with three out of four top outlets belonging to owners or newsrooms affiliated with the ruling party.31 Further, the government blocked access to fifteen news media websites the day before and the day of the 2018 election, under the guise of curbing threats to national security.32 The new legal framework severely impeded independent scrutiny of the 2018 elections by election monitoring NGOs. The 2015 NGO law tightened the regulatory environment for both domestic and foreign NGOs. Arduous registration and financial disclosure requirements set high hurdles for the establishment of new organizations and provided easy recourse for the disbandment of existing ones. Even more instrumental were the new neutrality requirements, removal criteria and terrorism provisions.33 Article 30 of the NGO law, for instance, allows the Ministry of Interior to dissolve NGOs conducting “activities that endanger the security, stability and public order, or jeopardize the national security, culture, tradition, and custom of Cambodian national society.”34 Such vague language was then readily interpreted by compliant courts to selectively target individual NGOs. The NGO Law’s registration requirements were invoked to shut down the National Democratic Institute (NDI), a long-time observer of elections in the country, and to expel all its staff in August 2017. Domestic election monitoring and advocacy groups who had monitored all elections since 1998—such as the Committee for Free and Fair Elections in Cambodia, the Neutral and Impartial Committee for Free and Fair Elections in Cambodia (NICFEC), and Transparency International Cambodia—also bore the brunt of the crackdown. In line with best practices and codes of conduct under the Global Network of Domestic Election Monitors, these groups had expanded their repertoire of monitoring techniques to conduct parallel vote tabulations, media monitoring, voter registry audits, and sample-based election day observation. In addition, they also engaged in electoral reform advocacy over the years, producing concrete policy recommendations and making them an inconvenient thorn in the side of the ruling party. The Ministry of Interior alleged that these election scrutineers had violated the neutrality requirements of the NGO Law and issued a cease-and-desist order to stop all election monitoring activities.35 As a result, any independent monitoring of the 2018 polls by domestic observers was prevented.

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In the end, the Asian Network for Free Elections (ANFREL) was the only credible monitoring group scrutinizing the polls, as the European Union and other refused to legitimize the election by sending monitors. All the while, a number of handpicked “shadow” monitors without international credentials gave the election a clean bill of health.36 This absence of independent oversight translates into the extremely low score on the vote count subdimension of the PEI survey, which includes items regarding the obstruction of domestic and international observers, the fairness of the count, and the security of the ballot. So, why the excess? Hun Sen has shifted away from subtler forms of manipulation (e.g., tampering with the voter registry) toward much less sophisticated, repressive tactics, such as the banning of opposition parties, media repression, and the redesign of electoral laws. But what emboldened the regime to escalate its electoral malpractice to the point that the CPP now controls 100 percent of seats in parliament? While electoral manipulation is a tool that autocrats can use to contain threats to their incumbency, it can also be costly, because it may increase popular outrage37 or lead to the withdrawal of “democracy-contingent benefits” such as foreign aid.38 A rational autocrat should therefore use forms of manipulation that are just severe and visible enough to ensure immediate regime survival, but not too severe and visible, so as to minimize other negative repercussions. Outright repression should be expected only if the regime is immediately threatened, while the “softer” tactics of clientelism or massaging the voter roll should occur when a regime has a longer time horizon in mind. If these theoretical conjectures are true, comparing the tactics employed by the CPP in 2013 to those in in 2018 suggests that the party did not see an immediate threat to its rule before the 2013 poll. In contrast, in 2018 there seemed to have been a real sense of uncertainty, prompting the shift toward blatant repression. Hun Sen reacted to the electoral threat signaled by the near loss of the absolute majority in 2013 and exacerbated by the landslide pro-CNRP swing of the 2017 commune council elections by decreasing the sophistication of electoral malpractice. He thereby went further than other regional autocracies. The Barisan Nasional in Malaysia, for instance, stopped short of such overbearingly repressive measures—and eventually lost power in the process (see Chapter 7). Hun Sen felt that he would get away with his ramping-up of excessive manipulation, because the threat of international sanctions and the loss of foreign aid had lost its teeth by 2018. Over the preceding decade, Cambodian dependence on Western technical assistance and aid had sharply decreased, while the

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influx of investments and aid from China, a country without any interest in democracy promotion, had exploded. A snapshot of this development is provided by a comparison of official development assistance (ODA) flows to Cambodia. Aid from Western donors such as the United States and the European Union remained relatively stagnant, increasing only slightly from US$70 million in 2008 to US$87 million in 2016 (United States) or US$37 million to US$62 million (European Union), respectively.39 In contrast, Chinese aid increased tenfold, from US$4.5 million in 2008 to US$44.7 million in 2014.40 While still not matching Western aid in absolute terms, Chinese ODA has certainly alleviated Cambodia’s reliance on the former. This does not yet count the other official flows from China to Cambodia of US$4.1billion from 2008 to 2014,41 or Chinese foreign direct investment (FDI) in the country, amounting to US$9.6 billion from 1994 to 2013.42 This makes China by far the largest foreign benefactor of the Cambodian economy, with its investment doubling that of the U.S. and the EU combined. Cambodia’s China alignment stretches across all sectors of the economy from infrastructure, agriculture, tourism, to military cooperation. For instance, China received exclusive rights to Cambodian naval facilities on the Gulf of Thailand, literally displacing United States– funded facilities in the same area.43 The prime minister’s office itself, not the Council for the Development of Cambodia, directly manages largescale Chinese aid projects, giving Hun Sen considerable leeway to direct Chinese money as he sees fit. His promise to deliver electricity to 70 percent of households by 2030, for instance, is backed by the financial heft of the state-owned China Huaneng Group’s investment into hydropower projects.44 Emblematic of the strategic use of these investments and their profound effect on electoral politics was the announcement—midway through the 2018 election campaign—of US$259 million in concessional Chinese loans to fund a ring road in Phnom Penh.45 In short, economic dependence on Western aid and credit has diminished during the 2010s, making Cambodia much less vulnerable to “democracy-contingent benefits” or other carrots theorized to incentivize authoritarian compliance with norms of electoral integrity. It is in some way a tragic confluence of circumstances that international opportunity structures allowed Hun Sen’s regime to take the electoral gloves off just in the same moment that a cohesive opposition mounted a credible threat to its continued dominance. Electoral threat (motive) and a lack of deterrence (opportunity) thus explain why elections in Cambodia deteriorated to the point of hegemonic dominance between 2013 and 2018.

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In The Right Place at The Right Time? Spatial Patterns of Electoral Malpractice Why did the regime not continue with the same old manipulations— simply committing more of them—rather than change tactics? To answer this question, this section delves deeper into the pivotal 2013 election and maps the spatial patterns of electoral malpractice, drawing on two sources of data: voter registration rates of the country’s 1,621 communes;46 and reports of election day irregularities from more than 5,000 polling places by domestic election observers fielded by COMFREL. Understanding where electoral malpractice occurs provides crucial clues about the incumbent’s strategic calculus and his ability to control the actual allocation of malpractice. This is the case even in Cambodia’s proportional representation system, which alleviates some of the worst incentives for local fraud known from majoritarian electoral systems.47 Parliamentary seats in Cambodia are allocated to party lists in twenty-five constituencies delineated along provincial borders.48 Nine of these constituencies are single-member districts, therefore employing a de facto plurality system.49 Given that some provinces are opposition strongholds and others are secure CPP zones, one might expect that an autocrat aiming to minimize electoral threat would concentrate electoral manipulation on opposition heartlands rather than electorally safe areas. The analysis of the data shows that the allocation of inflated voter registers is indeed consistent with this strategic calculus. In contrast, election day malpractice is most severe not where the opposition is strongest, but rather where it is weakest. This “misallocation” suggests that the regime’s control over those local agents who actually carry out election day fraud—such as village chiefs, poll workers, or party members in local positions of power, is imperfect. They cannot be relied upon to “deliver” just the right amount of rigging as requested. If that is the case, then ordering more election day fraud would therefore not have achieved the desired result of neutralizing the opposition. Hence the move toward more heavy-handed tactics occurred. Together, this suggests that to understand why the proverbial gloves came off between 2013 and 2018, we need to consider along with motive and opportunity the autocrat’s control over the local agents responsible for electoral malpractice. Figure 8.3 visualizes the spatial patterns of electoral malpractice in the 2013 election. The graph plots two different tactics of malpractice, voter registry anomalies and election day irregularities, aggregated to the

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Figure 8.3

Electoral Malpractice in Cambodia 2013 at Province Level, by CNRP Support

Sources: Boyle, “Giving More Than 100 Percent”; COMFREL data. Notes: Voter registration = number of registered voters of voting-age population; N = 1,621 communes; for election-day malpractice, N = 5,706 polling places.

province level. Each dot represents a province. The X-axis shows the vote share for the main opposition party, the CNRP, in the 2012 commune council elections in that province. This serves as a proxy for electoral threat perceived by the ruling party. The Y-axis shows the extent of electoral malpractice, scaled and mean-centered to make them comparable. Thus, a 0 on the Y-axis means that the province experienced the average amount of that type of malpractice, while a one means it experienced one standard deviation more than the average. The analysis allows a nuanced look at centrally and locally controlled forms of malpractice. Centrally Controlled Malpractice The over- or under-registration of voters had previously been used in Cambodia to boost the ruling party’s vote share (see Figures 8.1 and 8.2). As discussed above, voter lists in the 2013 election diverged significantly in many places from the actual voting-age population. This was due to missing voters, duplicates, or deceased or unknown voters. Two independent voter-registry audits, one conducted by the NDI, Cam-

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bodia’s Center for Advanced Studies, and NICFEC, and another one conducted by COMFREL, found that 10.5–13.5 percent of eligible voters who thought they were registered did not actually appear on official registration lists.50 This amounts to more than a million disenfranchised voters (out of an electorate of about 9.6 million). At the same time, up to 18.3 percent of names on the voter list were invalid, according to the NICFEC audit, either because they were deceased, lived somewhere else, or were completely made-up names. This opened the door to “ghost voting,” or ballot-box stuffing. Registration rates give a vital clue as to the “efficient” central allocation of electoral malpractice. Is there any evidence that voter lists prepared by CPP loyalists in each commune included deceased or fictitious electors to inflate ruling party turnout? In July 2013, the Phnom Penh Post published a comparison of the number of registered voters with the official voting-age population based on the National Committee for Subnational Democratic Development’s census data, which allow a look at the spatial pattern of registration rates.51 Out of 1,621 communes, 110 had a registration rate of under 90 percent (some as low as 31 percent). On the other hand, 537 communes showed improbable registration rates of above 110 percent, going in some cases as high as 209 percent. Importantly, the mean registration rate across all the country’s communes is 107 percent, suggesting a concerted effort to inflate the voter rolls as a whole. The upper pane of Figure 8.3 shows that, when aggregated to the province level, this type of malpractice was quite “efficiently” allocated in the 2013 election. Provinces with a strong CNRP support base—such as Phnom Penh, Kandal, Prey Veng, and Kampong Cham—had more communes with serious over-registration. In contrast, ruling party strongholds like Stung Treng, Banteay Meanchey, and Mondulkiri had rather accurate registration rates. This suggests a centrally orchestrated effort to overpower expected high opposition turnout with ballot-box stuffing, ghost voting, and multiple voting in favor of the CPP, for which inflated voter lists paved the way. Yet it is plausible that this tried-and-true tactic had by 2013 reached its limit, given that a tenth of the whole voter list was already fraudulent. Furthermore, civil society advocates had developed tools to expose registration fraud reliably, therefore possibly limiting its use. Locally Controlled Malpractice An even more fine-grained look at the micro-patterns of malpractice is possible by drawing on the reports of 11,480 short-term observers

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deployed to 5,706 of Cambodia’s 19,009 polling places on the election day of July 28, 2013. 52 The election observers were volunteers recruited, trained, and deployed by COMFREL and several other domestic election monitoring initiatives. I used the event reports from all observed polling places to construct a dichotomous indicator of election day malpractice, which was coded as “yes” if any out of fifteen possible occurrences took place, including voters being denied despite valid identification, multiple voting, pre-filled ballot papers, voting of ineligible voters, voter intimidation, or irregularities during the counting of ballots. In total, COMFREL’s short-term observers reported 11,402 cases of irregularities.53 Out of the 5,706 observed polling stations, 1,285 (23 percent) experienced some electoral malpractice, while 4,421 (77 percent) were reported as having no problems. The suppression of voters was by far the most prevalent type of electoral malpractice, with 19 percent of locations reporting problems associated with denial of voters on election day. Intimidation (5 percent of polling stations), and inflation of vote counts (6 percent of polling stations) were far less common. This corresponds well with other research, which has found suppression tactics are commonplace. Caroline Hughes describes the mechanics of these suppression tactics: Individuals who are identified as opposition supporters are marginalised from village level activities during the election campaign and on polling day itself. These individuals are not assisted with registration, with finding appropriate forms of identity, or in finding their names on polling lists. They are also not invited to come and vote, which for some groups constitutes a considerable barrier to their participation. These voters are therefore far more likely than average to fail to vote.54

The bottom pane of Figure 8.3 reports the extent of election day malpractice as the percentage of observed polling places in a province that experienced any form of irregularity.55 Remote areas bordering neighbouring Thailand, Laos, and Vietnam experienced disproportionate amounts of election day malpractice, more so than urban or densely populated provinces. In particular, the northwestern province of Oddar Meanchey appeared to be rife with instances of misconduct, with 92 percent of observed polling stations reporting malpractice. Other rural provinces with high levels of malpractice were Stung Treng (53 percent of polling places), Ratanakiri (51 percent), or Pailin (47 percent). At the same time, the densely populated provinces of Kampong Cham, Kam-

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pong Chnang, Kandal, and Prey Veng were less likely to experience election day irregularities, with “only” 13 to 22 percent of polling places here reporting such activity. In the capital of Phnom Penh about half of all polling places show malpractice. As the figure shows, the allocation of election day malpractice correlates with opposition support, in that less (not more) irregularities occur where the opposition is strong. This is the inverse of the pattern observed for voter registration fraud. In other words, election day malpractice did not occur where it should occur if efficiently allocated through a central actor aiming to minimize electoral threat. One plausible reason is that such central control over the machinery of fraud eludes the regime. The actual activities associated with electoral malpractice are conducted by local agents such as polling station officials, village strong men, and municipal bureaucrats. Village chiefs in particular exert considerable social control and know which family has voted for which party.56 While the regime elite at the center may signal the wish for “boosting” the vote in certain locations, such signals are not translated into local action in a straightforward fashion. Local agents are constrained by their own cost-benefit calculations. As each agent does not know what happens in other polling places, the safe strategy is to “overproduce” electoral malpractice in order to demonstrate loyalty to higher-up regime elites.57 And as the overproduction of fraud is more feasible where the ruling party is already strong—because local party control over village heads and commune councils allows fraud agents to get away unpunished with fraudulent behaviour—this may explain the observed “inefficient” allocation of election day malpractice in ruling party strongholds.58 In summary, the spatial patterns of inflated voter rolls and election day irregularities suggest that the regime has some but not total control over the machinery of fraud allocation. The question posed in the aftermath of the 2013 polls—whether “more” of the old tactics of malpractice would be enough to neutralize electoral threat—might thus have been answered in the negative. More over-registration, although possible by means of central command would not have achieved the desired results, given that the voter roll was already grotesquely inflated. On the other hand, the local machinery of malpractice could not be relied upon to funnel election day cheating to the opposition bastions where it was really needed. Hence, in addition to motive and opportunity, imperfect control of the apparatus of malpractice allocation explains why the regime reacted to the 2013 threat with all-out repression instead of more of the same.

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Conclusion The year 2013 was the beginning of the end of competitive elections in Cambodia. In this chapter, I traced the patterns of electoral malpractice in Cambodia along their temporal, tactical, and spatial axes. I argued that variation in malpractice is at its root an outcome of three things: motive by the ruling party to minimize electoral threat; constraining international environment; and the control over the concrete agents producing malpractice at the local level. The analysis of the period between 2013 and 2018 opens a window into the strategic calculus of electoral authoritarian rule, in which electoral malpractice serves direct goals, such as winning elections, and indirect goals, such as demonstrating invincibility and acquiring information about political support, while at the same time minimizing international and domestic backlash. A long stable equilibrium of entrenched and subtle manipulation—primarily relying on voter intimidation, control over the electoral authorities, clientelism, and tampering with the voter register—had proven fit for the purpose of ensuring Hun Sen’s rule since 1993. This equilibrium was upset by the swell of opposition support in the 2013 national election and the 2017 local elections. These two events provided the motive to ramp up the intensity of election rigging, while less dependence from Western finance due to the influx of Chinese money provided the opportunity. Finally, the regime’s imperfect control over the local agents of malpractice precluded continuing old tactics with higher intensity. Instead, the ruling party took off the gloves. It resorted to an outright ban of the opposition, closed critical media outlets, and cracked down on civil society. These blatantly dictatorial measures created a new stable equilibrium of CPP dominance for the foreseeable future, at the expense of civil and political liberties, and at a much lower or nonexistent level of electoral integrity.

Notes 1. Grömping, “Cambodia’s 2013 Elections.” 2. Morgenbesser, “Cambodia’s Transition to Hegemonic Authoritarianism”; Croissant, “Cambodia in 2018.” A competitive electoral authoritarian regime is one where general elections, while subverted by systemic and widespread manipulations, provide a significant amount of competition and uncertainty to incumbent rule. In contrast, under hegemonic authoritarianism, real political competition is fully absent. See Schedler, The Politics of Uncertainty. 3. ANFREL, The 2018 Cambodian Elections.

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4. Sullivan, Cambodia Votes. pp. 101–102; Strangio, Hun Sen’s Cambodia, pp. 82–85. 5. Morgenbesser, “Misclassification on the Mekong.” 6. Weyden, “Parliamentary Elections in Cambodia.” 7. McCargo, “Cambodia.” 8. The first commune council elections of 2002 resulted in 99 percent of councils headed by a CPP party member. This number dropped only very slightly to 98 percent in 2007 and 97 percent in 2012. 9. Hughes, “Understanding the Elections.” 10. Ibid. 11. Norén-Nilsson, “Good Gifts, Bad Gifts, and Rights.” 12. Croissant, “Cambodia in 2017.” 13. Phom and Willemyns, “Government Creates New CPP-Majority Province.” 14. Brownlee, Authoritarianism in an Age of Democratization; Schedler, The Politics of Uncertainty. 15. Simpser, Why Governments and Parties Manipulate Elections. 16. Schedler, “The Menu of Manipulation.” 17. Ong, “Electoral Manipulation, Opposition Power, and Institutional Change.” 18. Norris and Grömping, “Perceptions of Electoral Integrity.” 19. For a discussion of the merits of using expert assessments over other types of measurement, an in-depth description of the methodology, and the validity of the instrument, see Norris, Frank, and Ferran, “Measuring Electoral Integrity Around the World”; Martínez i Coma and Ham, “Can Experts Judge Elections?” 20. Countries in East Asia covered by the survey are: Cambodia, Indonesia, Japan, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Mongolia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, Timor-Leste, and Vietnam, 21. The reason is of course that Cambodia, different from some other regional neighbors features a proportional representation electoral system, which offers much fewer opportunities for electoral engineering tactics such as gerrymandering. Still, the electoral constituencies (provinces) are malapportioned (see Croissant, Electoral Politics in Cambodia), and nine out of twenty-five provinces feature a defacto plurality system, due to a district magnitude of one. 22. Morgenbesser, “The Failure of Democratisation by Elections”; Hughes, “The Politics of Gifts.” 23. Garnett, “Evaluating Electoral Management Body Capacity.” 24. Croissant, Electoral Politics in Cambodia. 25. COMFREL, Final Report;; NDI, Report on the Voter Registry Audit. 26. COMFREL, Finding and Recommendation. 27. Thul, “Cambodia Election.” 28. Croissant, Electoral Politics in Cambodia; O’Neill, “Cambodia in 2016.” 29. ERA, “Statement on Concerns.” 30. CCIM, Challenges for Independent Media. 31. See http://cambodia.mom-rsf.org/en/findings/ownership. 32. COMFREL, Democracy, Elections, and Reform in Cambodia, p. 111. 33. Curley, “Governing Civil Society in Cambodia.” 34. Kingdom of Cambodia, “Law on Associations.” 35. Sokhean and Paviour, “Interior Ministry Issues Stop-Order.” 36. Morgenbesser, “Fake Monitors Endorse Cambodia’s Sham Election”; ANFREL, The 2018 Cambodian Elections. 37. Kuntz and Thompson, “More Than Just the Final Straw,” 38. Hyde, The Pseudo-Democrat’s Dilemma. 39. OECD, “Geographical Distribution of Financial Flows.”

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40. Dreher et al, “Aid, China, and Growth.” 41. OECD, “Geographical Distribution of Financial Flows.” 42. O’Neill, “Playing Risk.” 43. Page, Lubold, and Taylor, “Deal for Naval Outpost.” 44. Hameiri, “Cambodia’s Electric Chinese Aid and Investment Affair.” 45. Allard and Thul, “Cambodia’s Hun Sen.” 46. Boyle, “Giving More Than 100%.” 47. Lehoucq and Kolev, “Varying the Un-Variable.” 48. The twenty-fifth constituency/province Tbong Khmum was created in December 2013, splitting up the CNRP stronghold province Kampong Cham. Phom and Willemyns, “Government Creates New CPP-Majority Province.” 49. COMFREL, 2013 National Assembly Elections Final Assessment and Report, p. 41. 50. NDI, Report on the Voter Registry Audit; COMFREL, Final Report. 51. Boyle, “Giving More than 100%.” 52. COMFREL, 2013 National Assembly Elections Final Assessment and Report, p. 107. 53. Ibid., p. 10. 54. Hughes, “Understanding the Elections in Cambodia 2013,” p. 10. 55. These aggregated numbers should be interpreted cautiously, because the allocation of election observers is in itself not randomly distributed across provinces. The percentage of observed polling stations in a province ranges from only 11 percent in Stung Treng, to a stunning 69 percent in the opposition stronghold of Kampong Cham. These patterns seem to indicate an expectation on the side of election watchdog groups as to where malpractice was most likely to occur— namely in places expected to turn out for the CNRP. Having said that, with a total observation rate of more than one quarter of all polling places, it stands to argue that the observer reports represent the overall pattern of malpractice rather accurately. 56. Sedara and Öjendal, “Decentralization as a Strategy,” p. 123. 57. Rundlett and Svolik, “Deliver the Vote!” 58. Additional explanations for the divergent patterns in pre-electoral and election-day malpractice are not explicitly considered here but could be at play. First, local agents may hold back election-day manipulations where the voter register is already fixed, to minimize unnecessary exposure to negative repercussions while still “delivering” the vote. Second, the logics of information-acquisition or of signalling strength may superimpose on the autocrat’s logic to secure a win (i.e., respond to electoral threat). The former would predict an allocation of malpractice to regime strongholds, while the latter suggests an allocation to opposition strongholds. The empirical evidence could be consistent with either.

PART 2 Local and Unelected Actors: Manipulation Without Incumbents

9

Indonesia: Different Actors, Different Tools Seth Soderborg

ELECTIONS WERE NOT NEW IN INDONESIA WHEN THE COUNTRY HELD free and fair elections in 1999. Forty-four years prior, Indonesians had gone to the polls for the first time, in an election that was considered free and fair by the standards of the time.1 On five occasions during Suharto’s New Order dictatorship, Indonesians voted in unfree elections. As Benedict Anderson wrote, those New Order–era elections “were carefully managed to produce externally plausible two-thirds majorities for Golkar,” the ruling party.2 Ballot stuffing, coercion, legal restrictions on non-Golkar parties, and the direct involvement of government, military, and Golkar party officials in the count process ensured that Golkar would always win. But polling stations were set up, votes were counted, campaigns mobilized, and, after 1982, witnesses sent to monitor the polls.3 Thus, Indonesia began its democratic period with a robust infrastructure for running elections. That infrastructure today runs the world’s largest single-day elections4 with admirable effectiveness. Evidence of electoral manipulation and reports of violence have declined over the twenty years since democratization. I argue that overlapping and independent watchdog institutions have made the once routine, large-scale electoral manipulation of the Suharto era all but impossible to carry out. This is an impressive accomplishment. What problems remain stem from the size of the system, open-list electoral rules, and regulatory weaknesses. With the removal of a system for manufacturing majorities and the introduction of overlapping

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oversight, it is only in situations where manipulation might not be detected and might be decisive that we should now expect manipulation to occur. Evidence presented in this chapter is consistent with the hypothesis that large-scale manipulation is rare, but that local legislative races may be subject to more frequent manipulation. The current system still contains some opportunities for manipulation: open-list proportional electoral rules create incentives for legislative candidates to engage in manipulation, oversight does not yet reach every polling station, the burden of identifying and reporting misconducts falls largely on candidates, and the long, laborious hand-count procedures create opportunities for vote counters to alter ballots after the election. Because key parts of the election regulatory apparatus depend on complaints from political parties, forms of manipulation that occur with the consent of parties are difficult to prevent. In addition, distinct regulatory regimes in Aceh, Papua, and West Papua mean that not all Indonesians enjoy equal voting rights. Two decades of reform succeeded in creating an independent and accountable election administration. Overlapping oversight can be cumbersome, and candidates sometimes struggle to navigate it, but it has turned manipulation from the norm into the exception. Today, the greatest threat to electoral integrity comes not from manipulators, but from candidates who, expecting to lose, work to discredit election authorities. In this chapter, I set the scene of contemporary electoral politics in Indonesia, paying special attention to the bodies that administer elections. I then discuss electoral manipulation as practiced in Indonesia today.

Contemporary Electoral Politics Indonesia’s general elections take place every five years. Turnout has been above 70 percent in every general election since democratization. Local elections used to take place in non-general election years according to a rotating schedule; starting in 2024, they will take place simultaneously, a few months after general elections. Elections at all levels are intensely competitive. Frequent changes to electoral regulations mean that the dynamics of races can change dramatically from one election to the next. The 1999 and 2004 legislative elections both used closed-list proportional representation, but constituency boundaries changed from provincial boundaries to sub-provincial legislative districts. The 2009 legislative election was conducted under a

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partially open list following a surprise court decision. And the 2014 and 2019 legislative elections used a fully open list. Parliamentary thresholds and the formulas for allocating seats have changed with each election. Over the past two decades, district and provincial executives have been elected indirectly by the local legislatures, directly elected by voters in runoff races, and today are chosen in one-round simple plurality races. Since 2004, the president has been elected through a runoff majority election. The current use of open-list proportional representation in legislative races and one-round plurality in gubernatorial and district chief elections means that margins of victory tend to be quite narrow. In their study of ballot stuffing in Costa Rica, Lehoucq and Molina argue that intense competition, decentralization, and “the possibility that fraud could be decisive”5 all contribute to parties’ desire to keep the option of electoral manipulation open. In Indonesia, these conditions are met at the lower levels of politics, but it is individual candidates more than parties who have the incentives to seek alternative ways of obtaining votes. At higher levels of competition, especially the race for president, the number of votes needed to cross the line is much larger. In these races, the logistical challenges accompanying manipulation are tremendous, the odds of detection increase, and the chances that manipulation will be decisive are slim. It is in the legislature and local executive races that we should expect more frequent manipulation.

Parties and Candidates Since democratization in 1999, Indonesia has experienced an explosion, and subsequent consolidation, of political parties. Forty-eight parties contested the 1999 elections; the 2019 race featured fourteen. Of these, nine won seats in the 2019–2024 national parliament. At present, all recognized political parties agree to the principle of a neutral electoral regulatory authority, and all but Gerindra support the maintenance of the current (democratic) constitutional order.6 Indonesia’s largest party today is the Party of Indonesian Democratic Struggle (PDIP). Associated with secular nationalism, it is the preferred party of non-Muslims and less religious Javanese voters. It is the party of the current president. Joining it in the most recent presidential coalition were the National Awakening Party (PKB), an Islamic party

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closely connected to the Council of Islamic Scholars, Indonesia’s largest religious organization; the National Democratic Party, a vehicle for the interests of media mogul Surya Paloh; and Hanura, a vehicle for the interests of retired general Wiranto.7 Several parties that opposed one or both of Jokowi’s runs for president have been forced into his ruling coalition. Mietzner has written in detail about this unusual process.8 Golkar, the New Order–era ruling party, has been a reluctant coalition member. It is a patronage-based party with limited ideological motivations. The United Development Party (PPP), a more conservative Islamic party, has been another reluctant coalition member. The National Mandate Party (PAN), a conservative Islamic party associated with the Muhammadiyah religious organization, was another reluctant member of the ruling coalition. Despite its strong support for presidential challenger Prabowo Subianto in 2019, it has once again joined Jokowi’s government. Outside of the most recent ruling coalition is the Democratic Party, the vehicle for former president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. The formal opposition from 2014 through 2020 consisted of the secular nationalist Gerindra party, which doubles as a vehicle for Prabowo Subianto, the perennial presidential contender and ex-son in law of Suharto, and the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS), a disciplined, conservative Islamist party with historic ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. Prabowo and his Gerindra party have since joined the government, leaving only the Democratic Party and the PKS on the outside. As the gap between electoral and ruling coalitions suggests, parties often find it difficult to operate without access to the state’s patronage.9 Fluid coalitional dynamics create opportunities for vote trading and reduce incentives for parties to formally dispute election results.

Regulators and Courts Election administration in Indonesia is carried out by multiple independent bodies with separate responsibilities for conducting elections, issuing regulations, reporting and punishing misconduct, and adjudicating disputes. As with all post-1999 institutions, these bodies are decentralized, with the most important decisionmaking powers residing at the district (Kabupaten/Kota) level. Both vote counting and the monitoring of election disputes are done with the help of volunteers, who number in the hundreds of thousands.10

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The General Election Commission At present, four institutions are responsible for the planning and execution of elections, as well as the adjudication of election-related disputes. Foremost among these is the General Election Commission (KPU). In the 1999 elections, the KPU’s national commissioners were chosen from among the parties. After that body failed to certify the elections it itself ran, a consensus developed among policymakers and political parties that election administration should be separated from the other branches of government.11 Since 2004, the KPU has been an independent body, meaning that it does not fall within a line ministry and does not sit inside the reporting structure of the executive, legislative, or judicial branches. Prior to 1998, election administration was the responsibility of a division of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, which handles local government. The independent KPU implements rules on candidacy, determines whether parties are eligible to appear on the ballot, directs the process of voter registration, sets the boundaries of electoral districts, distributes ballots and ballot boxes, and conducts the final tally of the votes. The structure of the KPU follows Indonesia’s decentralized local government hierarchy, with commissions empaneled at the national, provincial, and district levels. District and provincial election commissions wield significant discretion to invalidate candidacies and certify vote counts. KPU commissioners are selected through a consultative process in the localities where they sit. Commissioners are not permitted to have held elected office nor to have been a member of a political party in the previous five years. Most commissioners have backgrounds in reformfocused civil society organizations, as these are the organizations that participate in the selection process.12 Candidacy and party eligibility requirements are onerous, and candidates and parties need to secure the approval of multiple district-level KPUs. As a result, single committees are regularly able to disrupt national parties and gubernatorial campaigns by triggering protracted legal battles over a candidate’s eligibility to run in that district.13 Bawaslu A second independent body monitors the performance of election administrators. In its current form, this entity is known as the Bawaslu.

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The election watchdog organization dates to the pre-democracy era. After street protests and complaints of misconduct following the 1971 and 1977 elections, the government agreed to create a monitoring body to keep an eye on the Interior Ministry’s election division.14 The current Bawaslu acts as both a clearing house for complaints and an investigative agency. In some cases, the Bawaslu can rule on administrative decisions by the KPU, turning the watchdog into a quasiappellate tribunal for election-related disputes. In the run-up to the 2019 elections, the Bawaslu ruled that the KPU could not disqualify two small parties (the Crescent Star Party [PBB] and the Indonesian Justice and Unity Party [PKPI]) from running in 2019, and held that the KPU lacked the power to disqualify candidates convicted of corruption.15 Parties and candidates with the resources to pursue lengthy court cases have repeatedly managed to get the Bawaslu to throw out unfavorable KPU rulings. Candidates and parties without those resources have not fared as well. Election Administration Honor Commission A third independent body acts as an oversight body toward both the KPU and Bawaslu. The Election Administration Honor Commission (DKPP) adjudicates claims of misconduct made against members of the KPU or Bawaslu. It has the power to dismiss members of both organizations. In a review of cases heard by the Honor Commission from 2013 to 2014, I found that about half of the cases concerned findings by the Bawaslu that members of the KPU in some locality had made mistakes in their process, while about one-third concerned allegations that a local KPU member had either breached neutrality (i.e., by posting support for a candidate on social media) or been caught receiving money from candidates. The Constitutional Court An important role in election administration is also played by Indonesia’s Constitutional Court. The court has sole power to hear and decide on cases challenging the result of an election. Since 2008, the court has developed a standard requiring that plaintiffs alleging electoral misconduct must show that it is “structured, systematic, and massive such that it could have altered the outcome of the election.”16 Few cases the court has heard meet that standard; when the standard is met, the usual remedy is to order a revote in the subdistricts or polling stations affected. The 2008 East Java gubernatorial election, the first in which the court

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ordered a revote, stands out as a rare case in which the court ordered a revote across the entirety of two districts, rather than in a handful of polling stations or subdistricts. Since democratization, the Indonesian government has granted greater autonomy to its election administrators. The government has repeatedly used the creation of overlapping but independent oversight bodies as its main tool for ensuring that elections are conducted properly. Political parties have been loath to contest this system, in part because parties in danger of disqualification by the KPU have used well-timed appeals to the Bawaslu to retain their certifications. Candidates and parties with access to experienced legal counsel are better able to navigate the networks of tribunals through which political rights are exercised and protected. Vote Counting The formal administrative systems of the KPU and Bawaslu extend to the district government level. Below this, the work of checking voter rolls, running polling places, and counting the votes is done by tens of thousands of polling station committees. Polling station committee members are volunteers; often they are drawn from the ranks of the neighborhood association system committees.17 One of the most important legacies of the New Order–era election system is the lengthy vote count process, which affords numerous opportunities for changes to the final vote totals. After the polls close at 1:00 P.M., polling station committee members begin a hand count of the ballots cast. The count is public and carried out in the open. Witnesses from campaigns and members of the village election monitoring committee are usually present. At the end of the vote tally process, the committee members post the count outside the polling place, where witnesses and survey agencies can verify the results. Survey agencies use the posted forms to conduct “quick counts,” which are large samples of polling station-level results that have a track record of estimating election results to within a 0.2 percent margin of the final result. Quick count estimates and the tallies made by campaigns’ witnesses were, for fifteen years, the only clue the public had to the outcome of the election during the two-week counting process. Beginning with the 2014 presidential election, the polling station forms are scanned and put into a publicly accessible KPU-maintained database, allowing anyone to view the results of the election at the polling station

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level. These records are not always complete for legislative and local elections. Nonetheless, the combination of quick counts and immediate access to polling station-level results has made it much more difficult to alter vote tallies during the aggregation process that generates the official count. The Rekapitulasi Vote Aggregation Process Over the two weeks following an election in Indonesia, counts are aggregated at each level of government. Polling station tally forms are sent to the village-level election committee, which aggregates the results and sends them to the subdistrict election commission, which sends its aggregated tally to the district KPU. For offices above the district level, the count is then sent to the provincial KPU, and the provincial KPU passes along its results to the national KPU. Each step in this process presents an opportunity for the tally to change. Indeed, embedding these opportunities was part of the design of New Order electoral institutions. Today, each level’s tally is a matter of public record, making it possible, if laborious, to identify differences in the tally across levels. One important weakness remains: the aggregation process is designed only to aggregate votes and, if necessary, correct or clarify errors. Electoral manipulation that alters the vote tally at the polling station level cannot be detected or corrected by the aggregation process. Recognizing the potential for polling station-level manipulation, the Bawaslu now recruits polling station monitors. In the 2014 legislative election, it recruited 900,000 monitors to cover over 545,000 polling stations.18 These village election monitoring commissioners are responsible for reporting to the Bawaslu any inappropriate campaign activities. On election day, they monitor the polling place and tally process for irregularities. The share of Bawaslu cases originating with these witnesses and with Bawaslu commissioners during the campaign has been increasing. In 2014, 69 percent of the body’s 8,380 cases began with internal action; in 2019, 90 percent of its 16,043 cases originated internally; the remainder were complaints filed by outside parties.19 Although the Bawaslu spends a considerable share of its budget encouraging citizens to report violations, most of the body’s time is spent on the cases its personnel detect. This suggests that Bawaslu oversight is most effective when it is most intense: on election day in the polling stations with Bawaslu witnesses. Reports from citizens are relatively rare, limiting the Bawaslu’s ability to ensure compliance during all the campaign days before the election.

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Violations and Money Politics Here I address known and rumored cases of electoral manipulation in democratic Indonesia. The literature on manipulation and fraud consistently reminds us of the difficulty of obtaining information about what is usually an illegal act. In this section, I rely on five kinds of sources: decisions by courts and election administration commissions on allegations of electoral misconduct, press descriptions of court proceedings, the work of other scholars who have studied vote buying, my own interviews with candidates and election administrators in Indonesia, and election returns. The best-documented form of electoral manipulation in Indonesian elections relate to the practice of vote buying. Known as “money politics” in Indonesia, vote buying is described by candidates as routine and ubiquitous.20 So pervasive is the practice of providing money alongside an electoral appeal that Aspinall and As’Ad21 have proposed that the trustworthiness of the people delivering money from a candidate is itself an important heuristic voters use to evaluate candidates. Every race described in Electoral Dynamics in Indonesia, a comprehensive account of the 2014 legislative elections, includes a discussion of vote buying—either candidates did it, often ruefully, or they built their campaign on a promise not to engage in it.22 A typical description appears in Noor Rohman’s account of the legislative race in Pati, Central Java, where the candidate notes that he believes most voters he is attempting to reach have taken money from about four to six other campaigns.23 Public opinion surveys consistently report that eight to twelve percent of respondents admit to having been offered money.24 Given the ubiquity of candidates’ belief that money offers are required, it is likely that a much larger share of voters are offered money— Hicken and colleagues have shown that voters in surveys are unlikely to admit to having been offered money.25 Ubiquitous money politics restricts the field of viable candidates to those who can raise large sums of money. Hadiz has described the sums needed to compete in local elections as a key vehicle through which local elites maintain control of district governments.26 At the same time, elections are not being bought wholesale: candidates are constantly frustrated that the sums they spend to buy votes fail to win them seats in parliament. As Hamdi writes of an election in Madiun, East Java, “no candidate believed that vote buying was the sole determinant of electoral success: nor could it be, when all candidates took part.”27

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Varieties of Manipulation Malpractice by Election Administrators A more serious kind of money politics involves payments to election administrators. Candidates sometimes describe payments to KPU commissioners as an insurance scheme—a way to guarantee that their votes would not be transferred to another member of their party during the rekapitulasi aggregation process.28 Payments to KPU commissioners might not only occur around the vote count. District-level commissioners have wide discretion to invalidate candidacies. Candidates regularly pressure KPU commissioners to disqualify their rivals over documentation issues.29 The Mimika district KPU commission temporarily derailed a gubernatorial campaign after it alone among Papua province KPU commissions ruled that a candidate’s vocational school diploma was false.30 Even the Constitutional Court has not been immune from graft. Onetime chief justice Akil Mokhtar was found to have taken a bribe in relation to an election dispute in Gunung Mas, Central Kalimantan.31 Among complaints that make their way to the Election Administration Honor Commission, outright bribery of a KPU or Bawaslu commissioner is rare. Most of the cases concern misconduct by subdistrictlevel vote counters or election monitors, who are volunteers operating below the formal KPU and Bawaslu. In a review of the sixty-seven Honor Commission decisions arising from the 2014 legislative elections, I found only a few that mentioned KPU members taking bribes. In one case, from Palopo District, South Sulawesi, a police operation caught a member of the district KPU with 8.2 million rupiah in cash and stacks of name cards for three candidates.32 It is not clear, though, whether the money was a bribe or was intended to be distributed to voters along with the name cards. In Tuban District, East Java, subdistrictlevel election monitors (Panwascam) were found with campaign materials and cash.33 More troubling is the accusation by a Gerindra party candidate that 13 subdistrict-level vote-counting committee members in Pasuruan District, East Java, had taken bribes.34 Most members of those committees were removed. Most cases reviewed by the Honor Commission involved minor violations of neutrality, questions of law, and disagreements between the Bawaslu and the KPU about procedure. Cases reviewed by the Honor Commission are not representative of the set of election violations that may have occurred—a case only enters the Honors Commis-

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sion if someone files an ethics complaint against members of the KPU, the Bawaslu, or the vote counting committees operating below them. Overall, Honors Commission records paint a picture of an election system in which problems sometimes occur, but overlapping institutions of oversight operating at multiple levels of government regularly respond to them. Overlapping oversight is an important safeguard against bribery. One consequence of the decentralized and split oversight system is a multiplication of the number of people who would need to be bribed for a candidate to get away with large-scale misconduct. Even if a candidate is able to bribe members of multiple subdistrict vote-counting committees, discrepancies between polling station-level tallies (which are posted at the polling place) and the aggregated counts at higher levels would be enough to trigger review (if someone complained). Moreover, simply failing to provide a candidate’s registered witnesses with the polling station tally is sufficient grounds for either the candidate’s witnesses or Bawaslu’s monitors to bring a complaint. Ballot Stuffing and Voting by the Dead or Absent Ballot-box stuffing was a tried and tested practice of New Order–era elections, which sometimes featured competition between localities to meet or exceed their required Golkar party quota.35 Ballot box stuffing requires two ingredients: absent, co-opted, or cowed oversight; and excess unvoted ballots. One way of obtaining extra ballots for the purpose of voting them later is to manipulate the civil registry, which is used as the basis of the list of registered voters. By keeping deceased or nonresident former voters on the rolls, an election administrator can ensure a surplus of unvoted ballots. Allegations that the dead are on the voter rolls (and attempts to purge them) are a constant in Indonesian elections.36 A Golkar member of parliament (MP) boasted in an interview that his allies in the provincial governor’s office could lean on the civil registry (which is part of the interior ministry and subordinate to local executives) to generate “ghost voters” from the records of the newly deceased.37 Oversight of the civil registry is outside of the scope of election authorities, but the voter rolls are not simply copies of the civil registry. Voter rolls are produced in a two-step process. First, a temporary roll based on the civil registry is released to the public and posted in each neighborhood. Following a two-week period of public comment, the KPU revises the rolls. Local election oversight committees frequently

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identify hundreds of deceased people on the rolls, and they are removed. News stories about deceased and otherwise ineligible voters are a function of this transparency: they happen because the Bawaslu and public have time to review the voter rolls. While most complaints come from Bawaslu members working from tips, the issue of dead or otherwise nonexistent voters resurfaced in the run-up to the 2019 presidential election as part of the Prabowo Subianto campaign’s attempt to discredit the election results in advance. In the updated final voter list the Prabowo campaign identified 15 million entries in the voter file with missing, erroneous or otherwise suspicious data, and argued that the data problems were proof of systematic fraud in the voter file.38 Their principal complaint was that too many millions of people had birth dates of December 31, July 1, or July 15. They argued that this was evidence of large-scale fraud. Election observers found this claim far-fetched, and noted that Ministry of Interior regulations have, at different times, set December 31, July 15, and July 1 as the default birthdate assigned to persons with missing birth records.39 The civil registry and voter list can be tools for manipulation by actors who need surplus ballots. Transparency and a public comment period make the process more difficult, and the most prominent claim of problems with the voter file does not stand up to scrutiny. Intimidation and Ballot Stuffing Fiddling with voter registration is not the only way to ensure that a surplus of unvoted ballots is available to polling station committee members by the end of the day. If few voters show up to the polls, a committee engaging in malpractice can do as they wish with the mostly unvoted ballots—assuming that the registered witnesses are not present. Intimidation is a common way of ensuring that ballot box stuffing can proceed in this way. The 2008 gubernatorial election in East Java contained numerous examples of intimidation followed by ballot-box stuffing at precincts on the island of Madura and in Lamongan district.40 Most cases brought to the Constitutional Court include allegations of intimidation; they are rarely documented. Buying Non-Turnout In their study of the effects of the secret ballot on voting in the United States, Cox and Kousser41 found that parties often pursued strategies designed to reduce voter turnout after they became unable to monitor the

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ballot. There have been occasional reports of candidates or parties paying people not to show up at the polls. In the 2008 East Java gubernatorial election case, a witness alleged that voters were paid 30 to 80 thousand rupiah (about US$3.50–9.00 at the time) not to show up at the polls.42 These accounts are rare, but consistent with research on monitoring and incentives. At a polling station where oversight has been captured by a candidate or party, each absent voter means another unvoted ballot to mark and deposit. Although Indonesia’s high voter turnout rates (82 percent in the 2019 national elections) would seem to suggest that the buying of non-turnout is rare, if non-turnout is being bought for the purpose of freeing ballots to subsequently mark and insert into ballot boxes, turnout rates would remain high in the presence of non-turnout buying. Manipulation of the Rekapitulasi Vote Aggregation Process As detailed already, the multistep vote aggregation process known as rekapitulasi is a frequent source of complaints. The procedure grew out of both the practical need to aggregate over 100 million hand-counted ballots, the structure of the Indonesian state, and the Suharto regime’s desire to ensure Golkar’s numbers were strong. Since democratization, the public posting of polling station-level forms has given candidates a tool to identify and challenge discrepancies between the vote at the polling station and the vote at each subsequent level of aggregation. Obtaining those forms from each station, however, can be a difficult task for campaigns without the money to hire thousands of witnesses. The digital publication of polling station forms, first done in the 2014 presidential election, makes checking the results of the vote aggregation process much easier. In documented cases of electoral manipulation during the rekapitulasi vote aggregation process, courts, the Election Administration Honor Commission, and the Bawaslu sometimes detected errors by noting discrepancies between the number of ballots recorded in the polling station as having been cast, and the sum of valid votes cast according to the aggregated tally.43 The 2008 East Java gubernatorial case described a straightforward method for generating favorable results: in one-sided polling stations that went for the opposition, vote tallies from polling station forms were simply reversed during vote aggregation. This method had the useful secondary property of not altering the number of ballots cast, making it more difficult to detect discrepancies between the levels of the aggregation process.44

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Another way of adjusting the vote totals is to declare ballots cast for some sides as invalid. This can be done at the polling station level, with the declaration of invalidity made during the initial hand count. It can also be done during the rekapitulasi process. In that case, the aggregation forms register a greater number of invalid votes and a concomitant reduction in support for one of the candidates. This latter method is the subject of frequent legal complaints, as it is easy to detect discrepancies in the number of valid ballots recorded.45 Not all examples of tally alteration or vote invalidation during the rekapitulasi process are signs of manipulation. The aggregation process is one place where mistakes at the polling station level are fixed. One common type of error is a misplaced decimal mark, leading to a recorded vote total an order of magnitude larger than the number of ballots delivered to the polling station.46 In these cases, the discrepancy between the aggregated tally and the polling station-level tally is the result of mistakes at the polling station level, rather than malfeasance. Non-Neutrality Indonesian election commissioners consider the neutrality of civil servants to be one of the most important elements of a fair election. The Constitutional Court’s “structured, systematic, and massive” standard has in practice referred to coordination between incumbents and the civil servants they supervise.47 It was exactly this kind of coordination that the New Order-era electoral administration system was designed to produce. One example from the democratic period is the bonus system used in parts of East Java in 2008 to reward village heads for delivering votes to the incumbent governor. In signed memoranda, the governor agreed with the head of the East Java Association of Village Chiefs to pay between 50 and 150 million rupiah (US$65,000–200,000 at then-prevailing exchange rates) to village leaders on a sliding scale based on the number of votes cast in the village and the share of the vote that went to the incumbent.48 A frequent target of campaigns’ efforts, both to persuade and to bribe, are the neighborhood leaders known by their acronyms RT (kepala rukun tetangga) and RW (kepala rukun warga). These volunteers oversee groups of 50 to 150 (for RT) or 200 to 2,400 (for RW) households in most Indonesian communities. Because of their status as volunteers in service of the state, they are bound by neutrality laws. Despite this, they are often important political brokers.49 Offers of club goods to these neighborhood leaders are part of ordinary politics,50 and as Aspinall and As’Ad have suggested, one of the ways incumbent local executives have

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an advantage over other candidates.51 Incumbents can credibly promise, and use the power of the state to unilaterally provide, funds and material to neighborhood leaders. In cities that provide “operational money” to neighborhood leaders, these funds tend to increase in the months before an election.52 In Makassar’s 2018 mayoral election (which was ultimately won by a blank box), incumbent mayor Danny Pomanto was disqualified after the city government gave new phones to all municipal employees—including RT and RW neighborhood leaders.53 Dependence on Witnesses The long rekapitulasi process creates a prolonged period in which candidates are unsure of what has happened in the election. Under the various proportional rules that have governed Indonesian legislative elections, it is especially difficult to track whether a candidate has won enough votes to be entitled to a seat. Alamsyah, in an account of the 2014 election in Musi Banyuasin, South Sumatra, describes how only wealthy candidates and those with party leadership positions were able to deploy enough witnesses to enough polling stations to know on election day whether they had been elected.54 As the vote count moves through the aggregation process, candidates need witnesses at each votecounting committee meeting to ensure that the tallies remain consistent. Witnesses are not cheap—in 2014, witnesses in North Jayapura, Papua expected to be paid about US$30, plus expenses.55 Fahri Hamzah, a former deputy speaker of parliament, estimated in a television interview that the cost of placing witnesses in every polling station of the 2019 presidential election would exceed one trillion rupiah, or about US$70 million.56 Experienced candidates also prepare the witnesses for court litigation: they will need to bring some of their witnesses to the Constitutional Court in Jakarta and hire expensive counsel if they intend to challenge the final result. As digital scans of polling station forms become more ubiquitous, much of the uncertainty around the vote count, and much of the opportunity for changes to the tally during the rekapitaulasi vote aggregation process, is disappearing. Intraparty Bargaining and Theft The introduction of open-list proportional representation has changed the locus of competition in legislative races. Candidates’ most important opponents are members of the same party with higher levels of public support. It is rare for parties to win more than two seats in any given

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constituency, and most parties win one or zero seats in most constituencies. Moving up in the vote total within one’s party is the best way to ensure victory. Candidates describe two common ways this is done after the ballots have been cast: theft and sale. In both cases, vote counting committee members shift ballots from one candidate to another in the same party during the rekapitulasi process.57 While sometimes they do this without the knowledge of the candidate who is losing votes, it is also sometimes done with both candidates’ assent. In tight races, candidates with a chance of winning a seat sometimes make deals with lower-performing candidates to receive some of their votes, in hopes of pulling ahead of other intraparty rivals. When this occurs, witnesses from the candidate whose votes are being taken assent to the change. Such activities cannot be done if Bawaslu monitors or witnesses from intraparty rivals’ campaigns are also present. This particular account is consistent with incentives among candidates, but it is worth noting that there is little documented evidence that this kind of post-election switch happens often. One reason for this may be the simple fact that intraparty disputes do not have the same standing before the courts (a holdover from the prior closed-list system). Alamsyah reminds us that, “because it is the political parties that have legal standing at the Court to bring misconduct cases in the legislative elections, many of the bitterest conflicts between candidates within a party could not be resolved.”58 Because margins of victory are small and monitoring mechanisms are not well-equipped to handle intraparty disputes, incentives for intraparty vote sales and vote theft are strong. However, because most accounts of these behaviors come from losing candidates—who have incentives to claim their losses were the result of manipulation but usually lack standing to bring an intraparty dispute to court—it is difficult to determine how common these intra-party movements of votes actually are. Interparty Bargaining Because the election dispute-resolution system requires that parties file complaints, it does function in situations where parties do not choose to complain. In most situations where party vote totals are affected by manipulation, they are quick to bring a case. But there are accounts of parties selling their votes to other parties using election commission members as intermediaries.59 The details of one case help illustrate the narrow circumstances under which the oversight system might fail to prevent interparty vote transfers.

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According to former officials from three parties, during the 2019 vote aggregation process, members of the PDIP party became concerned that a smaller Islamic party, the United Development Party (PPP), might fail to cross the vote threshold needed to take its seats in parliament. Fearing that those seats might end up in the hands of a more hostile party, PDIP officials made a deal with the small PKPI party to transfer votes from the PKPI to the PPP. Since the PKPI was well below the parliamentary threshold, selling these votes to the PPP was a way to monetize otherwise wasted votes. The mechanics of the sale were, as with intraparty vote transfers, negotiated through local election commissioners who changed aggregated vote tallies. If the vote transfers were spread out across a few districts, such that they did not change the distribution of seats within those districts, it is unclear whether any party (other than the PKPI) would have had standing to challenge the result. This case illustrates the narrow situations under which interparty vote transfers remain possible: the party losing votes needs to be in on the deal and care must be taken to ensure that within-constituency effects on seat allocations are small. Only in a high-stakes situation—like a party on the edge of the parliamentary threshold—is it worthwhile to move votes across party lines. Notable Allegations of Electoral Manipulation The last two presidential elections have resulted in Constitutional Court cases in which the losing candidate—in both races, Prabowo Subianto—alleged large-scale electoral manipulation. In this section, I treat the two races in turn, using court filings and basic tools of election forensics to test whether the vote returns show signs of large-scale error or manipulation. 2014 Presidential Election Within hours of the close of polls on July 17, 2014, six pollsters’ quick count samples of the result showed Joko Widodo ahead of Prabowo Subianto by five to seven percent of the vote. But three quick count surveys run by television networks close to Prabowo produced estimates saying the race was too close to call, and one quick count claimed that Prabowo was ahead by about 4 percent of the vote.60 As the Jokowi campaign declared victory, the Prabowo campaign appealed to the Constitutional Court, alleging that roughly 3 million votes had been improperly cast. The Court ultimately rejected all of the campaign’s claims.

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In their filing, the Prabowo campaign argued that there were too many polling stations at which every vote went to the Jokowi ticket. They identified Nias Selatan, Madura, and parts of Kalimantan, Bali, Maluku, and Maluku Utara as the locations where this excess voting occurred.61 To better understand whether problems might have occurred in the process that generated the election returns, I checked whether the election returns had unusual statistical features. Figure 9.1 is based on the complete village-level returns from the 2014 elections; they show the distribution of village-level vote share won by Jokowi in the five areas named in the Prabowo campaign’s complaint. Of the places specified in the complaint, only Bali and Nias Selatan leaned strongly toward Jokowi. The number of villages in Nias Selatan with 100 percent of votes cast for Jokowi is high, but also continuous with the overall high level of support for the candidate in the district. Given that Nias Selatan is overwhelmingly non-Muslim, it is unsurprising that Jokowi, who is strongly preferred by non-Muslim voters, won in that area by a wide margin. It is more surprising that the Prabowo campaign attempted to use Madura and Maluku Utara, where Prabowo outperformed Jokowi, as evidence of electoral manipulation. One reason for the use of Madura may have been that it was the location in which the Constitutional Court found evidence of large-scale fraud during the East Java gubernatorial race of 2008. Although there is little unusual in the locations specified in the complaint, it is possible that errors or manipulation occurred in other areas of the country. Election forensics tools can be used to carry out additional checks.62 One simple method for identifying problems in election returns that can be evidence of manipulation is to look for discontinuities in the distribution of results from a sufficiently large number of places. Another simple technique is the last-digit test created by Beber and Scacco.63 This approach looks only at the final digit of the vote total recorded for each candidate, operating on the principle that, in a sufficiently large polling station, there is an equal probability that any integer from zero to nine will be the final digit. If a particular digit appears too many times in the data, then something may be wrong. In Figures 9.2 and 9.3, I check for discontinuities in village-level vote return data scraped from the website of the Indonesian General Election Commission.64 There are clear discontinuities, which turn out to be associated with specific places and turnout levels, and a clear preponderance of zeroes in the vote returns. The histograms show discontinuities in Jokowi’s vote share at zero percent, 100 percent, and at the exact midpoint of equal votes for each

Distribution of Jokowi Vote Percentage in Areas of Alleged Manipulation

Source: Dataset from Soderborg and Pepinksy, “Webscraped Record of Polling-Station Level Results.”

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188 Figure 9.2

Discontinuities in Jokowi, Indonesia, 2014 Vote Count Distribution

Source: Dataset from Soderborg and Pepinksy, “Webscraped Record of Polling-Station Level Results.”

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Distribution of Last Digit in Prabowo, Indonesia, Grouped by Turnout Level and Location

Source: Dataset from Soderborg and Pepinksy, “Webscraped Record of Polling-Station Level Results.”

candidate. This would be a sign of concern, except that the discontinuities disappear when Papua and West Papua are removed. Since some areas in these provinces are allowed to engage in bloc voting, where every vote in the village is given to one candidate, the presence of unexpectedly large vote share for candidates in areas of Papua and West Papua with perfect turnout can be accounted for. The middle histograms show that places with exactly 100 percent turnout account for most of the discontinuity in

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the histogram of all villages. Removing the 100 percent turnout locations eliminates the discontinuities in the village-level vote distribution, just as removing Papua and West Papua did. Block voting in Papua and West Papua province can account for the entire discontinuity. Finally, the digit test shows that far more than expected villages reported vote totals for Prabowo ending in zero. Nearly all of those villages turn out to be villages where the total vote for Prabowo was exactly equal to zero—the Papua and West Papua block voting phenomenon. With these areas removed (by restricting the data to places where Prabowo received at least one vote), the distribution is appropriately uniform. Simple forensic analyses of the 2014 presidential election results, focusing on areas subject to court complaints and on the entire distribution of the vote shows few signs of large-scale manipulation other than those consistent with the presence of bloc voting, which seems to be restricted to the areas of the country where it is legally permitted. 2019 Presidential Election In the run-up to the 2019 presidential election, the Prabowo campaign began suggesting large-scale fraud would take place.65 Prior to the election, their complaints focused on the voter file (see Section One) and allegations that state agents were interfering with their ability to campaign. On election night, quick counts showed then-incumbent president Joko Widodo ahead by about 10 percent of the vote. Prabowo responded to his apparent loss by declaring victory in a speech that alluded to his previous claims of large-scale election fraud.66 In the month between election night and the announcement of the results, large number of police stood guard at the offices of the KPU and Bawaslu. Pollsters’ offices were placed under police protection following a series of bomb threats. The announcement of the election result came a day early, in a 2:00 A.M. press conference convened less than an hour after the rekapitulasi hand tally process concluded. The General Election Commission declared Jokowi the winner with 55.5 percent of the total vote. Over the day that followed, protestors gathered at the Bawaslu offices (they were not permitted to enter the street where the national KPU is located). In the evening, rioting broke out in the Tanah Abang neighborhood behind the Bawaslu. Six people died and a police barracks was burned.67 It was the worst rioting Jakarta had seen since 1998, and the worst electionrelated violence in the country since 2012. The Prabowo campaign challenged the results in court, once again alleging large-scale fraud. Using scraped polling-station level data,68

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I found little evidence in the form of digit tests that tally errors or alterations had occurred. Since the margin was wide—a little less than 17 million votes separated the two candidates—a large-scale tally alteration scheme would very likely have left a trace. The Constitutional Court rejected the claims brought by the Prabowo campaign and refused its petitions to declare Prabowo the winner outright or invalidate the election and order a revote. In presidential races, despite the claims of losing candidates, there is little evidence of large-scale alteration of vote tallies. And in the presidential race, where vote margins are often in the millions, the logistics of large-scale tally alterations are challenging. They are far different from the races for local legislature, where the movement of a few hundred or even a few dozen votes in a handful of polling stations can change the outcome. During the New Order dictatorship, the vote counting operation was designed to control the tallies; today’s KPU is independent and overseen by multiple watchdog bodies. There is no evidence that it engages in New Order–style falsification, and many reasons to believe that there would be evidence if it did.

Change and Variation: Violence In the early years after democratization, communal and separatist violence spiked in several areas of Indonesia. West Kalimantan, Central Sulawesi, and North Maluku provinces experienced serious outbreaks of violence along religious and ethnic lines between 1998 and 2001. Increased military intervention against separatists in Aceh led to thousands of deaths between 2001 and the end of hostilities in 2005.69 In these post-conflict areas, communal violence has remained higher than elsewhere in Indonesia, and incidents of violence have been more common around local elections. Electoral violence has been especially serious in Aceh. In the provinces of Papua and West Papua, where intertribal disputes are often layered into election disputes; forty-eight people were killed in election-related violence between 2008 and 2012; thirty of those fatalities involved an inter-clan dispute in Puncak district.70 Data on violence in elections shows a consistent decline since the mid-2000s. Titi Anggraini, head of the advocacy organization Perludem, found only six reported instances of election-related violence in the 2017 local elections, and the same number in the 2018 local elections. One of the 2018 cases involved the burning of district KPU and Bawaslu offices in Memberamo Tengah, Papua province.71

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Rioting in Jakarta following the announcement of the 2019 election results marked the first election-related violence in the capital since democratization. (Protests in 2016 against then-governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama were large but did not lead to violence.) Previous electionrelated violence has occurred in places with a history of armed antistate or communal violence. It is difficult in the Indonesian capital to know whether a violent protest is the work of ideologues, paid provocateurs, bored youths, or all of the above.72 Regardless, what came prior to the riots—months of public fulminations against electoral authorities and pollsters, threats of violence against the survey firms producing quick counts, the outright denial of initial results by the Prabowo campaign, the production of alternative polls not subject to audit, and attempts to galvanize public protest in what campaign-adjacent figures called a “people power” protest—seems to have been a determined attempt to undermine the legitimacy of election authorities. It is not yet clear whether this kind of contestation from electoral losers will become an ongoing feature of Indonesian elections, or whether the interparty consensus on the election administration’s neutrality will continue.

Regional Variation Aceh The province of Aceh, Indonesia’s westernmost area, has a long history of separatist insurgency and since 2005 has enjoyed a special status as a semiautonomous region. Aceh province is the one part of the country with local parties. These parties have their roots in factions of the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) insurgency, and violence between candidates, has been a serious problem in Acehnese elections. The 2012 gubernatorial campaign, which pitted two former rebel leaders against one another, was especially troubled. Months of procedural wrangling in the provincial legislature led to the rescheduling of the election multiple times.73 The increasingly tense negotiations were capped off by the murder of a close friend of the then governor, and a series of killings targeting Javanese migrants. The killings led the national government to postpone the election until after the incumbent governor’s term had ended, denying him the advantages of incumbency.74 The governor himself was twice targeted by grenades. And on inauguration day, the now former governor was violently assaulted by supporters of the newly elected governor.75

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An important Constitutional Court case resulted from the conflict around re-scheduling the 2012 gubernatorial election in Aceh. Under pressure from the national executive, the court held that concerns about peace and stability can weigh in application of election law in Aceh.76 In a post-election challenge to the result, the Court agreed that violence did occur, but was unwilling to throw out an election result in which the margin of victory exceeded 25 percent.77 The rulings are notable because the court accepted that violence occurred, ruled that it justified a delay, but after seeing the results, did not view additional proven violence as sufficient reason to order a revote, in part out of concerns that a revote would trigger violence. As has occurred elsewhere in Indonesia, election-related violence has declined in Aceh.78 Papua Indonesia’s easternmost territories are the provinces of West Papua and Papua. Elections in Papua as a territory of Indonesia began with a referendum on joining Indonesia in 1969, called the “Act of Free Choice.” Contemporary observers of the vote concluded that while support for an independent Papua was high among the population, the “conclusion” of the referendum was “preordained.”79 Contemporary elections in Papua and West Papua provinces differ from elections elsewhere in Indonesia because not all Papuans have the individual right to vote. Indonesia’s Constitutional Court has repeatedly recognized the right of traditional authorities to conduct elections according to a block voting rule called noken.80 Nolan notes that the court has never determined which authorities are the proper holders of customary rights—most communities contain multiple claimants.81 Where the system is used, KPU commission members haggle with campaigns over how to divide the votes.82 In the two weeks around election day 2018, armed groups connected to Papua separatist organizations attacked aircraft and police patrols, some of which were carrying ballot materials, in Nduga district, West Papua. The violence was clearly election related, but it is unclear whether the attacks were an attempt to benefit a particular side in the local elections, or an attack on elections as an institution of the Indonesian state.83 Administrative problems are constant in Papuan elections. Logistical difficulties led to the late arrival of ballot papers in three central highlands districts in 2018.84 Complaints from Papua province make up an outsized number of matters before the Bawaslu and Honor Commission. Between 2013 and 2017, fifty KPU commissioners were fired

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from district and province-level KPU commissions in the two Papua provinces.85 Mimika district has been the source of two major election administration scandals: in 2013, four members of the district’s KPU commission were dismissed over the late addition of nearly 50,000 names to the district’s voter rolls.86 In 2018, a new Mimika district KPU managed to make national news after it ordered a forensic examination of a gubernatorial candidate’s vocational school diploma.87 The cases originating in Mimika are useful reminders of the power wielded by the decentralized district KPU commissions, and of the extraordinary lengths would-be candidates must go to when they wish to contest those commissions’ decisions.

Conclusion Since the end of the New Order dictatorship, reformers have transformed an election administration and oversight structure designed to assist a ruling party into a system able to run a free vote in the world’s second largest elections. Multiple layers of oversight work, sometimes in harmony and sometimes not, with a carefully audited election administration. Many of the problems that plagued early post-democratization elections in Indonesia, especially problems of violence, are no longer very common. To the extent it can be measured, the electoral manipulation that does occur tends to be at the margins. In the proceedings of election oversight bodies, most cases concern a failure to follow proper procedures, violations of neutrality rules by KPU commissioners, and discrepancies of a handful of votes in the rekapitulasi aggregation process. While incumbents possess many advantages, their ability to turn the apparatus of the state toward their own reelection is far less than it once was. Large-scale electoral manipulation of the kind carried out under the New Order—and alleged by the most prominent figures in the current political opposition—is no longer possible in Indonesia. In smaller races, where margins are small, complaints of altered tallies remain common. It is in these races that the limits to the labor-intensive monitoring system come into focus. Since much of the work of vetting results falls to witnesses hired by campaigns. The cost of hiring witnesses is a key campaign expense that inexperienced candidates do not know they need to prepare for. So too are the costs of litigation. One important element of Indonesian elections that has not gotten much attention are the myriad ways a candidacy can lead to litigation—and

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the surprising discretion of local KPU commissioners in disqualifying candidacies. Money politics, too, is ubiquitous and yet another barrier to entry. Not all Indonesians have equal claims to voting rights. Indonesia’s Constitutional Court has repeatedly ruled that election law—and by extension, voting rights—are different in Aceh and Papua. The differences in Aceh stem from both its legal autonomy and the Court’s belief that in a post-conflict society, election administrators also bear some of the burden of keeping the peace. In Papua, the decision to affirm the practice of bloc voting reflects a common Indonesian understanding of Papua as distinct and traditional; the court has yet to define why only some Papuans have an individual right to vote. Claims of election fraud may be more common than the fact of it. The 2014 presidential election featured a lurid set of allegations from the Prabowo campaign that fraud had occurred on the order of several million votes. In 2019, those allegations were repeated for months prior to the election, and again following it. There is no forensic evidence of systematic misconduct in either race. The literature on electoral manipulation suggests that where small changes in vote totals can have big impacts on the result of the election, we should expect more manipulation.88 If this is correct, open-list proportional elections to the legislature and simple plurality votes for local executive office are places where we should expect to see manipulation. This is likely to be especially acute in the races for local legislature. We also ought to look for signs of manipulation when parties are hovering near the national parliamentary threshold. Since the oversight system is not equipped to handle intra-party disputes, the door remains open to post-election vote transfer—by sale or by theft—between candidates of the same party. When vote transfers cross party lines with the consent of the party losing votes, the oversight system is similarly limited. As part of its transparency initiatives, the KPU now releases scans of all polling station-level tally forms online within a few days of the election. That data will allow forensic analysis of legislative election results. It will also make it very difficult for vote counters to change the tallies as they aggregate vote totals. No matter how transparent and accountable election administration becomes, there is always the possibility that electoral losers (or winners who fear future losses) will attempt to delegitimize the system. Claims of large-scale conspiracy involving electoral authorities have been a consistent theme of two-time presidential election loser Prabowo Subianto and his supporters. But attempts to delegitimize

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electoral authorities will not necessarily succeed: post-election surveys in Indonesia revealed public confidence in electoral authorities to be unchanged following the 2019 elections, leaving the public approval of electoral authorities’ performance near the 80 percent level that has prevailed since 2014.89 Indonesia’s electoral administration system is one of the great success stories of democratization. Growing out of an authoritarian system designed to control election results, its success in managing what have become the world’s largest single-day elections should be viewed as yet another way in which Indonesia can be considered a “surprising democratic behemoth.”90

Notes 1. Feith, The Indonesian Elections of 1955. 2. Anderson, “Elections and Participation.” 3. Nivada, Rekam Jejak Pemilu 2014, p. 31. 4. KPU 535/2014, p. 3. 5. Lehoucq and Molina, Stuffing the Ballot Box, p. 24. 6. “Prabowo.” 7. Mietzner, Money, Power, and Ideology. 8. Mietzner “Coercing Loyalty.” 9. Slater, “Party Cartelization Indonesian Style.” 10. Badan Pengawas Pemilu Republik Indonesia, “Laporan Hasil Pengawasan Pemilu Anggota.” 11. Nurjaman, Sistem Kepartaian Indonesia, p. 70. 12. Interview with members of the KPU South Sulawesi province. Makassar, S. Sulawesi, July 2015; member of East Nusa Tenggara Province General Election Commission in discussion with the author in Mataram, May 22, 2019. 13. “Caleg Eks Koruptor”; “DKPP Pecat 4 Komisioner KPUD Mimika.” 14. Nivada, Rekam Jejak Pemilu 2014, p. 31. 15. “Caleg Eks Koruptor.” 16. MK 41/PHPU.DVI/2008, p. 135; MK 22/PHPU.D-X/2012, p. 17. 17. Interview with Lurah Karet Kuningan, 2014. 18. Badan Pengawas Pemilu Republik Indonesia, “Laporan Hasil Pengawasan Pemilu Anggota,” p. 48. 19. Ibid., p. 25; Septianto, “Bawaslu Catat Ada.” 20. Aspinall, “When Brokers Betray.” 21. Aspinall and As’Ad, “The Patronage Patchwork.” 22. Aspinall and Sukmajati, Electoral Dynamics in Indonesia. 23. Rohman, “Pati, Central Java,” pp. 240–241. 24. Lembaga Survei Indonesia–IFES Indonesia, “Survei Nasional Pasca Pemilihan.” 25. Hicken, “Measuring Vote-Selling.” 26. Hadiz, Localising Power. 27. Hamdi, “Madiun, East Java,” p. 294. 28. Gerindra party candidate for national parliament from North Maluku, in discussion with the author in Jakarta, January 2016; NasDem party candidate for

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national parliament from Palembang, in discussion with the author in Palembang, May 2019. 29. “Demo KPU Siantar”; “Kasus Dugaan Ijazah.” 30. “DKPP Pecat 4 Komisioner KPUD Mimika.” 31. MacLaren, “Beleagured by Graft.” 32. Putusan DKPP No. 24/DKPP-PKE-III/2014 (Palopo) 33. Putusan DKPP No. 83/DKPP-PKE-III/2014 (Tuban) 34. Putusan DKPP No. 105/DKPP-PKE-III/2014 (Pasuruan) 35. Tomsa, Party Politics and Democratization. 36. Fiansyah, “72.723 Orang Meninggal Masih” ; Farisa, “Hampir 14.000 Aduan Masyarakat Terkait.” 37. Golkar party candidate for national parliament from Lampung, in conversation with the author in Jakarta, May 2018. 38. Fakta tvOne, “Pemilu 2019: Benarkah DPT Bermasalah?” interview by Fakta tvOne, March 11, 2019, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7P8mtuAZegg. 39. Mellaz, “Peta Masalah Jelang Pemilu 2019”; Permendagri 19/2010 sec. 2:6 40. Putusan Mahkamah Konstitusi Republik Indonesia No. 41/PHPU.DVI/2008 (East Java), pp. 36, 120. 41. Cox and Kousser, “Turnout and Rural Corruption.” 42. Putusan Mahkamah Konstitusi Republik Indonesia No. 41/PHPU.DVI/2008 (East Java), p. 36. 43. Putusan DKPP No. 29/DKPP-PKE-III/2014 (Bandung Barat), p. 11. 44. Putusan Mahkamah Konstitusi Republik Indonesia No. 41/PHPU.DVI/2008 (East Java), p. 39. 45. Putusan DKPP No. 29 /DKPP-PKE-III/2014 (Bandung Barat), p. 20. 46. Soderborg and Pepinksy, “Webscraped Record of Polling-Station Level Results.” 47. Putusan Mahkamah Konstitusi Republik Indonesia No. 41/PHPU.DVI/2008 (East Java), p. 125. 48. Ibid. 49. Yoshihara and Diwanto, Grass Roots and Neighborhood Associations; interview with RW in Makassar, S. Sulawesi with RW, July 2015. 50. Neighborhood captain for Karet Kuningan, South Jakarta, in discussion with the author in Jakarta, June 2014; neighborhood captain for Baddoka, Makassar, in discussion with the author in Makassar, June 2015. 51. Aspinall and As’Ad, “The Patronage Patchwork.” 52. Soeharto, “Gaji Ketua RT Dan RW Di Palopo Bakal Naik.” 53. Kustiasi, “Balada ‘Kotak Kosong’ Masuk ke MK.” 54. Alamsyah, “Musi Banyuasin, South Sumatera,” p. 116. 55. Ridwan, “North Jayapura, Papua,” p. 397. 56. Fakta tvOne, “Pemilu 2019.” 57. Sundari, “Presentation to Australia National University, Centre for Strategic and International Studies Conference on Political Reform” (Jakarta, 2019); Gerindra party candidate for national parliament from North Maluku, in discussion with the author in Jakarta; NasDem party candidate for national parliament from Palembang, in discussion with the author in Palembang, May 2019. 58. Alamsyah, “Musi Banyuasin, South Sumatera,” pp. 117–118. 59. Interviews with current and former members of PDIP, PKPI, and PPP parties in Jakarta, 2022. 60. “TvOne Dan MNC Tampilkan.” 61. Putusan Mahkamah Konstitusi Republic Indonesia No. 1/PHPU.PRES-XII/ 2014.

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62. Mebane and Kalinin, “Comparative Election Fraud Detection.” 63. Beber and Scacco, “What the Numbers Say.” 64. Soderborg and Pepinksy, “Webscraped Record of Polling-Station Level Results.” 65. Fakta tvOne, “Pemilu 2019.” 66. “Prabowo.” 67. “Kebakaran Di Area Asrama Brimob Massa Kabur Ke Permukiman.” 68. Kuipers and Soderborg, “Webscraped Record of Polling-Station Level Results.” 69. Barron, Jaffrey, and Varshney, “How Large Conflicts Subside.” 70. Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict, “Electoral Violence in Indonesia”; Barron, Jaffrey, and Varshney, “How Large Conflicts Subside,” p. 19. 71. Salabi, “Menyoal Kekerasan dalam Pemilu.” 72. Wilson, “Between Throwing Rocks and a Hard Place”; Syechbubakr, “The Urban Poor in the Jakarta Riots.” 73. International Crisis Group, “Indonesia: GAM vs GAM in the Aceh Elections.” 74. International Crisis Group, “Indonesia: Averting Election Violence in Aceh,” p. 1. 75. “Irwandi Yusuf.” 76. Putusan No. 1/SKLN-X/2012, p. 4. 77. Putusan Mahkamah Konstitusi Republik Indonesia No. 22/PHPU.D-X/2012 (Aceh final). 78. Barron, Jaffrey, and Varshney, “How Large Conflicts Subside,” p. 13. 79. Galbraith, “West Irian.” 80. Putusan Mahkamah Konstitusi Republik Indonesia No. 06-32/PHPU-DPD /XII/2014 (Provinsi Papua) 81. Nolan, “Papua’s Central Highlands,” p. 403. 82. Nolan, “Papua’s Central Highlands,” p. 406. 83. Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict, “Update on Local Election Results,” pp. 9–10. 84. Ibid., p. 9. 85. Costa, “50 Anggota KPU di Papua Dipecat.” 86. Putusan DKPP No. 129/DKPP-PKE-II/2013, p. 42 87. “DKPP Pecat 4 Komisioner KPUD Mimika”; “The Mimika Contest.” 88. Lehoucq and Molina, Stuffing the Ballot Box. 89. Lembaga Survei Indonesia, “Survei Nasional Masalah Kemasyarakatan”; Lembaga Survei Indonesia–IFES Indonesia, “Survei Nasional Pasca Pemilihan.” 90. Aspinall, “The Surprising Democratic Behemoth.”

10

The Philippines: Democracy in Distress Cleo Calimbahin

ELECTION VIOLENCE IS VERY REAL IN THE PHILIPPINES. IN 2009, IN THE southern part of the Philippines, Mindanao, a group of fifty-eight people composed of political candidates accompanied by their supporters and journalists formed a caravan to the local Commission on Elections (COMELEC) Office to file their certificates of candidacy. The political candidates assembled the caravan to deter being stopped illegally or, worse, being ambushed by the ruling political family, which did not want anyone to oppose their candidacy. Unfortunately, the powerful, incumbent Ampatuan clan has ruled in the province for so long and with such impunity and disregard for the law that the caravan with journalists did not provide their opponents a safe passage. All fifty-eight people, including thirty journalists, were shot at close range upon the order of the incumbent political clan.1 This event has become known in the Philippines as the Maguindanao massacre. To curb such violence from happening again in the Philippines, the COMELEC has ever since sought to impose a total gun ban during election season through the deputized agencies of the national police and military. However, many politicians seem unfazed by the ban. For example, on May 13, 2018, members of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) confronted the Mayor of Pantar, a town in Lanao del Norte, regarding the use of illegal firearms. Aboard an armored vehicle, the military came to Pantar on the eve of election day after receiving reports that the Mayor and his men were seen carrying high-powered weapons despite the election gun ban. In the end, the Mayor of Pantar,

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Jabar Tago, and his men engaged the military in a gunfight before surrendering. After the military itemized and confiscated the semi-automatic rifles, the rounds of ammunition, and the handguns, they arrested the Mayor and his men for violating the election gun ban under the Comprehensive Firearms and Ammunition Regulation Act.2 Incidents like these happen every election season in the Philippines, where local barangay elections3 tend to be more violent than national-level ones. The incidents in Maguindanao and the town of Pantar are not isolated cases. Each election cycle is a challenge for the COMELEC in the Philippines. As the constitutional commission mandated to lead the electoral process with integrity and credibility, the COMELEC must try to address countless incidents of electoral violations carried out by incumbents, candidates, and their private armies and supporters. These include electoral violence and electoral malpractice. Assisting the COMELEC during elections are temporarily deputized public school teachers and law enforcement agencies. The military is one of these deputized agencies, especially in areas tagged as “hotspots” or areas where election violence and conflict are expected. During the May 13, 2018 elections, the Philippine National Police declared 941 cities and municipalities to be election campaign “hotspots” two months before election day. That number represents a little more than half of the 1,634 cities and municipalities across the country. Critics of the administration, however, are worried that the identification of election hotspots is just another form of incumbency advantage. Labeling a town or city as a hotspot will mean an increase in the number of law enforcers who may or may not be neutral to all the candidates. After the military–politician encounter in Pantar, many commended the professionalism of the AFP in handling the case. This was good news, because the men in uniform have been embroiled in past elections in ways that have been both undemocratic and unconstitutional. These include being enforcers of a dictator, coup plotters, and supporters of political dynasties. However, following the AFP Modernization Act of 1995, the military over the following years gradually improved its credibility and capacity4 and outgrew its partisan reputation. Nonetheless, election observers were surprised that Mayor Jabar Tago was released just two days after his arrest. Instead, the Mayor and his men were turned over to an official close to former president Rodrigo Duterte. The presidential advisor for overseas Filipino workers and Muslim concerns, Abdullah Mama-o, wrote a letter to Major-General Roseller Murillo, commander of the military’s First Infantry Division: “This serve[s] as formal request that the foregoing parties be released under my custody

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while their case is being investigated. I assure you they will cooperate with the military and the police should there be any investigation scheduled for their appearance. I am taking personal responsibility for their appearance for such investigation.”5 This not-so-subtle show of power is one of many counter-democratic elements that permeate and challenge democratic institutions and the electoral process in the Philippines. As one institution is reformed to perform its duty, another institution can subvert the process. Although there is more to Philippine politics than the generalized “guns, goons, and gold,” there is still the pervasive presence of all three come election time.6 The intimidation of voters, rival candidates, supporters of other candidates, and poll watchers are among the many incidents reported as election violations. This chapter illustrates the wide variety of forms of electoral manipulation in the Philippines due to the strong presence of dynastic politics, electoral violence, the shift to automated elections, and campaign finance issues.

Families, Fraud and Force Poverty is evident in both rural and urban Philippines, as is wealth concentration and non-inclusive growth. While the economy has improved in the last ten years, the benefits have only been felt by a few. The seeming preference for a populist with authoritarian tendencies, as is the case with former president Rodrigo Duterte, is primarily due to cynicism about liberal democracy’s failure to deliver promises that translate to a better quality of life for most Filipinos. The poverty incidence among Filipinos in 2021 was 23.7 percent.7 This translates to 26.14 million Filipinos, or close to a quarter of the population, living below the national poverty line. 34.3 percent of those living below the poverty level come from rural areas and rely on agriculture for their income.8 Access to quality jobs, healthcare, and education remains elusive for most Filipinos. The lack of gainful employment has led to the overseas Filipino worker phenomenon. There are 2.3 million registered Filipinos working overseas in 2020. In 2021, the Commission on Filipino Overseas estimated that almost 10.2 million Filipinos reside or work outside of the country, the majority as immigrants.9 These overseas Filipinos remit US$2 billion per month to their families in the Philippines.10 Because of the prevailing poverty, during elections, money talks loudly. Elections in the Philippines are an intense competition for public

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office. It means mobilizing resources and supporters and having a suitable political machine to make a candidate win. For presidential and vice presidential candidates, pre-election campaign spending can go as high as 1 billion pesos (US$19 million).11 The high cost of running for public office continues to increase. Nevertheless, an elected position’s power and privilege seem to promise a high return. On election days, international election observers have frequently witnessed vote buying.12 Vote buying in the Philippines is most commonly in the form of cash. Depending on how competitive the contest is for that election year, the money distributed to voters can vary from US$10 to US$100. But vote buying can also be in the form of rice, groceries, phone cards, a temporary job, or scholarships to technical-vocational schools. Before election day, the distribution of food packages, t-shirts, prepaid phone cards, and other noncash items accounts for candidates’ high election expenses. Each local village’s cash and goods distribution system is usually channeled through the community leader or the clan’s leader. The system is so rampant that specific terms are used for certain vote buying practices. For example, in Dumaguete, a port city, the distribution of money or goods is done at night and is called “kamang” or literally “crawling” because the network of the community leader will go house to house at night.13 In Bohol, it is referred to as “inagayan,” which means “shower,” because the money is released in tranches leading up to election day.14 It is also widespread for small bills (US$1 to US$2) to be attached to printed sample ballots and handed out near the voting precinct on election day.15 Vote buying remains undeterred, and even the Commission on Elections is overwhelmed and seemingly only an onlooker to the intensity of vote buying that happens. According to former COMELEC commissioner Rowena Guanzon, “you know why this keeps on happening? Because candidates think they can get away with it. A complaint must be filed. COMELEC’s job begins from the receipt of the complaint to the investigation and prosecution.”16 Unfortunately, the COMELEC-deputized Philippine National Police (PNP) cannot apprehend those violating the Omnibus Election Code. General Oscar Albayalde, former head of the PNP, admitted to receiving reports but could not address the concern, “I’ve been receiving a lot of reports of vote buying, my cellphone is constantly receiving such reports. We ask the local units to check on these. We always check and respond to these reports.”17 Voter turnout in the country is consistently high, ranging between 76 percent and 86 percent. A contributing factor to high voter turnout

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is that election day in the Philippines is a national holiday. With election day held on the second Monday of May on any given election year, most people have a long weekend, and many go home to their respective provinces or hometown. However, this high voter turnout is marred by the practice of vote buying. Candidates and a network of community leaders will intensify their door-to-door campaign, knowing that other household members have come home to cast their votes. They will cajole, promise, or make threats to win votes through the house-tohouse campaign, one family at a time. The high cost of running for public office and the lack of genuine programmatic political parties means that most of those who run come from entrenched political dynasties. Therefore, successfully addressing this issue could alter the electoral process and the outcome of Philippine elections. Table 10.1 shows the increasing dynastic share of election winners each election year in the Philippines. Many political scientists have described the Philippines as a patrimonial state.18 According to Hutchcroft, “the state apparatus is choked continually by an anarchy of particularistic demands from . . . oligarchs and cronies who are currently most favored by its top officials.”19 These elites have economic resources and public offices to protect their interests. The persistence of strong patrimonial ties, political dynasties, weak accountability oversight, and a judiciary that struggles with a reputation for partiality all account for why the Philippines has been classified as a “flawed democracy”20 even after the much-celebrated People Power Revolution of 1986. Philippine democratic institutions fail to show

Table 10.1 Dynastic Share by Elected Position in the Philippines, 2007–2016 (percentages) Position

2007

2010

2013

2016

Governor   Increase/decrease Vice governor   Increase/decrease Representative/Congress   Increase/decrease Mayor   Increase/decrease Vice mayor   Increase/decrease

69.6

82.3 12.7 70.9 8.87 78.7 3.44 67.2 9.6 51.2 10.6

86.3 3.97 75 4.11 75.3 –3.46 67.5 0.3 52.6 1.4

81.3 –5 81 6.01 77.5 2.25 68.8 1.3 56.9 4.3

62 75.3 57.6 40.6

Source: Ateneo School of Governance staff calculations based on COMELEC data as published in Rappler, “Comelec Creates New Unit to Monitor Campaign Finances.”

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coherence in what is primarily seen as a resilient oligarchical elite that controls the state, economy, and society by constantly adapting and shifting along with the political contours.21 Since the Philippines transitioned from the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos, democratic institutions have not evolved to be strong enough to provide accountability and transparency. These weak political institutions contribute to a form of defective democracy. Apart from the many manifestations of weak state oversight, there is also rising acceptance of violent populists and historical revisionism by society. The current state-society conditions in the Philippines show a distressed democracy caused by entrenched families who have turned the Philippines into a patrimonial state with weak accountability institutions. In the 2012–2017 Perceptions of Electoral Integrity (PEI) index, the Philippines received a score of 51 out of 100. This score converts to a rating of “moderate” integrity. A score of below 50 is actually rated “low” or “flawed,” making the Philippines a borderline case.22 It is striking that one of the oldest democracies in Asia still rates so low on electoral integrity. As a former colony of the United States, the Philippines inherited democratic institutions and practices. It was the declaration of martial law by Ferdinand Marcos in 1972 that interrupted what should have been a continuous record of democracy. The country’s media enjoys press freedom, yet if one scrutinizes the ownership of the broadsheets and the television networks, one might suspect that media is just another instrument of the country’s oligarchs. In addition, the Philippines has a history of vibrant civil society and many nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) that work for the interest of various marginalized groups. However, civil society is also “diffuse(d) and fragmented”23 because of “semi-clientelist co-option and manipulation of NGO leaders”24 by incumbents.

Moving from Manual to Machine Counting of Votes In 2010, the Philippines implemented a significant reform to elections, the Automated Election Law. Like any new law in the Philippines that could alter the rules of the political game, passing the election law was a long process that took seventeen years. There was skepticism and resistance from lawmakers who felt uncertain about what it might mean for their own reelection prospects and their family’s chances of winning positions. However, the automation law promised “transparency, credibility, fairness, and accuracy of elections.”25 The pro-

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posal was stalled for three presidencies before finally being passed on January 23, 2007; it was implemented in time for the 2010 national elections. The automation was successful in providing accurate and transparent elections, and as COMELEC officials have noted, this law appears also to have contributed to increases in voter turnout. In addition, it ended many fraudulent electoral practices that could be carried out in a purely manual election. Although this reform was widely regarded as a success, the electoral commission still struggles to address many election-related issues and incidents in other areas. For example, COMELEC continues to be hindered by insufficient autonomy and capacity.26 The automation of elections was not a moment of triumph but instead raised other questions about COMELEC’s ability to provide effective election administration in subsequent elections. The automation of elections shifted the focus of electoral malpractice from election officials to voters. It undercut the previous widespread practices of tampering with ballots and altering election returns during vote canvassing, but it also led candidates to shift to other methods of manipulation. For example, politicians vying for national positions typically go to Cebu not just to appeal to voters but to get the support of the local political elites who can deliver votes to them by endorsing them to their network of supporters. Cebu is the region in the Philippines with the largest number of voters. Cebu’s then–acting provincial election supervisor, Eliseo Labaria, observed an increase in vote buying in Cebu after the automation of elections: “Vote buying has been massive because candidates can no longer cheat with the vote counting machines. The counting of the votes with the use of these counting machines has been very much accurate; that is why they engage in vote buying.”27 However, holding politicians who engage in vote buying accountable is difficult because of the need for proof. Even with citizens posting on social media pictures of sample ballots with money handed over to them, the COMELEC and the Philippine National Police cannot do anything about this practice because the law states that violators need to be caught in the act. There are even continuing problems with the automatic count system. Since the initial automation of elections, the COMELEC has done very little to address suspicions about electoral fraud through the vote counting machines or the transmission of election returns. For instance, in the 2019 midterm elections, there was a seven-hour transmission delay.28 This led to calls to return to manual elections, while some members of civil society, such as the National Movement for Free

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Elections (NAMFREL), have advocated for introducing a hybrid system. Skepticism toward the science of pre-election surveys and that the automated electoral system could be made tamper-proof led some to question the validity of elections based on the mere perception of fraud. These are clear examples of how COMELEC continues to suffer from credibility issues.

Campaign Finance Issues Another area where the COMELEC has failed on election management is campaign finance. It is expensive to run for public office in the Philippines, as candidates need to have a large campaign war chest for vote buying. Unlike in other countries where the electoral laws tend to emphasize limits on contributions, in the Philippines the law imposes a limit on expenditures. Nevertheless, this restriction has not in practice deterred candidates from overspending and exceeding what the law dictates. Given the staggering amounts of money needed to win elected office, in 2013 a consortium of electoral reform advocates compared the financial reports filed by the candidates and the amount of money they spent on television and radio advertisements.29 Unfortunately, the declared expenditures did not match the expenses based on these candidates’ commercial airtime. In 2016, they found a similar pattern. Senatorial candidates could legally spend a maximum of US$4 million under the electoral law, but some candidates for national office in practice had already spent that much just on pre-election television commercials. Unfortunately, most candidates only submit reports to comply without taking the law seriously. Even reformist candidates need to face this money-politics reality. Marginalized and under-represented groups are given a chance under the law to gain representation through the party list system. The party-list system was introduced under the 1987 constitution as Republic Act 7941 to address the absence of programmatic political parties and counter the personality-based campaigns that dominate Philippine politics. This proportional representation system is intended to provide smaller political parties access to the legislative process. However, since it was first implemented in 1998, the party-list system has not been a system of inclusivity and has instead been marred with controversies. A 2003 Supreme Court ruling that limited which groups could run for the seats introduced confusion since it conflicted with the original intent of the law, and it took a decade before this ruling was reversed.

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In 2016, the typical party-list group’s expenses reached US$1 million.30 For the average Filipino, that amount is simply out of financial reach. It has, however, been appealing to some dynastic candidates, who consider this a “cheaper” way to gain a seat in the House of Representatives than campaigning at the district-level contest. During the 2019 elections, out of the 134 accredited party-list groups, 62 were groups connected with political dynasties and big business interests.31 The political and economic elite captured what was supposed to be a vehicle to create new players in the political landscape. To address campaign finance issues, the COMELEC created a unit tasked to monitor candidates who overspend and to enforce penalties against them. The maximum penalty is disqualification from running for public office. The law may seem strong, but the COMELEC has a limited capacity to enforce these laws. The coverage of what is lawful and unlawful under the COMELEC’s more stringent Resolution 9991 of 2015 provides the commission the authority to monitor compliance and to investigate and report various potential vote buying strategies and opportunities by candidates. The provisions show what transpires in the Philippines during election season. Table 10.2 summarizes what constituted unlawful activity under the campaign finance rules. Unfortunately, there were no penalties assessed for violating the campaign finance rules as the commission has minimal enforcement capacity.

Table 10.2

Campaign Finance Rules in the Philippines

Unlawful Act

Liability

When It Is Unlawful

Giving and accepting money, free   transportation, food, drinks, and   anything of value to be used for   partisan political activities. Holding dances, lotteries, cockfights,   games, boxing, bingo, beauty   contests, or other forms of   entertainment to support any   candidate or raise funds for   election campaigns. Soliciting or accepting gifts, food,   transportation, cash, or anything   of value from candidates and   their campaign team.

Any party,   candidate,   organization,   or person. Anyone.

Five hours before and   during public meetings;   one day before the   election; election day. Start of the election   period until election   day.

Anyone.

Start of the election   period until election   day.

Source: COMELEC Fair Election Act.

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The government could do more to equip COMELEC and build its capacity to address campaign violations, fraud, violence, and campaign overspending. In the elections of 2010, 2013, and 2016, a total of 1,874 cases were filed against candidates who overspent on their campaign expenditures, but only 66 of these were resolved.32 Since the unit was created, only one politician who was found to overspend was disqualified. Emilio Ramon Ejercito, a nephew of former President Joseph Estrada, ran and won in the 2013 election as governor of the province of Laguna. Based on the limit set by the Fair Election Act, Ejercito could only spend Php 4.5 million (US$90,000) for his campaign. In 2014, after serving as governor for one year, the COMELEC found Ejercito guilty of overspending. Based on advertisement placements, COMELEC found that Ejercito spent 6 million pesos. The COMELEC ruling meant dismissal and disqualification for Ejercito. This COMELEC ruling was upheld by the Court of Appeals and eventually the Supreme Court in February 2015. The percentage of case resolution is low, and the process is long. While the process plays out, candidates guilty of overspending can either partially or fully serve their terms. A lawyer working for the COMELEC’s campaign finance unit admits that given how long these cases can take to be resolved, candidates will not suffer the penalties for their violations: “candidates might already be dead, and yet the case is still unresolved.”33 The COMELEC’s campaign finance unit is headed by a COMELEC commissioner, two lawyers, and a staff of twenty-three that collates and reviews the compliance of candidates and political parties. They must review the Statement of Campaign Expenditures of around 44,000 candidates for 18,000 positions every election year.34 Not only is the unit understaffed, but it also lacks accountants who are certified forensic fraud experts to review the documents. As a consequence, COMELEC has yet to show that it can adequately carry out its campaign finance duties. Another campaign finance issue is the use of government funds for early campaigning. Access to state resources brings incumbency advantages in the form of government programs and funds for the early campaign of pro-administration candidates. In the 2019 elections, the administration of President Rodrigo Duterte actively supported the successful campaign of his assistant, Bong Go. The posters of “Go Along with the President” could be seen everywhere in the Philippines from north to south. There is only one way to describe the campaign strategy: saturation. With the continued popularity of then-president Rodrigo Duterte, Go’s campaign message was clear: he could bring your concern to the president. He actively distributed relief goods in disaster areas

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and sports equipment for the youth. The Department of Public Works workers were allegedly seen putting up his campaign materials and posters with the president in health centers all over the country. Go was singled out by the president clearly as his preferred candidate in the Senate. No other party mate of President Duterte was given this much support and he was able to project himself as a loyal supporter and conduit to the president. From sixteenth place in pre-election surveys, Go rose to number three in the final count due to name recognition. The Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ) later raised questions about Go’s sources of campaign funds. With only US$220,000 declared as his assets and liabilities, journalists asked where his sources of funding came from. Reports allegedly show that the aggregated commercial airtime of Go during the precampaign period reached US$8 million.35 Critics asserted that there were also many other candidates using government money for their reelection campaigns. For instance, the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao is a province with a poverty incidence of 61.8 percent,36 where public services are dismal and public spending on infrastructure is not evident, but it has one of the highest numbers of dynastic family dominance and cases of overspending recorded by COMELEC.37 Overspending in campaign expenditures is not a new phenomenon in Philippine politics, given the enduring problem of vote buying. The difference now is an increase in public awareness that campaign finance, specifically overspending, is part of what needs to be curbed during election season. In the past, the focus has been on the recipients, and the poor are almost always blamed for accepting the money and voting for dynasties. But with the creation of the COMELEC campaign finance unit, there is not only awareness but also an expectation that a constitutional commission can provide oversight. However, unless COMELEC is given the resources to enforce its mandate effectively, we will continue to see the same political elites running in elections and ruling the country, given the high cost of elections.

Uncontested Elections In the Philippines, the proliferation of deeply entrenched dynastic families affects the electoral process because it restricts the competitive nature of elections, given the resources and network they have built over time while embedded in the state. These families have control of the local economy and likewise control local politics by occupying key

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elected positions. As McCoy puts it, “Entrenched, influential politicians often work to bequeath power and position to their children, in effect transforming the public office they have won into a private legacy for their family . . . wealth gained during their term in power, if substantial, can be passed on, giving succeeding generations the means to compete for office.”38 These families are so deeply entrenched that there is an increasing pattern of uncontested elections in local areas where a family has an apparent stronghold. In the 2016 elections, a total of 545 candidates were unopposed.39 Of these, 430 were municipal mayors and vice-mayors. Because there were no other opposing candidates, the elections were walkovers. The concern about the increasing number of uncontested elections in the Philippines is linked to the other electoral integrity issues mentioned in this chapter. Violence, vote buying, and the proliferation of political dynasties affect the electoral process and outcomes of Philippine elections. These issues, coupled with weak oversight from the election commission, should make democracy observers question how meaningful elections are under these conditions. As a result, there are few opportunities for new political players to participate, and voters have limited choices. In the 2019 elections, there were 547 unopposed candidates, while in the 2022 elections, there were 845 unopposed candidates.40 If this pattern continues, there are severe implications for the future of Philippine democracy. Electoral representation will remain the arena for the privileged few who have the resources to mount a costly campaign that will make them stand out among the many candidates, and who can win support from local machines necessary to carry them to a national electoral victory.

Election Integrity Issues Across Time This section discusses the serious electoral irregularities that characterized different eras of Philippines politics. The government institution that has been repeatedly at the center of election controversies is the commission named by the constitution to oversee the quality and fairness of elections in the country, COMELEC. COMELEC is one of the oldest electoral commissions in Asia, whose origins can be traced to as early as 1939. Despite the highly contested nature of elections in the Philippines, the use of violence, and the weak foundations of political institutions in Philippine state formation, there exists a strong normative expectation for COMELEC to be independent, neutral, and credible. This expectation is

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reinforced by the fact that COMELEC is a constitutional commission. As such, it is purportedly more autonomous and able to serve its mandate as an impartial and objective referee in the electoral arena. To illustrate electoral integrity issues in the Philippines, the following section will cover how this state institution struggled to prevent electoral manipulation in three critical elections in Philippines history: 1969, 1986, and 2004. The 1969 Elections: Campaign Spending and Violence The 1969 election was a highly charged election year, given the reelection bid of President Ferdinand Marcos. Up until that time, no president had ever won reelection in the Philippines. Marcos made sure he could use state resources for the pre-election campaign, built campaign infrastructure, and dispensed no small amount of patronage to allies and vote-rich areas. Marcos spared no effort to be reelected. He even hired the Napolitan and Squier media company to be part of his campaign and spent US$16 million more than President Nixon did for his own election in 1968.41 Heading the COMELEC at this time was Jaime Ferrer. Appointed by Marcos, Ferrer had a reputation for election reform because of his leadership position in the National Movement for Free Elections before joining government service. Marcos’s triumph in the polls was assisted by a large amount of money he spent on public works during the campaign, and by giving government employees bonuses. 42 The 1969 election was not only known for Marcos’s overspending but also for the intense violence in the run-up to election day. A few days before the election, a COMELEC employee was shot in Marcos’ home region, the province of Ilocos Sur. 43 According to the news, threats were made that it would not be the last of the killings. Apart from the violence perpetuated by private armies of provincial and local warlords, there were also concerns about the overt partisan bias of members of the Philippine Constabulary. After Marcos won the election, he pushed to overturn the two-term constitutional limit and called a constitutional convention for this purpose, and in 1972 he declared martial law and ruled by decree. The Philippines would not hold another presidential election until 1981. 1986 Elections Fraud and Walk Out Ferdinand Marcos Sr. permitted the 1986 “snap” election in his twentieth year as president. He announced on American television that the

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elections would be held one year ahead of schedule. Marcos Sr. wanted to show that he enjoyed public support and that the Philippines, contrary to accusations of dictatorship, was a democracy.44 Marcos wanted to establish his rule as legitimate to the international community, not just to his domestic audience, so he opened the election to international election observers and the foreign press. With local media firmly muzzled by the Marcos regime, this international attention provided a level of transparency in Philippine elections unprecedented since the 1969 elections. The National Democratic Institute and the International Republican Institute both sent delegations to observe, and they issued a report on the elections documenting tampered election returns, snatching of ballot boxes, disenfranchisement, padded registration lists, involvement of the military, and intimidation. COMELEC shrugged off reports of election irregularities from the united opposition, but responded to complaints from the ruling party. The double standard was evident and unsurprising: COMELEC was known to be partisan and loyal to the President for twenty years. Two days after the election, COMELEC tabulators conducting the public quick-count in the Philippine International Convention Center walked out in protest, asserting that they saw discrepancies between their tabulation and the tally board.45 The walkout of COMELEC workers was the first time those directly involved in election administration made a public statement that their printouts were not coinciding with the tally projected to the public, and they called attention to the wholesale falsification of the election results. This action triggered condemnation from the Catholic Church, resignations including the defense chief from the Marcos government, and sustained civil resistance, leading to the famous “People Power” or EDSA revolution that drove Marcos Sr. from power and initiated the transition to democracy. 2004 Elections In preparation for the 2004 national elections, President Gloria MacapagalArroyo broke with twenty years of precedent by appointing party members and close political allies to be COMELEC commissioners. These appointments raised doubts about whether COMELEC as a whole would be impartial and independent in administering the elections. On January 5, 2002, President Arroyo appointed Benjamin Abalos to chair the commission. Abalos was the former mayor of Mandaluyong and a high-ranking member of the Lakas ng Tao–National Union of Christian Democrats (LAKAS-NUCD) political party, the same party as President Arroyo.46

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The clientelistic nature of the relationship between President Arroyo and the election commission, especially her ties with COMELEC chair Abalos, was best articulated by members of his party, who described him as someone who “delivers the votes” and “will not betray the party.”47 The concern of election reform advocates mounted further with the appointment of Virgilio Garcillano. Garcillano served as an election official during the time of the dictator Ferdinand Marcos and retired in 2002 after serving at the regional director level in Mindanao and Southern Luzon. Both these areas are notorious for election fraud. Suspicions that COMELEC commissioners were appointed with the strategic purpose of ensuring the election of President Arroyo were confirmed on June 27, 2005, well after the election, when a tape with a recorded conversation of President Arroyo and Commissioner Garcillano surfaced. Arroyo’s distinct voice asked a man referred to as “Garci” if she would “lead by more than 1 million votes.”48 Within the same month, the president appeared on national television to apologize for her “lapsed judgment” when the vote count dragged and said she was “anxious to protect her votes.”49 The collusion and complicity of COMELEC commissioners marked these years as COMELEC’s lowest credibility since the Marcos era, when wholesale fraud was rampant. However, this episode showed deliberate presidential patronage and the failure of institutions to prevent the presence of unqualified appointees in critical positions. Contemporary Challenges: Digital Campaigns and Disinformation Today, the credibility of the COMELEC has recovered, but it continues to be hampered by capacity deficiencies. The successful automation of elections in 2010, the introduction of a more stringent campaign finance law, the successful campaigns to reach overseas Filipino workers, and the improvement of inclusivity on election day for persons with disabilities have been possible with the appointments of commissioners who are perceived as impartial and credible. The commission needs more support and resources to build its information technology and campaign finance units. These two units within COMELEC could considerably increase the commission’s credibility. There is also a need for a campaign finance unit with more capacity to address overspending issues and vote buying and create a fairer playing field for those who want to participate in politics. One of the criticisms against COMELEC is its overreliance on the supplier of the automated election machines.

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Much of the technical information technology work is outsourced and therefore could be vulnerable to hacking. In the 2016 elections, social media played a key role and became a new campaign battleground. President Rodrigo Duterte’s supporters saturated social media, which had never occurred before in previous campaigns. The success of the Duterte social media campaign is due to the strategic work of Nic Gabunada.50 A former media executive, Gabunada organized a cyber army that manned social media to connect with existing online Duterte supporters. A weekly message was generated along with hashtags to help the message reach a wider audience. Set up like a business process outsourcing operation, the operation office had a board showing recent posts that had the most numbers of “likes” and “shares.” If other social media users engaged, responses were prepared for the team, and keyboard warriors would cut and paste. Organizing social media warriors for the 2016 elections was so sophisticated that a famous psychologist was hired to advise about how to phrase posts so they would more believable. It is “inject(ed) into the real accounts; the real accounts will believe you and spread it to other people, and so on.”51 According to Gabunada, no bots were used for the 2016 Duterte social media campaign. However, between October 2018 and March 30, 2019, Facebook took down over 200 accounts linked to Gabunada. Facebook’s Manila office told the press that it “removed about 200 pages, groups and accounts for engaging in coordinated and inauthentic behavior. . . . What we saw is this cluster of pages . . . a combination of authentic and fake accounts that were basically being used to drive messaging on behalf of, and related to, local [election] candidates.”52 COMELEC made no attempt to regulate the use of social media in the electoral campaign. In the 2022 elections, social media again played a crucial role in promoting a candidate and sowing disinformation and historical revisionism. Attempts by a consortium of civil society members and NGOs to provide fact-checking and to flag false information did not gain enough traction and had a limited reach.

Conclusion Politics and money dominate the Philippine political landscape. Persistent electoral problems include vote buying, violence, and the perception of electoral fraud. While the variety of fraud and electoral malpractice declined considerably with the introduction of automated elections in 2010, electoral integrity issues continue to mar the legitimacy of elec-

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tions in the Philippines. Electoral manipulation remains evident and pervasive at both the national and local levels. What makes the Philippine case unique is how the flaws of the election system are manipulated, the lack of genuine programmatic political parties, and the increasingly fragmented party system.53 As a result, the Philippines’ elections remain highly personalistic and patronage-driven, and national candidates still rely heavily on local political machines to deliver votes. Election administration can contribute to strengthening democratic institutions. At the very least, it can provide a more representative electoral outcome by enforcing and creating election rules that create a fairer playing field. This holds true for the Philippines’ COMELEC. The COMELEC is a constitutional commission. The legislative branch that controls the budget of COMELEC stands in the way of modernizing and building a stronger and more technically adept commission. Electoral integrity will remain elusive if problems of vote buying, violence, and clientelism are not addressed. In the same manner that there was much resistance to the automation of elections, there is also resistance to better equipping COMELEC, because it can change the rules of the game and undercut the interests of existing power-holders. Restoring trust in the institution and increasing its capacity would go a long way toward improving electoral accountability. But without greater enforcement capability and credible autonomy, the COMELEC will not be able to bring electoral integrity to the Philippines.

Notes 1. Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility and Freedom for Media, Freedom for All Network, “The Ampatuan Massacre: Summary of Case Trial,” https:// pcij.org/article/3503/the-ampatuan-massacre-summary-of-case-trial. 2. Fonbuena, “Lanao del Norte Town Mayor, 6 Others Arrested After Firefight,” May 14, 2018, https://www.rappler.com/nation/202481-lanao-del-norte-pantar-mayor -jabar-tago-arrested-firearms 3. Barangay is the smallest political unit in the Philippines. 4. The AFP Modernization Act is known as the Republic Act 7898. This was begun under the presidency of Fidel V. Ramos both to build on its defense capability but also to promote increased professionalism among the men in uniform who were restive during the presidency of Corazon Aquino. Aquino survived seven coup attempts. 5. “Mayor Held for Guns Freed, Now Under Palace Exec’s Care,” Philippine Daily Inquirer, May 18, 2018, http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/991931/mayor-held-for-guns -freed-now-under-palace-execs-care. 6. The three Gs of guns, goons, and gold was one of the ways post war Philippine politics is described, especially in reference to the 1969 elections when Ferdinand Marcos won an unprecedented reelection.

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7. Philippine Statistics Office, “Proportion of Poor Filipinos Registered at 23.7 Percent in the First Semester of 2021,” December 17, 2021, https://psa.gov.ph /content/proportion-poor-filipinos-registered-237-percent-first-semester-2021. 8. World Bank, “Philippines’ Poverty Rate Declines; More Well-Paying Jobs and Opportunities Needed,” May 30, 2018, https://www.worldbank.org/en/news /press-release/2018/05/30/philippines-poverty-rate-declines-more-well-paying-jobs -and-opportunities-needed. 9. Philippine Statistics Office, “2018 National Migration Survey.” 10. Daxim Lucas, “2018 Remittances Hit All-time High,” February 16, 2019, https://business.inquirer.net/265151/2018-remittances-hit-all-time-high. 11. Fritzie Rodriguez, “Billions of Pesos Spent on ‘Pre-campaign’ Ads,” March 10, 2016, https://www.rappler.com/newsbreak/in-depth/125335-campaign-spending -2016-election. 12. Tamayo-Lee, “What I Learned As a Foreign Observer of PH Elections,” May 18, 2016, https://globalnation.inquirer.net/139490/what-i-learned-as-a-foreign -observer-of-ph-elections. 13. Fritzie Rodriguez, “The Many Ways of Buying Votes,” April 3, 2016, https:// www.rappler.com/newsbreak/in-depth/121802-vote buying-methods. 14. Tamayo-Lee, “What I Learned As a Foreign Observer.” 15. While working for an NGO focused on election reform, I worked closely with international observation teams who reported these incidents. I was also part of research on money politics that observed the 2016 elections. 16. CNN Philippines, “9 Arrested for Vote Buying, More Reports Being Validated–PNP,” May 14, 2018, http://cnnphilippines.com/news/2018/05/14/vote-buying -arrest-report-philippine-national-police-barangay-sk-elections.html. 17. Ibid. 18. Hutchcroft, “Review of Oligarchs and Cronies.” 19. Ibid., p. 415. 20. Economist Intelligence Unit, “Democracy Index 2020: In Sickness and in Health?” Economist Intelligence Unit, http://www.eiu.com/topic/democracy-index. 21. Teehankee and Calimbahin, “Mapping the Philippines’ Defective Democracy,” p. 24. 22. Norris, Wynter, and Cameron, “Corruption and Coercion.” 23. Clarke, “NGOs in the Post-Marcos Era,” p. 383. 24. Reid, “Crossovers Double-Crossed,” p. 388. 25. Commission on Elections, “Republic Act No. 9369,” Economist Intelligence Unit, https://comelec.gov.ph/index.html?r=References/RelatedLaws/ElectionLaws /AutomatedElection/RA9369 26. Calimbahin, “Exceeding (Low) Expectations,” p. 114. 27. May Miasco, “Comelec Admits Vote Buying Massive in Automated Polls,” May 18, 2016, https://www.philstar.com/the-freeman/cebu-news/2016/05/08/1581423 /comelec-admits-vote buying-massive-automated-polls. 28. Dwight de Leon, “‘Mahirap i-prove’: Comelec Shrugs off Claims of Automated Election Rigging,” May 10, 2022, https://www.rappler.com/nation/elections /comelec-response-claims-automated-rigging-2022. 29. Rappler, “Comelec Creates New Unit to Monitor Campaign Finances,” June 27, 2013, https://www.rappler.com/nation/politics/elections-2013/7683-comelec -creates-new-unit-to-monitor-campaign-finances. 30. Interview with Resurrecion Borra, 2007. 31. Sofia Tomacruz, “Nearly Half of 2019 Party-List Groups Don’t Represent Marginalized Sectors–Watchdog,” Februar 1, 2019, https://www.rappler.com/nation

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/politics/elections/2019/222481-nearly-half-party-list-groups-do-not-represent -marginalized-sectors. 32. GMA News Online, “Only Four Percent of 1,874 Campaign Over-Spending Cases Resolved over Three Elections,” October 12, 2018, https://www.gmanetwork .com/news/topstories/nation/671059/only-four-percent-of-1-874-campaign-over -spending-cases-resolved-over-three-elections/story/. 33. Fritzie Rodriguez, “ARMM Had Most ‘Overspending’ Candidates in Past Elections,” January 30, 2016, https://www.rappler.com/nation/politics/elections /2016/120613-armm-campaign-overspending-comelec. 34. Rappler, “That New Animal: Can Comelec Catch Up With Social Media?” March 28, 2019, https://www.rappler.com/newsbreak/in-depth/226688-can-comelec -catch-up-social-media. 35. Camille Elemia, “Bong Go Breaks Into May 2019 Winning Circle–Pulse Asia,” February 15, 2019, https://www.rappler.com/nation/politics/elections/2019 /223576-bong-go-breaks-into-winning-circle-pulse-asia-survey-january-2019. 36. Philippine Statistics Authority, Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, “BARMM Statistical Figures,” http://rssoarmm.psa.gov.ph. 37. Fritzie Rodriguez, “ARMM Had Most ‘Overspending’ Candidates in Past Elections,” January 30, 2016, https://www.rappler.com/nation/politics/elections /2016/120613-armm-campaign-overspending-comelec. 38. McCoy, An Anarchy of Families, p. 24. 39. Gerard Lim, “By the Numbers: Candidates in the 2016 Elections,” April 25, 2016, https://www.rappler.com/newsbreak/iq/130157-statistics-2016-elections-candidates. 40. Galvez, “COMELEC: 845 Candidates Running Unopposed,” March 24, 2022, https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1573212/fwd-comelec-845-candidates-running -unopposed-for-may-9-polls 41. Johnson, Democracy for Hire, p. 126. 42. Carbonell-Catilo, de Leon, and Nicolas, Manipulated Elections. 43. “Anarchy in RP Polls,” Daily Mirror, November 5, 1969. 44. Ruben Alabastro, “Marcos Says He’s Willing to Hold Elections Soon,” November 4, 1985, https://apnews.com/article/4129ae5b82d8ba4432d92995be3a4a19. 45. Reynaldo Santos, “1986 Comelec Walkout not About Cory or Marcos,” February 25, 2013, https://r3.rappler.com/nation/politics/elections-2013/22582-1986 -comelec-walkout-not-about-cory-or-marcos. 46. Calimbahin, “Exceeding (Low) Expectations.” 47. Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism, “Abalos Brings the Party to the Comelec,” September 18, 2007, https://old.pcij.org/blog/2007/09/18/abalos -from-poverty-to-power. 48. Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism, “The President Says, ‘I Am Sorry; I Want to Close This Chapter,’” June 28, 2005, https://old.pcij.org/blog /2005/06/28/the-president-says-i-am-sorry-i-want-to-close-this-chapter-2. 49. Ibid. 50. Jodesz Gavilan, “Duterte’s P10M Social Media Campaign: Organic, VolunteerDriven,” June 1, 2016, https://www.rappler.com/newsbreak/rich-media/134979-rodrigo -duterte-social-media-campaign-nic-gabunada. 51. Ibid. 52. Gabriel Lalu, “Facebook Takes Down 200 Accounts Linked to Former Duterte Social Media Strategist,” March 30, 2019, https://newsinfo.inquirer.net /1101396/facebook-takes-down-200-accounts-linked-to-former-duterte-social-media -strategist. 53. Kasuya and Teehankee, “Duterte Presidency and the 2019 Midterm Election.”

11

Myanmar: Invisible Intimidation Elin Bjarnegård

AFTER A DECADE OF POLITICAL LIBERALIZATION, THE MYANMAR MILITARY seized power in a coup d’état in February 2021. The coup took place less than two months after a general election, in which the militaryaffiliated opposition, the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), saw itself once again defeated by the incumbent government party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), led by Aung San Suu Kyi. This most recent NLD landslide victory was in many ways a repetition of the 2015 election, but with the important difference that this time around, the USDP did not accept the election results. Instead, when USDP’s many allegations of vote fraud were not recognized by election authorities, the military finally resorted to taking power by force.1 In one day, ten years of political liberalization was erased. It is illuminating to compare the election of 2020 to the election five years earlier, in 2015, and to consider the different political contexts in which they took place. Apart from the obvious fact that one election was seen as a democratic turning point and the other was the beginning of the end of democratization in Myanmar, there are other important differences. Even though the election results were similar, the tables were turned in almost all other respects. In 2015, the militaryaffiliated USDP was the incumbent government, formally in charge of organizing the elections and upholding their integrity. In 2020, the holding of elections had become the task of the election commission appointed by the NLD government, while the USDP was in opposition, unable to control the administration of the elections.

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This chapter analyzes the actions and reactions of the military-affiliated party USDP in light of its different positions of power in the two elections of 2015 and 2020. The chapter suggests that while the military initiated the process of liberalization, it did not do so with the intention of enabling a full democratization of Myanmar. Rather, the military hoped to build a stable electoral authoritarian regime, camouflaged as a democracy, in which they could continue to wield power.2 In this endeavor, the respect for the elections they themselves administered in 2015, under the constitution they had themselves drafted, was an important strategy. Their situation was very different five years later, in the 2020 elections. The military-affiliated USDP was unable either to control the election or to contest it within the established electoral framework. The military and USDP thus abandoned more subtle electoral interventions and reverted to coercion and to overthrowing the entire political system. By focusing on the landmark 2015 elections and situating them in relation to other elections and events in Myanmar, this chapter highlights how and why the forms of electoral malpractice have varied over time. Formal, institutional manipulation of the electoral process included the military-biased 2008 constitution, whereas informal forms of manipulation—by nature more difficult to observe—included psychological coercion and intimidation. The chapter uses survey data from the 2015 election to identify the presence of such “invisible” intimidation.3

Elections as a Military Survival Strategy Political liberalization, including the introduction of elections, can sometimes somewhat paradoxically be understood as a survival strategy of autocrats.4 Designing and introducing seemingly democratic institutions may bolster international support while institutionalizing the continued influence of the autocrats—be it the military, a party or a dictator.5 Myanmar’s trajectory of political liberalization has often been interpreted along these lines—and the 2021 coup d’état seems to confirm the validity of that interpretation. When the military initiated a process of liberalization in the early 2000s, Myanmar had endured decades of military dictatorship. Military rule was first established in 1958, and elections have been few and far between. After elections in 1960, the military feared the disintegration of the union, and staged a coup d’état in 1962. It would take another thirty years before elections were held again. Following popular protests in

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1988, elections finally took place in 1990. The NLD, already at that time headed by Aung San Suu Kyi, won a landslide victory that the military refused to recognize. The newly elected parliament was never convened, and military rule was reinforced.6 In 2003, however, the military council declared a seven-point road map for a transition to a so called “disciplined democracy.” Few observers had predicted this move, and even fewer thought that the military would follow through. Even so, the new constitution, which was part of the road map, was drafted and passed in a referendum in 2008. It was followed by the transfer of power to a nominally civilian government after the 2010 elections.7 The 2010 elections were significant because they gave Myanmar an officially civilian government, but they were widely condemned internationally for not providing a level playing field, and the polls themselves were considered to be rigged.8 The process leading up to the elections effectively excluded many individuals, notably political prisoners, from running. This included Aung San Suu Kyi and over 400 NLD members. NLD boycotted the elections, which led to the party being officially dissolved.9 There were also reports of widespread intimidation and vote fraud during the polling process.10 The constitution had already been widely criticized for cementing military influence. It reserves a quarter of all parliamentary seats for military personnel, earmarks certain ministerial portfolios to military representatives, gives the military a veto over constitutional change, and grants unusually broad powers to the commander-in-chief.11 Following the 2010 elections, the parliament consisted not only of the 25 percent military personnel in the reserved seats, but a full 80 percent of contested seats were also held by USDP.12 This led many to conclude that the military-affiliated USDP government was only nominally civilian and “a “constitutionalized” façade for ongoing military rule.”13 There is a growing political science literature about how different types of authoritarian regimes seek to ensure regime stability. Military autocracies, such as Myanmar, have a limited number of options at their disposal when it comes to ensuring their own survival. Many contemporary authoritarian regimes move away from exclusively relying on repressive and coercive measures and toward more subtle forms of manipulation and intimidation. This also means that representative institutions are increasingly common features of so-called electoral authoritarian regimes. One option available is to create civilian political institutions outside of the military while seeking to secure military influence in such institutions.14 The political transition in Myanmar was a top-down affair, initiated by the military. While the military

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slowly withdrew from direct rule, it continued to have economic and political influence. The Myanmar military, the Tatmadaw, sees itself as a patriotic guardian of stability and unity. The single-member plurality electoral system from which members of parliament are elected is not designed to represent the country’s ethnic diversity but rather to produce a few, strong parties.15 The entire reform process was designed not only to hold the country together amidst ethnic conflict but also to strengthen international legitimacy. Additionally, the military is synonymous with the country’s economic elite, who had strong vested economic interests they wanted to protect.16 Despite strong international criticism of the 2010 elections, the formal removal of a military dictatorship in favor of a civilian government, along with President Thein Sein’s promises of a continued political liberalization, did strengthen Myanmar’s international standing. Aid, trade, and international presence in the country grew, civil society was strengthened, and there was a proliferation of domestic nongovernmental organizations (NGOs).17 Ahead of the 2015 elections, there was thus cautious optimism among domestic and international democracy promoters alike. Such optimism was, however, also apparent in the military-affiliated USDP. Like other electoral authoritarian ruling parties, winning elections had become central to their hold on power. The need to open up the political space to greater competition was obvious, but there were both formal and more informal ways in which the USDP sought to control the outcome.18 There were no reliable opinion polls, and no previous comparable elections (possibly apart from the limited by-elections of 2012) that could be used for predictions. There were, however, constitutional limitations on the power that the opposition party NLD could possibly gain. First, the constitution disqualifies individuals with foreign children from becoming president, a clause seemingly designed to rule out the possibility that Aung San Suu Kyi could hold the country’s highest office. Second, substantial power-sharing between the military and any elected civilian government was already effectively institutionalized through the 25 percent military quota. This requirement meant that the USDP would only need to win 26 percent of the seats to be able to continue their rule in conjunction with the appointed military representatives. This was a number most observers, as well as USDP officials themselves, thought they could reach.19 While the USDP was prepared for an NLD victory in the cities, they counted on support in the country’s large rural areas. They sought to maintain this support with traditional campaigns including the distribution of treats and cash, as well as

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with a door-to-door campaign.20 Because it was a military-imposed and controlled transition, they had nevertheless invested greatly in their promise to respect the election results. Although there are indications that the landslide victory of the NLD came as a surprise to the military as well as to the party they backed, they did hand over power. At this point, claiming that the elections had not been organized properly would not have been a viable strategy, given that the USDP as the ruling party was in charge of organizing them. The 2015 elections were largely seen as a success and as an important landmark event in the democratization of Myanmar. However, knowing what we know now, they can be seen in new light. We now know that in the subsequent 2020 election, the USDP accused the election commission as well as the ruling NLD of election fraud. We now also know that when the complaints were not handled within the constitutional framework, the military took power back into its own hands to overturn the election results through a coup. In retrospect, the elections of 2015 are worthy of further investigation. If the above interpretations are correct, we suspect the USDP government would seek to install an electoral authoritarian rule, or what the military called a “disciplined democracy.” This would imply that the institutional framework of the elections, including their competitiveness, would be protected, but that the USDP would have used other, more subtle, electoral malpractices such as intimidation, in order to affect the outcome of the election. The above narrative suggests that the military-allied government party USDP engaged in this cost-benefit analysis ahead of the Myanmar election of 2015. The process of political liberalization and the promise of a free and fair election had enticed donors and international investors to return to the country, and sanctions had been lifted.21 Much was at stake, and government actors could not risk undermining the formal election procedures by visibly using illegitimate means to affect the election.22 This chapter investigates to what extent the Myanmar election of 2015 saw a shift from the visible electoral malpractice used in 2010 to more subtle and less visible forms of electoral manipulation in 2015. If such practices existed in 2015, then the coup in 2021 is not the sudden break from the democratization trajectory it first appeared to be. Instead, the coup should rather be understood as a reaction to continuous failed attempts by the military to subtly control electoral outcomes. In 2020, the military-affiliated party USDP was in opposition and had not been involved in administering the elections. This put them in a position from which they no longer had anything to gain

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from respecting the election results. Instead, they could openly critique the election administration and ultimately overthrow the elected civilian leadership of the regime.

Assessing Elections As the introductory chapter notes, malpractice is the use of illegitimate and intentional means to intervene in the electoral process in favor of some candidates and parties over others. These interventions can be placed on a continuum of electoral malpractice, ranging from manipulation of the formal rules of the game, such as partisan bias in the design of formal electoral rules, to informal threats and intimidation of voters.23 It is not unusual for political actors in previously closed authoritarian countries to continue using undemocratic forms of sticks and carrots, such as intimidation and vote buying, to influence voter choice and impact outcomes even after competitive elections are introduced.24 But how can we assess the extent of malpractices in an election? And how do we determine if USDP in 2015 switched to using subtle, “invisible” intimidation? As we know, the USDP had quite visibly manipulated the previous election. The 2010 elections were thus a natural point of comparison for the election observation missions who were specifically tasked with assessing the quality of the elections.25 Such election observation missions have become common during the past few decades,26 and Myanmar in 2015 was no exception. Over 1,000 international observers27 and 11,445 domestic observers representing fifty-two organizations were accredited to monitor the elections.28 Considering that Myanmar has a violent history that is partly linked to failed or flawed elections, many doubted that the ruling USDP would actually concede defeat and give up power in the event of a victory for the opposition party NLD. There were also fears that the electoral competition would spur renewed violence along religious and ethnic lines.29 Many observers came in expecting that the elections would be violent, flawed or not respected. Their reactions and assessments should be seen in light of these expectations. This chapter takes a closer look at four selected official reports that are largely representative of election observation mission conclusions from the 2015 elections. The observation missions selected are all well-known and respected. Two observation missions are international and external to the region: the American mission from the Carter Cen-

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ter30 and the EU European Observation Mission.31 One actor is regional: the Asian Network for Free Elections (ANFREL),32 whose membership is drawn from ASEAN countries. A domestic observation mission, the Gender Election Observation Mission,33 has also been included in this review. While most election observation reports reach similar conclusions, these four will be used to illustrate the general assessment of the election. The fact that the Union Election Commission (UEC) even allowed election observation was in itself an improvement from the election in 2010. At a general level, observation missions and their reports assessed the 2015 election as decidedly more transparent and independent than the previous ones, and as a major step forward for democracy. The Carter Center report confirms that “Myanmar appears to be on a positive trajectory toward a peaceful, democratic transition as a result of these elections.”34 The Gender Election Observation Mission concludes that “the electoral process was carried out in a peaceful manner that included women and men voters as equal.”35 The ANFREL report claims that the campaign atmosphere was “more lively and festive than that of 2010” and that, in general, it showed “remarkable progress in most areas” compared to the 2010 election.36 The ANFREL chairperson and head of mission summarized it: “While there of course remains room for improvement, the election process exceeded expectations and certainly provided the country a means through which to have their voices heard.”37 Regarding the occurrence of election-related violence, the observation reports agreed that the level of physical violence was relatively low. The Carter Center reported isolated incidents of violence, including fifteen cases of physical attacks on party supporters, and very few physical attacks on candidates.38 The European Union mission, too, reported a calm election campaign with only isolated incidents.39 The ANFREL report mentions troubling but isolated clashes between campaign supporters, but assesses the campaign environment to be generally peaceful in the areas observed by ANFREL volunteers.40 The Gender Election Observation Mission (GEOM) reports no violence against women from their observations of queues at polling stations.41 The EU and ANFREL reports suggested the Political Parties Code of Conduct as a possible cause for this unexpected improvement. In this code of conduct, parties had agreed on a set of electoral principles. While the code was not legally binding, both reports pointed out that it led to self-regulation. The Code of Conduct Monitoring Committee had to remind parties not to “encourage hatred between any

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religion, tribe, group, gender, language, or community” and “to refrain from any form of intimidation or incitement to violence vis-à-vis any person or group of persons or beliefs.42 Both the Carter Center report and the ANFREL report, however, noted discriminatory speech largely directed at the Muslim minority. The Carter Center mainly observed this pattern of speech on social media 43 , whil3 ANFREL observed politicians publicly speaking about race and religion in a derogatory manner, with the Muslim Rohingya population being a particular target. The European observation mission received reports about forced attendance of students at some USDP rallies and pressure on government employees to publicly show their support and subsequently vote for the USDP.44 Like most observer reports, these assessments of the 2015 elections are mainly based on meetings, interviews and polling station observations. Most official election observers are present only for a few days, to observe the actual election, and primarily focus on observing the polling stations and the counting of ballots.45 Most organizations also deploy some long-term observers who focus on campaigns and election preparations, but they are much fewer in number. The reports from the observation missions document disturbing incidents that observers have come across or heard about, but while they may comment on whether these occurrences appear to be widespread, systematic or isolated, observer teams are not tasked with estimating the prevalence of different types of violations of electoral integrity, nor equipped to do so. Important limitations of election observation assessments include their principal focus on Election Day and the outsider status of most election observers.46 The methods by which election observation missions collect their information also limits their assessments. First, there tends to be a focus on documenting incidents that are in the public sphere, while incidents taking place in the home or online are unlikely to be captured, resulting in their being rendered invisible in election reports. Second, although election observation missions generally seek to collect information from different types of election stakeholders, they often rely heavily on the accounts of official spokespeople, such as election commissions, political parties, and community associations.47 Certain violations of electoral integrity seek to influence the election outcome by threatening the security of election stakeholders, thus simultaneously violating personal integrity. Such violations exist along a continuum48 and can take both physical and psychological forms.49 The limited focus of election observation missions is particularly problematic if the aim is to assess election quality on a wider continuum of

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violations of electoral and personal integrity, including more subtle, socalled invisible intimidation.50 Such a continuum is recognized as relevant by most research on violence as electoral malpractice, which, alongside physical harm also includes harassment, abuse, blackmail, threat, and intimidation of candidates, election workers, and voters in its definitions.51 These types of violations are often made invisible, because although they cause significant harm to the electoral process as well as to the individual victim,52 they are often not carried out in public view and so are less likely to be detected.53 Psychological intimidation may thus be the preferred method of manipulation for power-holders in whose interest it is to keep violations of electoral integrity under the radar of election observers. Thus, while election observers may see a free and fair election, illegitimate intimidation may still be occurring out of sight. In electoral authoritarian regimes, these more subtle, invisible forms of repression are the most likely. In order to unveil the extent of “invisible” intimidation in the Myanmar election of 2015, we need to focus more on looking for psychological forms of election violence that the four reviewed observation reports were unlikely to note. A growing body of research has demonstrated that psychological violence in the form of intimidation tends to be underreported. Psychological forms of violence are often carried out and experienced in the private sphere, making them invisible to observers of the public sphere. The perpetrator does not even have to be in the same room, as psychological violence can be carried out via letters, phone calls or, increasingly, via social media platforms.54 Moreover, psychological forms of violence, such as threats and slander, are often used to shame the victim, thus carrying a stigmatizing effect rendering them less likely to be reported.55 A power analysis of the sources and their access to different types of information is also crucial. If most sources are individuals who are occupying official positions in electoral bodies, parties, or community organizations, we need to ask ourselves on whose behalf they may speak. Is information-gathering based on government-affiliated sources? To uncover “invisible” intimidation, researchers need to rely on other sources of information, such as community reporting or individual accounts from political candidates themselves.56 The methods used in this chapter build on these insights and include respondents with different experiences and positions in order to capture a potential shift to more subtle forms of electoral malpractices in the 2015 elections in Myanmar. The idea is to reassess the election by contrasting the official reports with new data collected using a different method. The

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positive election observation reports described above are used as a point of comparison to assess the types of intimidation that the new methods are able to uncover.

Methods for Data Collection The data collection for this chapter is similar to election observations in that information is gathered indirectly, from different election stakeholders. However, the data is systematically collected through a survey of a broad range of election stakeholders: members of the government, opposition parties, and neutral representatives. In order not to focus on observable public, often physical, violence, the survey explicitly asks about a variety of violent incidents along a continuum of election violence, including invisible psychological forms.57 It captures experiences and assessments of political stakeholders directly involved in organizing the 2015 election in Myanmar—election officials, party representatives, candidates, polling station officials, civil society organizations, and so forth. It is not designed primarily to collect their own personal experiences, but rather asks about the stakeholders’ assessments about the prevalence of different types of intimidation in the election. Surveys were carried out at a large national post-election conference, as well as at subsequent regional post-election conferences that were co-organized by International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES). The survey was filled out by 432 individuals, 159 of whom were women, in a total of twenty workshops. IFES has recorded the total number of participants in these workshops to be 569, which would indicate a response rate of 76 percent. 58 Respondents were assured that they would remain anonymous. IFES explained that the purpose of the survey was to systematically compile impressions from election stakeholders about the campaign process, and that no efforts would be made to link the information to any individuals.59 It was distributed at the National Conference, the Women’s Day Conference, and in regional post-election conferences in Myitkyina, Kayin, Mon, Lashio, Keng Tung, Pathein, Monywa, Mandalay, Magwe, Dawei, Sittwe, and Loikaw. The survey explicitly asked about a variety of forms of violence related to the election. In addition, respondents were asked about what they thought were the reasons for any violent incidents or acts of intimidation they observed. The main reason for posing this question was to ascertain that the surveys mainly captured election-related violence

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rather than other forms of communal, criminal, or private conflicts that happened to occur at the same time. Eighty percent of respondents perceived that the reason for any violence or intimidation was political differences (rather than ethnic, religious, gender, or age differences). This pattern indicates that respondents had, indeed, focused on violence that they considered related to politics or elections rather than violence with any other objective or cause.60

Reassessing the 2015 Election Including “Invisible” Intimidation The survey asked respondents about both physical and psychological forms of election violence. When asked about physical forms of interpersonal violence in the election, 28 percent of respondents perceived that such violence had been systematic to some extent (including respondents answering that it was widespread or occurred sometimes as opposed to never having heard of it or only having heard of isolated incidents). Given the expectations and the underlying conflict patterns in Myanmar, this result could be interpreted as some confirmation of the reports that there was not as much violence as some had feared. However, whereas election observation missions reported only isolated incidents, this finding indicates that over a quarter of respondents perceived physical violence as being fairly systematic. When asked specifically about psychological forms of violence— such as libel and threats—a majority—55 percent—of respondents perceived this to be something that happened either sometimes or very often. The first thing the survey results show is that assessments of electoral malpractice do change when nonphysical forms of election violence are included, which suggests that “invisible” intimidation is an important tool of manipulation. This difference is illustrated in Figure 11.1. Almost 40 percent of respondents claimed that the government at the time (USDP) used illegitimate means to affect the outcome of the election (again including respondents who answered that it was either widespread or happened sometimes). The survey format does not allow for more detailed information about what may have constituted these illegitimate means, but it does measure a broad perception among the respondents that the government engaged in manipulation of the election. There is a significant important gender difference in this assessment: 53 percent of women reported that the government used illegitimate means to affect the outcome of the election while only 29

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Figure 11.1

Physical vs. Psychological Election Violence and Intimidation in Myanmar

Source: Author.

percent of the men said the same thing. Women are also somewhat more likely to perceive that threats were commonly used in the election. One potential explanation could be that the then-government party USDP used massive door-to-door campaigns, whereas the then-opposition party NLD primarily campaigned in public, in the streets and in mass rallies.61 In most societies, Myanmar included, women spend more time in the private sphere than men do, and they are the most likely to have opened the door to talk to canvassers of the USDP. If their campaigning was perceived to involve pressure and threats, it may be the case that this particular strategy was experienced by, and reported to, more women than men. If canvassers were primarily male, it may also be the case that women perceived door-to-door campaigns or other encounters with representatives from the government party as more intrusive and threatening than men did, and that the big difference reflects a difference in interpretation rather than in occurrence. Moving to different forms of psychological violations of personal and electoral integrity, an issue that stands out is libel and rumor-spreading; 62 percent of respondents perceived that libel, character assassination, or rumors occurred systematically during the campaign. Almost

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half of the respondents (47 percent) also claimed that threats occurred frequently or regularly. These assessments are illustrated in Figure 11.2. Another way to indirectly assess government electoral malpractices is to compare the responses of different groups of respondents based on their relationship to the incumbent USDP government. The government, as the organizer of the election, was likely to be a biased reporter. It was in their interest to safeguard the impression that malpractice was rare in the elections they were responsible for organizing. The survey data indicates a clear government bias in the 2015 election in Myanmar. When we analyze the forty-five government-associated respondents (election commission workers or government officials) separately, their assessments of electoral malpractice look quite different from that of observers with no apparent government affiliation. As illustrated in Figure 11.3, government-affiliated respondents systematically perceive violations of electoral integrity to have been much less widespread than respondents that were not affiliated to the government. A logistic regression analysis was carried out for each form of intimidation, controlling for government affiliation and the sex of the respondent. Table 11.1 confirms the results. The sex of the respondent matters for their assessment: women were significantly more likely to

Figure 11.2

Different Forms of Violations of Electoral Integrity in Myanmar

Source: Author.

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Figure 11.3

Government-Affiliated Respondents vs. Respondents Not Affiliated to the Government in Myanmar

Source: Author. Notes: Percentage of respondents who reported that this form of violation was widespread or happened sometimes, divided by government affiliation. Dark gray = governmentaffiliated respondents; light gray = respondents not affiliated to the government.

think that the USDP government used illegitimate means to impact the outcome of the election, and to report that threats were commonly used. Being affiliated with the USDP government, however, was significantly related to a more positive assessment of the election. USDP-affiliated respondents were less likely to report that the election was marred by intimidation and electoral malpractice in the form of illegitimate government practices, libel, threats, physical violence, sexual violence, and destruction of property. Thus, the more influence the government had over the official accounts of the election, the greater the risk that many forms of manipulation would remain invisible and unreported. Victims of Violations of “Invisible” Intimidation Who were the victims of these invisible violations of personal and electoral integrity? Were different tactics used against different types of

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Table 11.1 Different Forms of Intimidation in Myanmar, Logistic Regression Illegitimate Government Means Sex

0.91 (0.26) Government –1.37 (0.51) Constant –0.71 (0.18) N 275 Pseudo R2 0.07

Libel

Threats

Physical Violence

Sexual Violence

–0.08 (0.24) –2.07 (0.42) 0.73 (0.16) 343 0.07

0.48 (0.23) –2.03 (0.49) –0.13 (0.15) 338 0.07

–0.02 (0.26) –2.87 (1.02) –0.80 (0.18) 303 0.07

0.17 (0.29) –1.11 (0.74) –1.11 (0.20) 280 0.04

Destruction of Property –0.03 (0.23) –0.96 (0.36) 0.34 (0.16) 339 0.02

Source: Author.

stakeholders in the 2015 elections? Figure 11.4 indicates who the respondents perceived to be the victims of different forms of violence. According to the survey respondents, the victims of most violations were the political candidates. They were perceived to be most at risk of libel and rumors, destruction of property, physical and sexual violence as well as illegitimate practices used by the government. Party supporters consistently came in second place in all these instances, with the exception of the government’s illegitimate practices, where voters were second in place after candidates. One can imagine that tactics like paying voters to come to party rallies or uneven access to information played an important part in this assessment. When it comes to threats, the overall patterns, changes, and voters were perceived to be most at risk. Figure 11.4 shows that the victims of violations of electoral and personal integrity were perceived to be different depending on the form of violation. If we focus on understanding how threats have an impact on elections, voters need to be included as a focus of our investigation or we are likely to underestimate the presence of threats affecting voter choice, and ultimately the outcome of the election. If, on the other hand, we focus on the impact of libel and rumors, a study of voters only would underestimate the impact of libel and rumors, as they tend to affect candidates the most. In contrast to voters, election officers and polling station workers were not perceived to be common victims of either of these types of violations. Neither were journalists. While there were not many journalists among the respondents, there were many election officers who had participated in different roles, including election-related education,

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Figure 11.4

Victims of Violations of Electoral and Personal Integrity in Myanmar

Source: Author.

election observation, working as polling station officials, or counting the votes. They do not seem to have had great concerns about their own security. Perpetrators of Violations of Electoral and Personal Integrity Who were the perpetrators of violations of personal and electoral integrity? Did different perpetrators use different methods? Figure 11.5 shows who the respondents perceived to be the perpetrators of different forms of violence. Here, political supporters were seen as the most likely perpetrators of physical forms of violence (including sexual) as well as libel and other kinds of threats. Candidates were in second place in most of these instances, and somewhat surprisingly, candidates themselves were seen as the most likely actor to destroy property.

Myanmar Figure 11.5

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Perpetrators of Violations of Electoral and Personal Integrity in Myanmar

Source: Author.

One thing that stands out here is the relatively high number of respondents who perceived that a category of people other than the ones mentioned was the most likely perpetrator. The bar “others” is consistently higher than in previous analyses, and it is the highest of all bars when it comes to government’s illegitimate means. This result suggests that the questionnaire did not ask about at least one important group of commonly perceived perpetrators. Some respondents wrote down what they meant by “others.” In the majority of these cases, they wrote “ethnic armed groups.” These ethnic armed groups were apparently not seen as part of the category of political supporters, even though there were ethnic parties more or less loosely affiliated to these groups, and although they were seen as disrupting the election.

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Timing of Violence When respondents were asked about the timing of the violence, a large majority indicated that the violations of electoral integrity they were aware of most frequently occurred in the pre-election phase, during campaigning. Over 70 percent of respondents indicated that this was the most contentious phase, about 16 percent of respondents pointed to election day itself, and only 10 percent to the post-election phase (see Figure 11.6). This assessment seems likely in light of results that, for instance, indicate a high prevalence of libel of different forms. If libel was carried out with the intention of affecting the outcome of the election, it was likely to take place primarily during the election campaign. The fact that most intimidation took place in the pre-election phase was also illuminating in light of the official election observation reports reviewed above. Considering that most election observation missions had the vast majority of their observers in place during the actual election, intimidation taking place in the pre-election phase was likely underreported, contributing to its relative invisibility in those reports.

Conclusion This chapter has focused on “invisible” intimidation as a form of electoral malpractice in the Myanmar national election of 2015. The elecFigure 11.6

Timing of Violence in Myanmar

Source: Author.

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tion of 2015 is interesting in retrospect in light of the fact that it was widely characterized as a democratic turning-point: it was surprisingly free and fair and led to a peaceful transfer of power. Yet, in the previous and subsequent elections, in 2010 and 2020, the military and its affiliated party USDP clearly violated electoral integrity and democratic principles. This chapter thus set out to investigate whether the election of 2015 really was as different as election observation reports would have us believe. Or was it rather the case that the USDP, in 2015, used more subtle forms of intimidation that took place under the radar of election observers? This chapter finds evidence that it did. These survey data of election stakeholders add additional nuance to the narrative of the 2015 elections as largely free and fair, with relatively little repression or manipulation by the ruling party. The level of “invisible” intimidation in the form of psychological forms of violence, in particular, was much higher in these elections than previously documented. While libel and demeaning rhetoric about ethnic minorities was mentioned by some election observation missions, along with some instances of voters being threatened and harassed into attending political party rallies, the survey results presented here indicate that other forms of psychological violence were much more widespread. The inclusion of a wide scope of respondents also demonstrates the bias created by one’s political position or previous experiences. It matters whom you ask, even when stakeholders are asked to assess patterns that do not concern their own experiences. The identity of the respondent as well as the position in relation to the election influenced their perception of events, and their strategic reasoning around what they were willing to report. This is why there were significant differences in the replies offered by government affiliates and those not affiliated to the government regarding every type of violence assessed. Respondents who were not affiliated with the USDP government report significantly higher incidences of all kinds of intimidating practices compared to government-affiliated respondents. This chapter suggests that it is important to identify and measure “invisible intimidation” as part of a government’s repertoire of electoral manipulation. Such forms of intimidation tend to go under the radar, but they violate electoral and personal integrity, and they are unmistakable signs of undemocratic intentions on the part of the government.

Notes 1. Kipgen, “The 2020 Myanmar Election and the 2021 Coup.”

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2. Macdonald, “From Military Rule to Electoral Authoritarianism”; Croissant and Kamerling, “Why Do Military Regimes Institutionalize?” 3. The research was carried out within the project Gender Aspects of Election Violence at Uppsala University (funded by the Swedish Research Council, number 2015–03488, and in cooperation with the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES). The project is developing concepts and methods in order to improve data collection on election violence broadly defined. I wish to thank members of the 2017 APSA mini-conference Electoral Malpractice in East and Southeast Asia, the panel on Development Challenges in Myanmar at the 2017 EADI Conference, and the 2018 Folke Bernadotte research workshop on Elections in Emerging Democracies for useful comments at various stages of the project. In particular, feedback from Allen Hicken, Marte Nilsen, Kristine Höglund and Nic Cheesman has contributed to my thinking. 4. Croissant and Kamerling, “Why Do Military Regimes Institutionalize?”; Geddes, Wright, and Frantz, “Autocratic Breakdown and Regime Transitions.” 5. Carothers, “The Rise of Election Monitoring”; Levitsky and Way, “Elections Without Democracy”; Levitsky and Way, “International Linkage and Democratization”; Miller, “The Strategic Origins of Electoral Authoritarianism.” 6. Croissant and Kamerling, “Why Do Military Regimes Institutionalize?” 7. Stokke and Aung, “Transition to Democracy or Hybrid Regime?” 8. Lidauer, “Democratic Dawn?” 9. Turnell, “Doors Open, Doors Close.” 10. Davies and Siddique, “Burma Election Observers Report Voter Intimidation”; Burma Fund UN Office, “Burma’s 2010 Elections”; BNI, “Election Report, 2010.” 11. “Myanmar’s Constitution of 2008,” https://www.constituteproject.org /constitution/Myanmar_2008.pdf?lang=en. 12. Croissant and Kamerling, “Why Do Military Regimes Institutionalize?” 13. Turnell, “Doors Open, Doors Close,” p. 148. 14. For example, Hadenius and Teorell, “Pathways from Authoritarianism”; Gerschewski, “The Three Pillars of Stability”; Geddes, Wright, and Frantz, “Autocratic Breakdown and Regime Transitions”; von Soest and Grauvogel, “Identity, Procedures, and Performance”; Bernhard, Edgell, and Lindberg, “Institutionalising Electoral Uncertainty.” 15. Tan and Preece, “Electoral System, Ethnic Parties, and Party System Stability.” 16. Bünte, “Burma’s Transition to Quasi-Military Rule”; Stokke and Aung, “Transition to Democracy or Hybrid Regime?” 17. Bjarnegård, “Introduction: Development Challenges in Myanmar”; Décobert and Wells, “Interpretive Complexity and Crisis.” 18. Macdonald, “From Military Rule to Electoral Authoritarianism.” 19. Mang, “USDP Faces Uncertain Future After Election Annihilation” ; Lone, “Win or Lose, We Will Accept the Decision.” 20. Phyu, “USDP Readies for Door-to-Door Campaign” ; Naing, “Myanmar’s Ruling USDP Comes Knocking”; “USDP Tops Poll for Election Handouts.” 21. Stokke and Aung, “Transition to Democracy or Hybrid Regime?”; Décobert and Wells, “Interpretive Complexity and Crisis.” 22. Bjarnegård, “Making Gender Visible in Election Violence.” 23. Norris, “The New Research Agenda Studying Electoral Integrity”; Norris, “Introduction: Challenges of Electoral Integrity.” 24. Collier, Wars, Guns, and Votes: Democracy in Dangerous Places. 25. Carothers, “The Rise of Election Monitoring.” 26. Hyde, “Catch Us If You Can”; Daxecker, “The Cost of Exposing Cheating.”

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27. Carter Center, “Observing Myanmar’s 2015 General Elections.” p. 67. 28. EU EOM, “EU EOM Myanmar General Elections.” 29. Nilsen and Tonnesson, “Political Parties and Peacebuilding in Myanmar.” 30. Carter Center, “Observing Myanmar’s 2015 General Elections.” 31. EU EOM, “EU EOM Myanmar General Elections.” 32. ANFREL, “General & Local Elections Myanmar 2015.” 33. GEOM, “The Myanmar Elections 2015.” 34. Carter Center, “Observing Myanmar’s 2015 General Elections,” p. 5. 35. GEOM, “The Myanmar Elections 2015,” p. 2. 36. ANFREL, “General & Local Elections Myanmar 2015.” 37. Ibid., p. 9. 38. Carter Center, “Observing Myanmar’s 2015 General Elections.” 39. EU EOM, “EU EOM Myanmar General Elections 2015.” 40. ANFREL, “General & Local Elections Myanmar 2015,” p. 35. 41. GEOM, “The Myanmar Elections 2015.” 42. EU EOM, “EU EOM Myanmar General Elections 2015,” p. 21. See also ANFREL, “General & Local Elections Myanmar 2015.” 43. Carter Center, “Observing Myanmar’s 2015 General Elections,” p. 45. 44. EU EOM, “EU EOM Myanmar General Elections 2015,” p. 20. 45. ANFREL, “Myanmar 2015 General Elections” ; Carter Center, “Observing Myanmar’s 2015 General Elections”; EU EOM, “EU EOM Myanmar General Elections 2015”; GEOM, “The Myanmar Elections 2015.” 46. Carothers, “The Rise of Election Monitoring”; Daxecker, “The Cost of Exposing Cheating”; Hyde, “The Observer Effect in International Politics,” pp. 37–63; Hyde and Kelley, “The Limits of Election Monitoring,” p. 3; Bush and Prather, “Who’s There?”; Simpser and Donno, “Can International Election Monitoring Harm Governance?” 47. While it may be argued that it is not in the mandate of election observation missions to assess prevalence, it is worth noting that even research specifically designed to do so is often primarily occupied with measuring what is publically observable or reported by official spokespersons. Research on election violence has, with few exceptions, been conducted at the aggregate level, focusing on countries rather than on individual experiences. Data has often been collected from electoral management bodies, election observers or secondary sources such as media reports. This focus inevitably brings about a bias towards reporting on physical acts of violence that take place in the public sphere. 48. Bjarnegård, “The Continuum of Election Violence.” 49. Bardall, “Breaking the Mold”; Krook and Sanín, “Gender and Political Violence in Latin America,” p. 34. 50. Bjarnegård, “Making Gender Visible in Election Violence”; Bjarnegård, “The Continuum of Election Violence.” 51. Fischer, “Electoral Conflict and Violence” ; Höglund, “Electoral Violence in Conflict-Ridden Societies”; Bjarnegård, “Making Gender Visible in Election Violence.” 52. Höglund, “Electoral Violence in Conflict-Ridden Societies”; Bjarnegård, “Making Gender Visible in Election Violence.” 53. Bjarnegård, “Making Gender Visible in Election Violence.” 54. Segrave and Vitis, Gender, Technology, and Violence. 55. Bjarnegård, Håkansson, and Zetterberg, “Gender and Violence Against Political Candidates”; Bjarnegård, “The Continuum of Election Violence.” 56. Kammerud, “Merging Conflict Management with Electoral Practice”; Bardall, “Breaking the Mold”; Bjarnegård, “Making Gender Visible in Election

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Violence”; Bjarnegård, “The Continuum of Election Violence”; Bjarnegård, Håkansson, and Zetterberg, “Gender and Violence Against Political Candidates.” 57. Bjarnegård, “Making Gender Visible in Election Violence.” 58. However, it should be noted that quite a few respondents did not fill out the entire questionnaire. The surveys were often distributed towards the end of a long and tiring day. 59. It was reported that questions about violence with sexual connotations were sometimes found sensitive and offensive. Although that is not the focus of this chapter, if affected the data collection. In Chin state, IFES decided to discontinue the survey because too many people found it offensive. It is difficult to estimate the implications of the omission of one of the regions. 60. Ethnicity is highly politicized in Myanmar, and the choice of this category does not necessarily preclude election violence. While it is certainly the case that conflict lines across ethnicity, gender, and age could interact with and shape political violence, the measurements used in this study are too crude to study such patterns in detail. 61. Phyu, “USDP Readies for Door-to-Door Campaign”; Naing, “Myanmar’s Ruling USDP Comes Knocking”; Thu, “Street to Street, Door to Door.”

12

Thailand: The Uses and Abuses of Electoral Reforms Joel Selway

THAILAND’S DEMOCRATIC DEVELOPMENT HAS LONG SUFFERED FROM VARious forms of electoral malpractice, from vote buying, political murders, and corruption to challenging the independence of constitutionally mandated institutions such as the Election Commission and Supreme Court.1 For all these imperfections, however, the actual administration and counting of votes in Thai elections has historically been largely free and fair. In the 2019 elections, the vote count came under scrutiny based on results that failed to align with pre-election public opinion surveys and exit polls, lower-than-expected voter turnout, as well as a delay in announcing the official vote count.2 Prior elections carried out under military regimes following the 1991 and 2006 coups did not suffer from widespread ballot stuffing, miscounting, misreporting, or voter intimidation, so this was a unique feature of the 2019 elections in recent times. However, explicit electoral fraud was seriously restricted by the widespread availability of pre-election poll results. The junta was thus limited in this regard. Indeed, the 2019 election, during both the pre- and post-electoral stages, was most notable for another type of electoral malpractice: manipulation of the electoral system. Since the 2006 coup, this peculiar kind of electoral malpractice has become popular, falling under the guise of electoral reform. Looking back to the 1997 constitution, which introduced the most significant change in the Thai party system in the country’s history, military leaders in the twenty-first century have understood the potential for using electoral rules to shape election

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outcomes in their favor. Electoral reform was once seen as a positive phenomenon aimed at strengthening Thai democracy, but military leaders have been attentive students and learned that the rules matter greatly. The two previous attempts at manipulating electoral reform in favor of military-backed forces did not result in significant changes to the political landscape. The junta geared up for the March 24, 2019, elections in a different fashion, however, seemingly having learned from their predecessors’ past mistakes. And they were successful beyond their wildest imagination. Combined with some post-electoral manipulation of the rules via legal interpretations by the military-appointed Constitutional Court, the junta was able to catapult their preferred candidate to the top post of prime minister, backed by a thin legislative majority resting on the presence of several new small parties. The party landscape has now dramatically changed, and the ability of the opposition party, Pheu Thai, to win a majority that could appoint a prime minister is severely weakened. With new elections likely in 2023, the institutional landscape set by the 2017 charter and its new electoral system is giving the military-backed party great confidence in continuing in power. We can thus add electoral reform to the dictator’s toolbox of ways to subvert the popular will.

Democratic Stirrings Thailand’s experience with democracy is of relatively recent origins. Though the country has held elections since 1933, free and fair elections in a fully-functioning democracy did not take place until 1988 when then–prime minister, General Prem Tinsulanonda, stepped down to allow a fully elected prime minister to take the helm.3 Democratic elections in the 1990s were wild affairs, however: numerous parties competed for power in a highly fragmented system.4 Party labels were mostly meaningless, ideologically and loyalty-wise, as members of parliament (MPs) switched parties frequently. Eleven parties won seats in each of the four elections held during this decade, and the largest party held as little as 20 percent of the seats. Vote buying was rampant, corruption rife, and political murders a regular part of the electoral landscape.5 MPs in power treated the nation’s pocketbook with equal disrespect for the public interest, with one prime minister even being labeled the “Walking ATM” for his propensity to hand out money to his supporters in explicit fashion.6 Political parties, and their inability to produce policy-driven, administratively competent MPs, were largely blamed for the severe financial

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crisis that racked Thailand (subsequently spreading to the rest of Asia) in 1997.7 Within a matter of two months, the once fastest-growing economy in the world saw its currency lose more than half its value; the stock market dropped by 75 percent, and financial institutions collapsed. Not only were Thai MPs unable to deal with the crisis, but they were seen as one of its principal causes, leading to the coinage of the phrase “crony capitalism.”8 Rather than a military coup to “throw the bums out,” as had happened in 1991, the financial crisis led to calls from Thai civic groups to reform the entire political system.9 Five months on from the first speculative attacks on the Thai baht, a new constitution was passed.10

The 1997 Constitution The new constitution was hailed as highly participatory.11 Aptly labeled the “people’s constitution,” the document introduced a fully elected senate, a raft of independent institutions meant to check and balance elected politicians, guarantees of numerous human rights, as well as specific policy goals expected from government. Perhaps the most influential aspect of the new constitution, however, were the series of rules designed to reform the party system. Gone was the block vote multi-member district electoral system that produced such a fragmented party system, partly by incentivizing members of the same party to compete against each other.12 In its place came single-member constituencies. Additionally, an upper tier of MPs elected by proportional representation in a single, nationwide constituency was introduced. Parties had to pass a certain threshold to win seats on this tier, which benefited larger parties. Moreover, the national nature of this tier caused parties to create distinctive brands via unique positions on national policy issues.13 Voters could cast two votes, one for a local, constituency candidate, and one for a national-level party in the new upper tier. During the campaign for the first elections to be held under the new constitution in 2001 arose a new political party, the Thais Love Thais (Thai Rat Thai or TRT) party. Headed by business tycoon Thaksin Shinawatra, this unashamedly nationalist party forged a new alliance between urban business elites and the rural poor.14 TRT’s campaign was unique in the history of Thai elections: it identified a series of policies of most concern to the Thai citizenry at large, including rural microcredit schemes and the introduction of universal healthcare.15 It swept to power with a whisker under a majority—a far cry

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from the approximately 20 percent of seats Thailand’s largest parties had won in the 1990s—and went on to win over 60 percent of seats in the subsequent 2005 election, also becoming the first party in Thai history to stay in power more than one election cycle. In short, the electoral reform had worked. The 1997 constitution had reduced the number of seat-winning parties to just four, and it created an essentially two-party policy-oriented system. But in many ways, TRT’s success became the source of its own downfall. Its strong position in government meant that it threatened the established elite’s grasp over the Thai economy. In the past, this “network monarchy,” comprised of traditional elites and military brass, had tolerated the ineptness of elected MPs because their interests did not coincide. In the form of a powerful, single party, however, elected MPs suddenly looked capable of overturning the entire order.16 Nevertheless, the 1991 coup had gone over badly for the military, and they were in no rush to intervene again. What was needed was a popular movement to match the popularity of TRT. Enter the People’s Alliance for Democracy (PAD). While never as great in number as supporters of the TRT, PAD supporters were concentrated in the capital and were able to create the type of visibility needed to challenge the TRT government. They protested in the name of democracy, but also in the name of the king, donning his color in their attire and thus becoming dubbed the “Yellow Shirts.”17 PAD’s street protests led to the boycott of the April 2006 elections by the major opposition party, the Democrat Party, and eventually to the military ousting TRT from power in a coup (on September 19, 2006) that shocked the world.18 PAD supporters celebrated; they saw the coup as a necessary step in the return to true democracy, but the irony was not lost. The TRT’s rule had not been spotless in terms of respect for democracy. The independence of the institutions created by the 1997 constitution had been under constant threat by the TRT,19 and the freedom of the media had been highly curtailed.20 Did those abuses justify a coup? That would depend on which side of the fence one sat.

The 2007 Constitution Just a year after the coup, on August 19, 2007, a new constitution was passed in the country’s first referendum. Fifty-seven percent of the population voted in favor of the military-drafted document. The 2007 constitution was based on the 1997 one but made some important changes.

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First, terms limits were put on the prime minister. This change was intended to ensure those opposed to the TRT that a charismatic Thaksinlike figure would not indefinitely dominate the political landscape. The change was intended to put more emphasis on partisanship and, it was hoped, on programmatic policies rather than personality. The coup makers felt more confident in the Democrat Party’s ability to mimic Thaksin’s populist policies and thought this term limit would help highlight their policy credentials. In the interim period between the coup and the first elections under the 2007 elections (held on December 23), for example, the junta abolished the 30-baht copay associated with Thaksin’s universal healthcare policy. Now, all Thai citizens would have free healthcare. In their minds, this move represented a clear upgrade to Thaksin’s enormously successful signature policy and the type of policy the Democrats could develop to compete with the TRT. Second, greater powers were given to independent institutions such as the judiciary and election commission. The election commission was given the power to dissolve parties based on the misconduct of its members. Immediately using these powers to dissolve the TRT, the elections commission would also go on to dissolve its successor party, the People’s Power Party (PPP), which handily won the 2007 elections. Half the senate also became appointed under the new constitution, though the upper house still did not have significant powers. The constitutional court likewise demonstrated its politicization by dismissing PPP prime minister Samak Sundaravej for the minor conflict-of-interest offense of receiving renumeration as the host of two television cooking shows. Most important, however, were the changes to the electoral law. As Hicken has noted,21 these changes seemed focused on one goal: the breakup of TRT into smaller parties. The number of upper tier seats was reduced to 80 (from 100), taking away the party boost the TRT received from voters’ second vote (many voters would vote for a small party locally and the TRT nationally). In addition, this upper tier was split into eight constituencies, rather than a single, national one. The idea behind this change was to encourage parties to cater to regional issues and demands, taking the focus away from national policies, which had been the TRT’s strength. Now, the TRT would have to try to understand issues specific to the Central, Southern and Bangkok regions of Thailand. Additionally, the constituency seats returned to the multimember block vote rules of the 1990s. This was a clear attempt to fragment the party system. Thailand’s rare multi-seat form of majoritarian electoral

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rules has been shown by academics to weaken party loyalty and even to cause intraparty competition at the district level.22 How successful were these attempts to weaken the TRT’s electoral draw? Simply put, none of these rules were potent enough to deter supporters of the TRT, who voted straight ticket for the TRT’s successor party, the PPP, in the multi-seat constituencies to an extent never witnessed in the 1990s (when they last used multi-seat constituencies). Partisanship, with its fixed loyalties and identities, had formed in Thailand, and these changes, though revealing the intentions of the military’s true target, had only a weak effect.23 The PPP gained just shy of a majority of seats in parliament, and it would take the ousting of two prime ministers and the eventual dissolution of the party on December 2, 2008, to overturn its democratic mandate.

2011 Elections Following the dissolution of the PPP, the military helped orchestrate a Democratic Party–led coalition, which lasted 2.5 years until the election of July 4, 2011. TRT/PPP supporters had grown increasingly restless and angry at the Democrat-led coalition and began mimicking the mass protests that had led to the ousting of Thaksin in 2006. On the heels of demonstrations by TRT supporters (now dubbed the Red Shirts) against the military’s orchestration of the Democrat Party’s rise to power, preparations were made for another election in 2011. Clearly, the 2007 electoral reform had not been enough to break up the PPP. New electoral reform measures were needed. First, realizing that a change back to multi-seat constituencies had no effect on the success of the PPP, a switch was made back to the 1997-era single-seat constituencies. If anything, the multi-seat constituencies had harmed the PPP’s opponents, since, with the exception of the Democrat Party in the South, partisanship was more fluid among minority party supporters. Second, in the 2007 elections, the Democrats had won an almost equal percentage of the vote on the upper tier lists (both approximately 39 percent) as the PPP. Those in charge thus decided to increase the number of upper tier seats to 125, its highest number (and percentage) thus far. In addition, the upper tier was changed back to a single national district, with the aim again of bolstering the national appeal of the Democrat Party. What was the result of this electoral reform? Much like the 2007 reforms, not much. The reformers had failed to appreciate the unique nature of the 2007 elections, held under military rule, and had thus

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overestimated the national appeal of the Democrat Party. In the much freer environment of the 2011 elections, the TRT’s new successor party, the Pheu Thai (PT) party, won 48 percent of the vote on the upper tier; the Democrats dropped down to 35 percent of the vote. Overall, the PT won a majority of seats (53 percent), even better than their 48.5 percent in the 2007 elections. It seemed that for all the military’s efforts that electoral reform again came up short.

The 2017 Constitution and the 2019 Elections In 2014, the military staged yet another coup, most likely because it sensed the impending death of Thailand’s beloved monarch, King Bhumibol Adulyadej. However, they also took the opportunity to rewrite the constitution entirely. In a highly controlled electoral environment, a referendum passed the draft constitution with 61 percent of the vote. So, what is in this most recent document and what were its aims? First, the constitution allowed the prime minister to be a nonelected individual. Each party could nominate up to three candidates for the post. This signaled to most observers that the head of the junta, Prime Minister Prayuth Chanocha, would make a play for the post. But given the electoral might of the Pheu Thai party, much more would have to be done to ensure that Prayuth would ultimately be appointed. Thus, the second part of the electoral reform was the creation of an appointed senate, an otherwise powerless upper house that would vote on the appointment of the prime minister in a joint body along with the lower house. Given that the junta appointed all 250 members of the senate, this provision essentially meant that any pro-junta party would only have to win 125 seats out of the 500 available in the lower house to control the prime minister’s office. A third aspect of the electoral reform in the 2017 constitution was the adoption of a compensatory mixed-member system. As before, the system was split between a 350-member lower tier, elected in single-member constituencies, and a further enlarged 150-member upper tier. The upper tier was to be selected in a much different way, however. Rather than giving the electorate two votes, they would now only have one. Seats on the upper tier would be distributed only after the proportion of seats on the lower tier had been taken into consideration. In other words, the tiers were now linked. This meant that, if a party did well on the lower tier, they might not receive any additional seats on the upper tier. This electoral reform was designed specifically to take away the additional boost

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that upper tiers had given to Pheu Thai in the previous elections. The upper tier now makes the vote-to-seat ratio nearly proportional. The junta made no secret of its intentions in writing the new constitution. Reuters reported that “interviews with military officers showed the military’s ambition was to make future coups unnecessary by weakening political parties and obliging future governments to follow a 20-year national development plan set by the army.”24 In a meeting organized for journalists in Bangkok in March 2017, a spokesman for the junta, Lieutenant-General Werachon Sukondhapatipak, gave an hour-long speech “with no mention of elections. Instead, he talked of an army-drafted 20year-plan that would be legally binding for future elected governments.”25 In short, in none of these military-led electoral reform efforts have their intentions vis-à-vis Thaksin-affiliated political parties been a secret. Elections under this new system were first held on March 24, 2019. One huge difference from past elections was the creation of a new junta-aligned political party, the Palang Pracharat Party (PPRP). Indeed, the system, which guaranteed parties seats in proportion to their overall vote share, encouraged several new parties to emerge. On the antijunta side, the newly founded Future Forward Party (FFP) staked out a position against traditional politics of all shades, both the military and Pheu Thai. Voters, too, had incentives to vote for their most preferred party. Even if the candidate of their preferred party stood no chance of winning in their local constituency, they had a very high chance that their vote would count, helping their party to acquire seats in the upper tier. Several new parties emerged, with the effective number of political parties increasing from just over two in the 2011 elections to just over six in the 2019 elections.26 The results were a massive change from the previous four elections. The PPRP emerged as the party with the highest vote share in the country, gaining 23.73 percent to Pheu Thai’s 22.29 percent. Pheu Thai, however, had done exceptionally well on the lower tier, winning 137/350 constituency seats around the country. This meant that with 27.4 percent of the share of seats already higher than their 22.29 percent of the vote, they would be entitled to no additional seats on the upper tier. Under the previous, unlinked form of mixed-member system that Thailand had used since the 2001 elections, the PT would have gained an additional 33 seats, taking their tally to 170 overall. Pheu Thai’s 22.29 percent of the vote was significantly lower than their 44.3 percent of the constituency vote and 48.4 percent of the upper-tier vote they had achieved in the previous elections. Thus, all of the changes to Thailand’s electoral law seem to have worked as the junta planned. Pheu

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Thai still came out on top in terms of seat share, but they were nowhere near the kind of majority or near-majority they had secured in the previous four elections. A note of caution in overestimating the effect of the junta’s electoral reform is the fact that Pheu Thai did not run in 100 constituencies. Fearing a party dissolution, the party had split in two during the run-up to the elections. Its sister party, the Thai Raksa Chart party, was scheduled to run in those 100 constituencies.27 Hicken and Selway estimate that Pheu Thai would have won an additional 3 million votes and twenty-six to forty-six seats, taking them to a 32.6–36.6 percentage of the seat share. This result would still have fallen far short of their performance in the four previous elections, however.28 Additional manipulation of the electoral law occurred in the postelection period. The PPRP looked likely to secure less than the 125 seats needed to guarantee a majority in the legislature. A few days after the election, Pheu Thai announced the creation of a coalition, securing 255 of 500 seats in the lower house. This meant that, even if the PPRP could appoint a prime minister by virtue of the 250 military-appointed senate seats, it would not be able to form a cabinet and would have an extremely hard time ruling on a day-to-day basis. In response, the Electoral Commission of Thailand (ECT) equivocated over the exact calculation of seats on the upper tier, stating that the law was not clear. The ECT submitted a request to the Constitutional Court on April 11, 2019, to validate its proposed interpretation of the method to assign seats on the upper tier. Nearly every other calculation, including one by a constitutional drafter, gave the FFP around eighty-seven seats total. However, the ECT’s proposal took away six of those seats and awarded them to a slew of small parties: twelve parties in the election received just a single seat. Another seven parties received between two and seven seats, for a total of twentyseven parties in the legislature. As a major coalition partner of Pheu Thai’s proposed coalition, the reduction in FFP seats took the Pheu Thai– led coalition under 250. Prayuth and his PPRP emerged from these postelection legal interpretations of the electoral code with a slim majority.

Conclusion On top of all the efforts to manipulate the 2019 elections in their favor by legal and constitutional means, the junta also employed a couple other common tactics to further enhance their chances of victory. First, they engaged in rampant gerrymandering—the redrawing of electoral

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district boundaries—in order to hamper the opposition party’s chances of victory.29 Second, the PPRP engaged in the co-optation of former Pheu Thai MPs in order to try to make headway into Pheu Thai strongholds in the northeast.30 Such efforts underline another important lesson of electoral “reform as manipulation” in Thailand: it is hard to predict how voters will respond to institutional changes. It is true that under the original 1997 electoral rules, the Democrat Party was the only pre-existing party expected to benefit from electoral reform. Yet it was a new party, Thaksin’s TRT, that emerged victorious. The Democrats got hammered in the 2019 election, with many of their supporters appearing to have voted instead for either the PPRP or the FFP. If they are able to stage a comeback in Thai politics in the future, a more straightforward path for the Democrat party would be to figure out what voters want and to adapt their party positions accordingly. In any future election free of military influence, it is conceivable that even after all these reform efforts, voters will return to the Pheu Thai party once more. Partisanship among Pheu Thai supporters is strong, but when the specter of the military and its electoral vehicle, the PPRP, has disappeared, it is unclear just how much harm these new electoral rules will have done to the prospects of Pheu Thai. Even after the FFP was dissolved in February 2020, its support base—mostly young urbanites—has continued to look very different from the PT’s. Indeed, in the long run the most important legacy of this electoral reform may be the emergence of a truly liberal democratic party. Regardless, the PT’s popularity still seems to be intact, and it would take something truly revolutionary in the history of electoral design to completely erase that. An alternative path that is less subversive of democracy, but which might still align with goals the military and conservative forces have in Thailand—to check the power of the winner of lower house elections—is to think more seriously about two additional constitutional reforms. First, a more powerful upper house that represents different constituencies than the lower house might bring about checks and balances without subverting democracy. Stepan refers to this as a “demos-constraining” arrangement, and it is a path that other countries have chosen in order to address social (usually ethnic) divisions.31 In some ways, Thailand’s political polarization takes on heavy shades of ethnic politics reinforced by regional differences, so constraining an electoral majority in the lower house (the demos) with regionally-based representation in the upper house might be worth considering. Similar to the equal representation given to big and small states in the US constitution, some kind of upper house in which the central and south of Thailand and Bangkok are evenly weighted rela-

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tive to the north and northeast could produce more cooperation and concessions. For example, a 100-person body in which 20 representatives come from each of the five regions might be enough to appease the military’s fears of “mob-rule” democracy. More elaborate schemes could of course be devised, with the lower north and west (both dominated by the PPRP in the latest elections), east (dominated by the PPRP and FFP), lower northeast (dominated by the Bhumjaithai Party), and a split south (upper and lower), all getting the same number of seats as the Pheu Thai–dominated regions of the upper north (Lanna), and upper and middle northeast regions. Such an upper house could accompany a second constitutional proposal for a federal political system. One benefit of a federal system would be to take power away from the central government, thereby making national elections a lower-stakes contest. These two aspects of institutional reform would go together, with the prospect of a regional assembly making decisions over the local economy offsetting the shift in power that an asymmetrical federal system would bring about. Such reform efforts obviously require much deeper analysis of the pros and cons. But institutional reform offers a potential solution to the political instability that has wracked Thailand’s political system—just not in the manner in which it has been undertaken over the past decade and a half.

Notes 1. Anderson, “Murder and Progress in Siam”; McVey, Money and Power in Provincial Thailand; Ockey, “Political Parties, Factions, and Corruption in Thailand”; Hicken, “How Do Rules and Institutions Encourage Vote Buying?”; Mutebi, “Democratic Regression in Thailand: The Ambivalent Role of Civil Society and Political Institutions.” 2. Punchada, Thaksin: The Business of Politics in Thailand; Siripan, “Federalism and democracy: Beyond the US model.” 3. The widely used Polity measure of democracy dates this to 1992 following the resumption of democracy after the 1991 coup. 4. Ockey, “Political Parties, Factions, and Corruption in Thailand”; Ockey, “Change and Continuity in the Thai Political Party System”; Hicken, Building Party Systems in Developing Democracies; Chambers, “Factions, Parties, Coalition Change, and Cabinet Durability in Thailand: 1979-2001.” 5. Anderson, “Murder and Progress in Siam”; Hicken, “Parties, Policy and Patronage: Governance and Growth in Thailand,” Hicken, “How Do Rules and Institutions Encourage Vote Buying?”; Phongpaichit, Piriyarangsan, and Treerat, “Guns, Girls, Gambling, Ganja: Thailand’s Illegal Economy and Public Policy.” 6. Nishizaki, “The Domination of a Fussy Strongman in Provincial Thailand: The Case of Banharn Silpa-archa in Suphanburi.” 7. Pasuk and Baker, Thailand’s Crisis; Hicken, “The Politics of Economic Reform in Thailand: Crisis and Compromise”; Hicken, Building Party Systems in

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Developing Democracies; Hewison, “Thailand’s Capitalism before and after the Economic Crisis”; Hewison, “Neo-Liberalism and Domestic Capital: The Political Outcomes of the Economic Crisis in Thailand.” 8. Kim and Im, “Crony Capitalism’ in South Korea, Thailand and Taiwan: Myth and Reality.” 9. McCargo, Reforming Thai Politics. 10. Discussions on a new constitution had been in place since the return to democracy in 1992, following the 1991 coup. However, reforms had stalled. The financial crisis provided the impetus for a swift conclusion to the drafting process and an even swifter passage through the legislature, thus eliminating the need for a referendum. 11. McCargo, Reforming Thai Politics. 12. Hicken, “Party Fabrication: Constitutional Reform and the Rise of Thai Rak Thai.” 13. Selway, “Electoral Reform and Public Policy Outcomes in Thailand: The Politics of the 30-Baht Health Scheme”; Selway, Coalitions of the Wellbeing: How Electoral Rules and Ethnic Politics Shape Health Policy in Developing Countries; Hewison, “Crafting Thailand’s New Social Contract.” 14. Pasuk and Baker, Thailand’s Crisis; McCargo and Ukrit, The Thaksinization of Thailand. 15. Baker, “Pluto-Populism: Thaksin, Business and Popular Politics in Post-Crisis Thailand”; Hewison, “Thaksin Shinawatra and the Reshaping of Thai Politics,” Tangpianpant, “A Study of Thaksin’s Pro-Poor Populist Policies in Thailand.” 16. McCargo, “Democracy under Stress in Thaksin’s Thailand.” 17. Pye and Schaffar, “The 2006 Anti-Thaksin Movement in Thailand: An Analysis.” 18. Ungpakorn, A Coup for the Rich; Thitinan, “Thailand since the Coup”; Connors and Hewison, “Introduction: Thailand and the ‘Good Coup’”; McCargo, “Network Monarchy and Legitimacy Crises in Thailand.” 19. Mutebi, “Thailand’s Independent Agencies under Thaksin: Relentless Gridlock and Uncertainty.” 20. Phongpaichit, Thailand under Thaksin. 21. Hicken, “The 2007 Thai Constitution: A Return to Politics Past.” 22. Hicken, “Party Fabrication: Constitutional Reform and the Rise of Thai Rak Thai”; Hicken, Building Party Systems in Developing Democracies. 23. Hicken and Selway, “Forcing the Genie Back in the Bottle: Sociological Change, INstituitonal Reform, and Health Policy in Thailand”; Hicken, “Late to the Party: Institutional Reform and the Development of Partisanship in Thailand.” 24. Lefevre and Thepgumpanat, “Thailand, Seeking Stability, Approves Military Constitution.” 25. “Thailand’s King Signs Constitution That Cements Junta’s Grip.” 26. Hicken and Selway, “Party Fragmentation in the 2019 Thai Election.” 27. There was some overlap. They were scheduled to compete against each other in twenty-two constituencies. 28. Hicken and Selway, “Simulating the Pheu Thai Vote in the Absence of Thai Raksa Chart.” 29. Rojanaphruk, “Parties Fume over New ‘Gerrymandered’ Electoral Map.” 30. Saowanee Alexander has shown convincingly how this strategy failed in the Pheu Thai stronghold of the northeast. See Saowanee, “Cooptation Doesn’t Work: How Redshirts Voted in Isan.” 31. Stepan, “Federalism and Democracy: Beyond the US Model.”

PART 3 Conclusion

13

Electoral Malpractice: The Consequences for Democracy in Asia Kharis Templeman and Netina Tan

ELECTORAL MALPRACTICE IS COMMON IN ASIA. WITHIN THE CASES covered in this book can be found a remarkable diversity of methods for manipulating elections. In this concluding chapter, we first review the types of electoral manipulators and the variation in their preferred techniques for interfering in elections. Second, we suggest some causes for this variation and identify some of the key commonalities that appear across these case studies. Third, we highlight some open questions for further research. Variation in Electoral Malpractice in Asia This book covers electoral malpractice and manipulation in eleven countries across Pacific Asia with electorally contested regimes: Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and Mongolia in northeast Asia; and Singapore, Malaysia, Cambodia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Myanmar, and Thailand in southeast Asia. Our first observation is that the key political actors doing the manipulating vary in important ways across the countries in our collection. In the organization of this book, we began with a fundamental distinction between two types of manipulators: ruling parties, and everyone else. In seven of the eleven cases—Mongolia, Taiwan, Korea, Japan, Cambodia, Malaysia, and Singapore—the most important player in the electoral game was a ruling party or coalition.

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These cases are qualitatively different from others because the primary threat to electoral integrity comes from the ruling party. Through its control of government, the ruling party exercises control over the key institutions of the state. These include, potentially, the electoral commission, the judiciary and prosecutors, bureaucratic regulators, and the legislature—all of which can be used to intervene in the electoral process to favor candidates of the ruling party. Second, most ruling party leaders have an obvious motive to try to manipulate elections: they want to stay in office. As long as they prioritize holding onto power over all other things, then we cannot expect them to uphold the impartiality and fairness of the electoral process. This logic implies that in any electorally contested regime, the ruling party has both the means and the incentives to commit electoral malpractice, and our a priori expectation should be that it will. However, we nevertheless still observe considerable variation in the extent to which ruling parties succeed in exploiting state institutions to manipulate elections and stay in power. At one extreme, in Singapore, the opposition has never come close to defeating the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP), across fifty-seven years and thirteen general elections and counting. This is an electoral authoritarian regime par excellence: while holding regular, contested elections like clockwork, the PAP also routinely changes the rules of the electoral process to ensure its hold on power will not be threatened, and it is exceptionally good at it, as Tan shows in Chapter 6. At the other extreme are the ruling parties in Mongolia, which as Seeberg argues in Chapter 5 have repeatedly failed in their attempts to exploit control over state institutions to win reelection. Ruling parties there have lost elections in 1996, 2000, 2004, 2008, 2012, and 2016. The Mongolian People’s Party (MPP) in 2020 was the first incumbent party to retain an absolute majority of parliamentary seats in the country’s thirty-year democratic history. In contrast to Singapore, this is a democratic regime where ruling party manipulation has consistently failed to keep incumbents in power. Between these two extremes fall Malaysia, Cambodia, Japan, Taiwan, and Korea, where electoral manipulation has not been as sustained as in Singapore, on the one hand, nor as ineffective as in Mongolia on the other. Similarly, the pattern of ruling party survival and rotation in power in these cases varies as well. The track record of Barisan Nasional (BN)—and its core constituent party the United Malay National Organization (UMNO)—in Malaysia is the closest to Singapore’s PAP, with a ruling party elite that has had both the means and the incentives to engage in routine and blatant interference in the

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electoral process. However, as Ostwald shows in Chapter 7, BN’s manipulation of the 2018 election under Prime Minister Najib Razak could not stave off its historic defeat, despite employing all the tools in its toolkit. BN’s unprecedented loss has created an opportunity for the depoliticization of critical institutions of state, and it may have set Malaysia on a new and more democratic political trajectory. Cambodia under Hun Sen is on the more coercive end of the spectrum. As Grömping argues in Chapter 8, with investment and aid from China, Hun Sen has faced less economic and diplomatic pressure to democratize and instead has been emboldened to use increasingly crude means to ensure the Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) stays in power. This behavior taken to its logical extreme has led to a regression toward closed authoritarianism. Taiwan under the Kuomintang (KMT) is somewhere in the middle: manipulation by the ruling party was successful until it suddenly was not, in the 2000 presidential election. As Templeman argues in Chapter 4, the subsequent period of Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) government there created space for the rise of a more non-partisan and impartial judiciary and prosecutoriate. In Japan, the Liberal Democratic Party’s (LDP) long period of one-party rule looks broadly similar to the KMT’s in Taiwan, although it began in a U.S.-imposed democratic regime with much higher electoral integrity. As McElwain and Yoshikawa argue in Chapter 2, this starting point in turn limited the types of manipulation that ruling party politicians could engage in, and they focused on much more subtle rules changes which were nevertheless quite effective in protecting LDP incumbents. In contrast, Korea appears closer to the Mongolian end of the spectrum, where ruling party manipulation has not been consistently successful in ensuring the ruling party a victory at the ballot box. Manipulation in Korea has not occurred to the same extreme as in Mongolia—reform of electoral systems and rampant vote buying being two obvious differences. Restrictions on free speech and campaigning in Korea have been aimed at protecting incumbents, but these rules have not prevented four peaceful rotations of power between conservative and liberal presidents, in 1998, 2008, 2017, and 2022. There is no doubt that Korea is a democracy, although its electoral regime remains an illiberal one in many respects, as You contends in Chapter 3. In the other four cases—Indonesia, the Philippines, Myanmar, and Thailand—the greatest threat to electoral integrity has been manipulation carried out by local elites or the military rather than a ruling party. In Indonesia, the Suharto-era New Order political system was notorious

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for rigged elections and tightly managed party competition that ensured the ruling party Golkar would “win” a majority in each election. This system proved effective at sustaining the ruling elite in power until 1998, when the Asian Financial Crisis brought the whole regime crashing down and triggered a fraught political transition toward democracy. Only after this process of political reform and opening was well underway did political elites begin to address the deep flaws in Indonesia’s electoral process and to reform institutions to better detect and deter the massive fraud practiced in the Suharto era. Crucially, however, the party system in Indonesia after Suharto’s departure was fragmented enough to create enormous uncertainty about which parties would fare best in the democratic era. Thus, as Soderborg describes in Chapter 9, a decisive coalition drawing support from across the political spectrum developed behind reforms that reinforced the neutrality and nonpartisan nature of state institutions and improved transparency in the vote count. One consequence is that both electoral processes and the quality of Indonesia’s young democracy have gradually improved over the subsequent two decades. Among all our cases, it has followed the most positive trajectory, and the one most easily replicable in other countries. In contrast, the Philippines features one of the most negative histories in the book. It has both a relatively low-capacity central state and an atomized party system, and these two factors together have inhibited the formation of a decisive reform coalition to tackle electoral malpractice. Since the Marcos dictatorship ended in 1986, no one group of power-holders has consistently managed to build a ruling party capable of winning sustained control of the central government, and a fragmented, personalized, and ever-shifting group of elected elites has wielded power at the central level. At the local level, manipulation remains pervasive and, in many parts of the archipelago, extreme, including killings of candidates and campaign workers in addition to the full menu of tactics seen elsewhere in the region. As Calimbahin describes in Chapter 10, the one recent reform that clearly improved the electoral process was the introduction in 2010 of automatic vote counting and electronic transmission of results, which has eliminated opportunities for ballot stuffing and falsifying vote tallies. However, that change has also in many parts of the Philippines merely shifted the focus of manipulation away from fraud to vote buying, while doing nothing to address the many other violations of electoral integrity. It should be little surprise, then, that democracy in the Philippines remains deeply defective, and that its quality deteriorated further during the Rodrigo Duterte era (2016–2022). The country pro-

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vides a cautionary tale: technical fixes cannot magically improve electoral integrity on their own. The complicated relationship between electoral manipulation, ruling party survival, and the consolidation of democracy is also evident in Myanmar and Thailand. In both countries, the military sought to establish an electoral regime that was stacked against the opposition to prevent them from winning single-party majorities and running the government without coalition partners. In Myanmar, the military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) wrote into the 2008 constitution a reservation of one quarter of all seats in parliament for its own representatives, and in Thailand the military junta created an appointed senate whose votes would be decisive in selecting a prime minister—both undemocratic provisions that look similar to the New Order era in Indonesia, when thirty-eight seats were reserved for the military in the national assembly. Yet in contrast to the first group of countries, these brazen institutional manipulations failed to prevent the opposition from taking power. In Myanmar, the National League for Democracy (NLD) under Aung San Suu-kyi managed to win two landslide victories under the new constitution promulgated by the military regime, and after the second it looked nearly unassailable at the ballot box. As Bjarnegård notes in Chapter 11, when it failed for a second time to defeat the NLD and its unsupported claims of electoral fraud were rejected, the military decided to end the electoral façade altogether by staging a coup and annulling the 2020 elections. In Thailand, Thaksin Shinawatra’s Thai Rat Thai (TRT) party repeatedly racked up huge wins in elections in the early 2000s, shutting out of power the pro-royalist Bangkok-based elite that had long exercised decisive influence over Thai politics. Even after the military took power via a coup in 2006 and implemented a new constitution and electoral system in 2007, the TRT’s successor parties continued to win at the ballot box. As Selway notes in Chapter 12, it took another coup in 2014 followed by much harsher military rule and a complete rewrite of the constitution to end the Thaksin coalition’s dominance over multiparty electoral democracy there. It is ironic that, had the military in these two cases initially been more effective at the kinds of electoral manipulation practiced in Singapore or Malaysia, contested elections might have survived and perhaps deepened the habit of civilian rule over time, even without turnover of power. It appears that democracy in both cases failed in part because military elites were so incompetent at manipulating the rules of the electoral game.

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The Menu of Electoral Manipulation Across Pacific Asia We have found it helpful in this study to think of the “menu of manipulation” of the electoral process as occurring during one or more of three distinct stages: the definition of the electorate, the regulation of competition for votes, and the management of the voting and counting. As we noted in Chapter 1, these stages roughly correspond to Sarah Birch’s framework of three targets of manipulation: the rules of competition, the voters, and the voting and counting process. At each of these stages, we observe a wide range of electoral malpractice across the region, both in the political actors chiefly responsible for manipulation and in the kinds of interventions they attempt. This variation does not map cleanly onto regions or time periods, and so it is worth describing in some detail here. Manipulating the Rules The rules of the electoral game define the nature and scope of all subsequent competition for votes. Many activities in this pre-election phase have been the targets of manipulation across our cases, beginning with how and which parties and candidates are determined to be eligible to run, and what they must do to qualify for the ballot. It includes rules surrounding campaign finance: whether public subsidies are available (and for whom and under what conditions), reporting requirements (both donations and expenditures), and limits on material exchanges between candidates and voters for their support. And it can involve regulation of campaign activities such as advertising, canvassing, and public rallies, as well as the content of political speech and media coverage of candidates and issues. At this stage, we observe a broad spectrum of manipulative actions ranging from crude to sophisticated. The crudest option is simply to ban opposition parties and candidates from running, as Hun Sen did before the 2018 elections in Cambodia, and as the military junta in Thailand did after losing elections and reassuming power through a coup. But taking this extreme step also deprives the power-holders of the legitimacy benefits that come from running against and defeating real opponents. Hence, incumbents who care about maintaining some vestiges of electoral legitimacy have tended to pick subtler options to raise barriers to entry: large deposit requirements to register (as in Singapore), lawsuits and selective prosecution of government critics (as in

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Malaysia), and constitutional restrictions for candidacy (as in Myanmar prior to 2021). Another extreme form of rules manipulation is to change the entire electoral system. Among our cases, Mongolia has featured among the most frequent and flagrant offenders in this area. There, incumbent parties have routinely toggled between a variety of majoritarian and proportional representation systems, at times rolling out sweeping changes only weeks before election day. Given how transparently partisan the motivations have been for these changes, it is ironic that the use of electoral reform as a reelection strategy has often backfired; incumbent parties have repeatedly suffered landslide defeats under new electoral systems that they themselves introduced. The military-backed ruling elite in Thailand has been similarly clumsy in its use of electoral reform to try to subvert the popular will. In 2007, it switched the district tier of the electoral system to block vote in multi-member districts, which failed to prevent the People’s Power Party (PPP), the successor to the banned TRT, from winning another majority. In 2011, it switched the system back to single-member districts while increasing the proportional representation (PR) tier in an effort to fragment the party system; instead, PPP’s successor, Pheu Thai, once again won a majority. Only in 2019, after yet another change, this time to a mixed-member compensatory electoral system, did the military have some partial success in fragmenting electoral support for the anti-royalist opposition, although even then its control over the government ultimately rested on an unelected senate. In contrast, the manipulation of electoral rules in Singapore and Malaysia has been far more effective at keeping incumbents in power. Malaysia is the poster child for manipulation of districts to benefit the ruling party’s candidates. Malapportionment and gerrymandering are extreme across much of the country: in 2013, this combination resulted in such deeply disproportional conversions of votes into seats in the federal parliament that the BN coalition retained a comfortable majority even as it lost the popular vote to the opposition. In the next election in 2018, it took a rather miraculous collapse of support for BN’s largest constituent party, UMNO, in its Malay heartland districts for the ruling coalition to be defeated. In Singapore, the PAP has been even more successful than BN at gerrymandering and changing district sizes for partisan advantage. Malapportionment is also severe in the Philippines. Since the adoption of the new constitution in 1987, the districts for the lower house of Congress have never been redrawn. As a result, the malapportionment of House districts has grown dramatically over the past three decades.

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The population in a single district now ranges from only about 10,000 in the smallest to over a million in the largest—a hundred times more. This deeply unequal system of representation is overshadowed somewhat by the use of a single nationwide district to elect all members of the Philippine Senate, but it is actually the most extreme example of malapportionment among our cases, and it contributes to a deep deficit of representation there. In the other cases in our study, the manipulation of districts has occurred mostly on the margins, if it has occurred at all. For instance, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan all have adopted similar versions of a mixed-member parallel electoral system, and in all three cases, neither gerrymandering nor malapportionment of the single member districts has been especially severe. In both Japan and Korea, constitutional court rulings have forced changes to districts that have kept malapportionment in check. The picture in Taiwan is a bit more concerning: there the constitutional court has not stepped in to remedy the growing differences in population across constituencies, and malapportionment is now significantly worse than in the other two cases. But it remains modest in comparison to the enormous disparities in the Philippines, and it has not been deliberately and systematically engineered to provide an advantage to one party over another as in Malaysia or Singapore. A second type of manipulation of rules—or, to be more accurate, lack of rules or their weak or uneven enforcement—involves campaign financing. In southeast Asia, the absence of effective regulation of campaign contributions has allowed vote buying to proliferate and led to astronomical levels of spending by candidates. In the Philippines, for instance, the high cost of elections has had the effect of privileging resource-rich, dynastic incumbents while effectively excluding resourcepoor candidates from the competition. In Cambodia, vote buying and patronage politics have flourished, especially in rural communities. A similar pattern appears in parts of Thailand, Indonesia, Myanmar, and Malaysia. Only in Singapore is campaign finance regulated effectively enough to prevent unequal funding levels from being a threat to electoral integrity, although the rules are occasionally applied unevenly there to put opposition candidates at further disadvantage. In northeast Asia, the campaign finance picture is generally better. Japan and Korea feature quite strict limits on donations and expenditures along the lines of Singapore, while in Taiwan campaign finance regulations are more lenient, but political parties enjoy significant public subsidies which help level the financial playing field. Mongolia is the laggard on this dimension,

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with relatively weak regulations, poor enforcement, and widespread vote buying practices even today. The third type of manipulation of rules is directed at campaign activities. The most surprising cases in our book on this dimension are Korea and Japan, where both the times and spaces for campaign activities and speech are strictly limited. The regulation regime in both countries raises high barriers to opposition challengers to appeal to voters, and it appears to be designed and enforced at the behest of incumbent legislators from all major political parties, not just the ruling party. As authors of the chapters on these two countries contend, the judiciary has been complicit in upholding these illiberal campaign regulations, and it has declined to push back against politically motivated or arbitrary restrictions on campaigns that undermine electoral competition. Mongolia, too, has maintained fairly tight restrictions on the campaign period and campaign activities, for much the same incumbent-protecting reasons as in Korea. The experiences in Japan, Korea, and Mongolia stand in contrast to those of Taiwan, where regulation of campaign activities remains light. In southeast Asia, regulation is most restrictive in Singapore, Malaysia, and Cambodia, where limits on critical speech and peaceful demonstrations have severely curtailed the opportunities for opposition parties to campaign. In Thailand, the use of the law of “lèse-majesté,” a French term meaning “to do wrong to majesty,” has been stretched to absurd lengths to silence and intimidate critics of the government. Similarly, “fake news” and defamation laws in Malaysia and Singapore have been abused to prosecute opposition challengers for campaign speeches. Regulation has been lighter in Indonesia, although the use of anti-blasphemy laws there to prosecute the former governor of Jakarta, Ahok, is a concerning development. Manipulating the Voters The practice of voter manipulation across our cases ranges from crude to extraordinarily subtle. The crudest act is simply falsifying the electoral rolls by striking off eligible voters or adding phantom names to the voter registry. The most shameless offender here is Cambodia, where in many communes more than 10 percent of the names listed on the electoral registry are fake. This violation is also of long-standing concern in Indonesia, where dead or absent people have consistently found mysterious ways to cast votes. However, in recent years the introduction of oversight bodies and greater transparency in the electoral process have reduced this practice to a few localities scattered across the archipelago.

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Involuntary deregistration of voters and suspicious additions to the electoral rolls are also common in Malaysia. Some notorious examples include the systematic removal of voters deemed to be anti-UMNO, such as non-Malay voters, and registration of thousands of (mostly proUMNO) soldiers in competitive constituencies. There is also strong evidence of partisan bias in the election commission’s management of the electoral rolls, as it has refused to allow civil society groups to monitor them for inaccuracies. Another problem has been the use of indelible ink that could be easily washed off, which raises concerns about widespread voter impersonation. Violence is another crude tool of voter manipulation. Violence or the threat of it can be used to prevent eligible voters from going to the polls or to intimidate them into voting against their preferred choice. There are many historical examples of voter intimidation across our southeast Asian cases, including in Myanmar, Cambodia, Thailand, Indonesia, and the Philippines. Overt election-related violence has subsided across much of the region in recent years, especially in Thailand and Indonesia. However, it remains a threat in many parts of the Philippines, where many dynastic politicians maintain their own armed security forces despite a gun ban imposed in 2018. And in Myanmar, while the threat of physical violence during the 2015 and 2020 general elections was relatively low, evidence of voter intimidation and other forms of non-physical and psychological violence was still widespread even before the harsh military crackdown following the January 2021 coup. Vote buying is the most common form of voter manipulation across our cases. With the notable exception of Singapore, vote buying has been a pervasive practice at some historical point in every country included in this book. The case studies document many innovative ways that voters are paid to cast a ballot for (or against) a specific candidate or party. In the Philippines, for instance, the distribution of money and goods is pervasive enough to have its own vocabulary; called kamang (“crawling”) or inagayan (“showering”), this activity is typically carried out via visits to households at night, when it is less noticeable. With the adoption of automatic vote counting starting in 2010, vote buying has surged as an alternative, raising the already astronomical costs of running for office there. It has also reinforced the longstanding patterns of patrimonialism in the country, in which oligarchs and dynastic families have used their control over economic resources to effectively limit the electoral playing field to their family members and cronies. One of the more intriguing findings to emerge from the case studies is that the prevalence and importance of vote buying to electoral out-

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comes has varied significantly over time. In Japan, Korea, and Taiwan, the passage of strict laws against the practice and the vigilance of prosecutors and election regulators have contributed to its decline. In all three cases, rising living standards have also raised the marginal cost of vote buying relative to other kinds of campaign activity such as advertising. The decay of local factional networks in Japan and Taiwan has made it harder for vote-brokers there to enforce the terms of the exchange: voters can simply take the money and then vote as they wish, leading to a large amount of “leakage” in vote buying efforts. As vote buying has declined in effectiveness, power-holders in many cases have substituted away from it toward media manipulation. Misuse of state resources and abuse of control over mainstream media remains a serious problem for electoral integrity across both north and southeast Asia. In Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, and Indonesia, governments have ordered media to broadcast pro-incumbent messages or to offer more airtime for their preferred parties and candidates, and fined newspapers and television stations that publish stories critical of the government or advocate for opposition parties and candidates. Comparatively, only in Japan, Taiwan, and Mongolia do we see a sufficient diversity of news outlets with broad freedom to report on politics. Manipulating Voting and Counting The third stage includes accessing the polling place (or absentee ballots), casting a vote, counting the votes, and aggregating vote counts across precincts and jurisdictions. At this stage, manipulation is easiest to pull off in low-information, low-transparency, and low-capacity environments. Failure to secure ballot boxes and vote totals through each stage of the vote counting process can create opportunities for fraud, and delays in the voting process leading to long queues can dampen turnout and affect results. The historical prevalence across the region of ballot stuffing and spoiling, “phantom” voters, and falsification of vote counts tells us that these methods have often been the most convenient way for powerholders to ensure their preferred candidates win. There are many examples of these forms of malpractice in this book; only Singapore and Japan do not have well-documented cases of vote-rigging or ballot-box stuffing in their recent pasts. Some of the most prominent examples come from Indonesia, where the extended, multistep vote aggregation process (rekapitulasi) has historically been a weak link in the electoral process and a tempting target for those who wish to falsify vote counts.

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Until the introduction of automatic vote counting machines in 2010, vote fraud and rigging was also a pervasive problem in the Philippines, most infamously by the Gloria Arroyo campaign during the 2004 presidential election. Nevertheless, for incumbents, manipulating the count has significant downsides. Falsification of tallies is hard to execute in a way that preserves the legitimacy benefits of “winning” a contested election, since evidence of fraud can often be discovered with a quick recheck of initial counts or via the presence of neutral observers in polling stations. As a consequence, we observe a shift away from vote fraud in recent decades across the region. For example, in Malaysia, neutral polling and counting agents have been in place for the past two decades, raising the political risks of polling day fraud and limiting its usage. And in both Indonesia and the Philippines, the digitization and publication of polling station counts has improved the transparency and accuracy of the vote aggregation processes and helped strengthen the legitimacy of election outcomes. In electoral autocracies, there is also another less obvious downside to falsifying vote counts. Even if autocratic leaders do not care about the legitimacy benefits of winning a free and fair election, they may still want contested elections to take place for other reasons, such as to provide information about the regime’s popularity, identify talented and popular candidates, allocate offices efficiently among rivals within the ruling coalition, or coopt opposition groups into an unfair electoral game. Falsifying the vote count threatens to undermine these other objectives. Thus, in some of our cases, power-holders who had regularly used vote fraud to “win” elections later attempted to shift toward other more subtle forms of manipulation and to eliminate ballot stuffing, phantom voters, and false tallies. In Korea and Taiwan, for instance, authoritarian leaders themselves oversaw the creation of central election commissions to increase confidence that votes would be counted and reported accurately; the electoral practices these commissions institutionalized helped ensure relatively smooth transitions to democracy and path-breaking wins for the opposition. Political transitions, too, have often been important moments where decisive coalitions can form to support integrity-enhancing reforms. For instance, after the transition to democracy in Indonesia in 1998, reformers were able to build a broad cross-party consensus to create a third oversight body, the honor commission, to supervise the election commissions and the electoral investigation agencies (bawaslu) created during the authoritarian period. These overlapping agencies, combined with

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new rules to ensure transparency in the counting and reporting of vote totals, have helped stamp out massive fraud and reduced it to a scattered and sporadic problem that does not systematically favor one party over another. In both Korea and Taiwan, the surprise defeat of long-time ruling parties—the conservative coalition in Korea in 1997, and the KMT in Taiwan in 2000—ushered in a period of divided government that led to increasing transparency and neutrality in election administration. And in the Philippines, the political outcry that followed the 2004 election provided the impetus to introduce electronic voting throughout the country, eliminating widespread problems with both ballot stuffing and falsification of vote counts.

When Does Manipulation Fail? A danger of case study research is that the more one delves into the details of any particular country, the more its history and politics appear to be sui generis—a set of unique circumstances, events, and political figures that cannot be easily fitted into any general theory or explanation. Nevertheless, at the risk of doing violence to the details, we attempt in this section to draw some generalizations about the sources of electoral integrity across the cases. Our primary goal here is to identify factors that explain some of the trade-offs in types of malpractice observed across and within the cases over time, and in the relationship of these trade-offs to the quality (and in some cases, survival) of democracy across the region. Across the eleven countries covered in this book, electoral manipulation has been the norm, not the exception. Yet we also have observed considerable variation in the degree to which incumbents have succeeded at using electoral manipulation to stay in power. This variation suggests that even if they have had the desire and intent, power-holders have not necessarily had the means to manipulate effectively. There are three factors that appear to be linked to the failure of electoral manipulation to keep incumbents in power: miscalculation, lack of control over key institutions, and alternative priorities. Each of these in turn has implications for how best to enhance electoral integrity over the long run. Miscalculation and Manipulation Failure The first reason manipulation has failed to keep incumbents in power is that they miscalculate. Power-holders have often overestimated their

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own popularity and underestimated the amount of manipulation needed to ensure they come out ahead when the final vote totals are reported. In other cases, they have correctly estimated their own popularity, but have chosen the wrong strategy for converting that support into electoral wins. This factor appears to be at least part of the explanation for why the ruling parties in Mongolia have repeatedly failed to win reelection since the transition to democracy there: they have consistently overestimated the level of support they will enjoy among the electorate, and they have pushed electoral reforms that subsequently contribute to their own landslide defeats. This factor also seems to be responsible for BN’s long-overdue election loss in Malaysia: the opposition nominated a leader in Mahathir Mohamad who could attract support in the Malay heartlands that the regime had gerrymandered to be the decisive constituencies, and BN did not anticipate how dramatically their support there would collapse. A different kind of miscalculation played out in Taiwan in 2000, when to the surprise of many, the KMT’s vaunted patronage and vote buying machine failed to deliver a winning margin for the party’s official nominee; with high turnout and high stakes, many voters simply took the party’s money and then voted sincerely for one of the other two main candidates in the race. Miscalculation also featured prominently in Myanmar’s two democratic elections and in Thailand, although in those cases it was the military rather than a ruling party that grossly overestimated its ability to attract support at the ballot box. Independent Institutions: Electoral Management Bodies, Courts, and Civil Society The second reason manipulation has failed is because the key institutions are sufficiently independent to resist it. When power-holders do not exercise complete control over the electoral management bodies (EMBs), the courts, the bureaucracy, or the parliament, they may not be able to tilt the electoral playing field sufficiently in their favor. Across our case studies, three types of institutions feature prominently: electoral management bodies, the judiciary, and civil society organizations. Electoral management bodies have been a central actor in the manipulation game across the region. Those that are both wellresourced and independent of the government and ruling party have played a key role in upholding electoral integrity, as in Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Mongolia, and to some degree the Philippines. In these cases, the electoral management bodies are relatively centralized, constituted

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as independent and nonpartisan (or bipartisan) commissions, and staffed predominantly by professional bureaucrats rather than patronage appointees. In Japan, Korea, and Taiwan, electoral management bodies were built on the preexisting foundations of a high-capacity state, and once they were shifted out from under the direct control of the ruling party, they quickly earned public confidence and legitimacy. In these three cases, there is no longer much concern that votes will be inaccurately counted or falsified, that the electoral management bodies will implement policies to favor one party over another, or that the legitimacy of election results will be undermined by incompetence. In Mongolia, the General Election Commission has managed to pull off reasonably well-run elections under daunting conditions, such as when sweeping changes to the electoral system were passed by the parliament mere weeks before the 2016 general election. Even in the Philippines, the independence and professional capacity of the election commission there, COMELEC, is a relative bright spot in the electoral regime, although the commission’s insufficient resources and inability to ensure compliance with electoral laws have left reform advocates there disappointed. Singapore and Malaysia likewise have centralized electoral management bodies. However, these are directly under the supervision of the government and operate in practice as an arm of the ruling party or executive, rather than following the independent commission model. The lack of real independence from the ruling party has resulted in brazenly partisan regulation and rule-making. In Singapore, for instance, the Elections Department falls directly under the prime minister’s office, where it manages an opaque redistricting process that features many switches between single member and multi-member constituencies before each election cycle. A similar lack of independence has hampered the EMBs in Cambodia, Myanmar, and Thailand. Indonesia presents the most distinctive arrangement. There, the EMBs are both decentralized and duplicated across the country, and the integrity of elections has been improved primarily by creating additional layers of supervision and increasing transparency. The Indonesian case is especially encouraging because it demonstrates that electoral integrity can be improved from a low starting point rather quickly, without going through the long process of building new professional, nonpartisan, independent institutions from scratch. The increase in oversight, transparency, and diversity of representation among the Indonesian electoral management bodies has helped reduce serious electoral malpractice in most places.

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The second type of institution that appears systematically to affect malpractice is the judiciary, especially but not only the constitutional court. Where they are both independent of the government and relatively powerful, courts in Asia have intervened in ways that have strengthened electoral integrity. Korea offers a good illustration. In 2015, the constitutional court there issued a ruling to force redistricting to reduce malapportionment to no more than a two-to-one ratio of voters across all districts; the National Assembly duly complied with the ruling and adopted new, much less malapportioned district boundaries. A similar ruling in Japan in 2022 has forced the Diet to redraw lower house districts before the next election. In Indonesia, the constitutional court issued a ruling creating a high bar for overturning and rerunning an election due to fraud or irregularities; that decision in turn reduced the number of frivolous challenges to election results and helped buttress the legitimacy of winners there. However, courts have not always been a panacea for electoral malpractice. On campaign restrictions and libel laws, the constitutional courts in both Korea and Japan have been quite deferential to regulators and lawmakers and have failed to uphold fundamental speech rights. The constitutional court in Taiwan has done the opposite: freedom of speech, assembly, and most other campaign activities have been wellprotected by court rulings since the early democratic period, but it has never intervened to correct the growing malapportionment in Taiwan’s legislative districts. In other cases, courts have lacked either the independence or the authority to settle election disputes or to make the electoral process fairer. In Mongolia, the constitutional court ruled in 2016 that the proportional representation tier of the electoral system used to elect parliament in 2012 was unconstitutional and needed to be eliminated. But that decision was widely viewed as a nakedly partisan ruling intended to benefit the incumbent Democratic Party and the main opposition Mongolian People’s Party, and it had the effect of shutting smaller parties out of parliament in the following election. In Thailand and Myanmar, the courts have operated as a direct arm of the militarybacked government, and in Cambodia and Malaysia, the courts have also intervened in the electoral process with rulings that invariably favor the ruling party’s interests. The Philippines is perhaps the most disappointing case of all: despite enjoying considerable stature and independence, the Philippines Supreme Court has never forced the Congress to address the gross malapportionment of the lower house, and the judicial system has been unable to stem the flood of election-related killings and violence or bring the perpetrators to justice.

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The third factor that appears to affect electoral integrity across the region is the state of civil society and the media. In Taiwan, the ability to report freely and critically on election irregularities and vote buying accusations was a key reason for gradual improvements in electoral integrity after its transition to democracy. In Korea, civil society organizations banded together before the 2000 assembly elections to create a “blacklist” of candidates with past accusations of corruption; more than two-thirds of elected officials targeted were either not renominated by their parties or lost their bids for reelection. In Indonesia, civil society organizations have also played an important role in bringing electoral irregularities to light, adding another layer of oversight there. In Malaysia, civil society groups helped expose the former prime minister’s massive corruption in the 1MDB scandal, which contributed to BN’s unexpected defeat in 2018. Another positive story is in the Philippines: reporting by critical media has regularly highlighted instances of electoral malpractice, and pro-reform groups were instrumental in publicizing and pushing forward the switch to automated vote counts using optical scanner voting machines. In other cases, civil society actors and the media have been more constrained. In Singapore and Malaysia, strict libel laws, censorship, and media market concentration have made civil society actors less of a factor in supporting electoral integrity, and in Thailand, Myanmar and Cambodia, journals and activists have faced harsh punishment for attempting to report on election activities or publish criticism of the government. Why Not Manipulate? When Power-Holders Have Alternative Priorities Much of the comparative literature on electoral manipulation starts with the assumption that the members of ruling parties all share the same interest in winning reelection, and that the incumbent leader or ruling party prioritizes staying in power above all other objectives. But across northeast and southeast Asia, we frequently find this assumption to be violated. The ruling elites in many of our case studies are characterized by significant divergence of interests: not everyone prioritizes electoral victory over everything else all the time, and a defeat for the party may end up benefiting some of its individual members. They may, for instance, see opportunities to leapfrog ahead of others in the hierarchy by running as part of the opposition. Anwar Ibrahim in Malaysia is a good example of this phenomenon: he left UMNO and joined up with the opposition after finding his path to the prime minister’s office blocked.

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In addition, party leaders have often had their own preferences that diverge from their party’s interests. Importantly, they have sometimes preferred to hold free and fair elections even at the risk of losing office. Among our cases, there are several examples where a leader has willingly ceded power and played a critical role in forcing ruling elites to accept an electoral defeat, including Lee Teng-hui in Taiwan in 2000, B. J. Habibie in Indonesia in 1999, and Kim Young-sam in South Korea in 1997. These leaders cared more about their own survival, about protecting their perks and interests after leaving office, and about ensuring a smooth transition of power than they did about the reelection of the ruling party. An important factor in this leader calculus is what Levitsky and Way have called “international linkage,”1 or the economic, social and political connections that a country has with the wealthy, industrialized democracies of “the West.” International linkage has varied a great deal among the countries in our study, from Myanmar’s stark economic isolation, to Japan, Korea and Taiwan’s globalized economies and critical positions in the regional economic order. International pressure for political and electoral reforms has been costly for power-holders to ignore, given their countries’ international linkage. For example, most of our cases were part of the Third Wave of democratic transitions, including South Korea, Taiwan, Mongolia, Thailand, Cambodia, the Philippines, and Indonesia, and the initial decision to allow multi-party contested elections was part of an effort to bolster the regime’s international legitimacy in the face of diplomatic isolation (Taiwan), pressure from a critical security ally (South Korea and the Philippines), the need for financial aid and development assistance (Cambodia), or an economic crisis (Indonesia and Mongolia). The decision to increase manipulation also appears to be related to international linkage. Over the last decade, the emergence of China as an alternative source of financial and political support has shifted the cost-benefit calculation of repression across much of Southeast Asia, making it less costly to ignore western condemnation and simply stamp out electoral contestation altogether. For example, a key reason why Cambodia has turned to cruder and more overt electoral malpractices in recent elections is because of its economic ties with China. The declining influence of international organizations provided Hun Sen the opportunity to seize full control of government in 1997, and the surge in Chinese investment over the last decade provided an alternative to western aid and lowered the cost of arresting or exiling the entire opposition. China’s emergence as an alternative partner for autocrats has also been a clear factor in Thailand, where Western (and especially US) condem-

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nation of the military-backed regime has softened in the face of growing geopolitical competition for influence there. Similarly, the military in Myanmar decided to annul the 2020 elections and face the threat of economic isolation in part because it assumed it could again rely on alternative sources of investment and expertise from the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to replace Western aid and technical advice.

How to Improve Electoral Integrity In the first chapter, we noted that much of the literature on electoral manipulation and malpractice has neglected the question of trade-offs. For instance, there has been a great deal of attention paid in recent years to electoral fraud in Russia, and how the Putin regime achieves the electoral results it wants. But there has been much less discussion of why Putin and United Russia choose to commit widescale fraud, rather than availing themselves of the many other more subtle options on the menu of manipulation. Put differently, it is less interesting to us how a particular kind of manipulation works than why it is used over other alternatives. In the case studies in this volume, the authors have focused on the second question: why some kinds of manipulation are chosen over others. Here we draw three general conclusions about the “menu of manipulation” in Asia. First, electoral manipulation is the default, not the exception. Wherever and whenever elections decide who rules, powerholders will seek to manipulate them. Second, not all kinds of manipulation are created equal. Political elites do avoid some forms of manipulation in favor of others, and they can and do switch strategies as costs and benefits shift. Nor are all forms of manipulation equally problematic for democracy. Widespread vote fraud, the arrest and murder of opposition candidates, and military coups destroy political legitimacy in a way that vote buying and gerrymandering do not. Third, it follows that there is a strong case for sequencing electoral reforms. To get improvements in electoral integrity, it may be necessary for manipulation to continue in one area in order to permanently close off even worse kinds of manipulation in others. In other words, when seeking to improve the quality of elections, do not let perfect be the enemy of good. When Elections Matter, Manipulation Is the Default Perfect electoral integrity is impossible to achieve. It is a universal truth that whenever election outcomes determine who holds power, political

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elites will want to manipulate them to their advantage. This point is too frequently lost in discussions of electoral malpractice, where the unstated assumption is that practices such as fraud, vote buying, and intimidation of the opposition represent a kind of moral failing of leaders and voters, and it is this failure that needs to be explained. In practice, however, this kind of behavior follows from the simple fact that people with power have a great deal at stake in the outcome. Thus, the normal pattern across electorally contested regimes is that elections will always be manipulated to some degree. In fact, the emergence of electoral manipulation in political systems without prior history of competitive elections can actually be a positive sign. For instance, if in China we were to observe candidates starting to buy votes to try to win seats in local People’s Congresses, two nontrivial conclusions would follow. First, winning a seat is worth something— otherwise, why spend the time, effort, and money to try? Second, there is least some uncertainty about the outcome—otherwise, why bother paying people for their votes? Neither of these things is self-evident in China today, or in the uncontested elections held in Laos, Vietnam, and North Korea. We do not observe vote buying or fraud in the election of the members of the Politburo of the Communist Party of China because this voting is a ritualized confirmation of decisions that have already been made through a nonelectoral process. If uncontested elections like these are the baseline in a country, then the appearance of vote buying and fraud in a previously noncompetitive process is in fact quite encouraging—they tell us that these elections have started to matter! Yet once political regimes reach the point where contested elections are held regularly, electoral manipulation also has clear negative consequences for regime legitimacy. Fraud, violence, and arrests of opposition leaders are especially obvious interventions that tarnish the reputation of the winners and erode trust in the political system. But even more subtle forms of manipulation, such as malapportionment and gerrymandering or restrictions on campaign activities, inhibit the accountability of power-holders to citizens and distort and skew representation of different views among the electorate. Thus, there is a clear link between electoral integrity and quality of democracy. For those who wish to see democracy consolidated in newly contested regimes, improving election practices is a key step—not the only step that matters, but a necessary one—to deepen democracy. The fundamental challenge in these cases is that the people who win flawed elections do not usually have incentives to improve them. As a consequence, many countries with contested elections end up stuck

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in a low-level equilibrium: political elites are not interested in building a better system of electoral management and limiting electoral malpractice because they are the chief beneficiaries of the flaws in the system. Improvements in electoral integrity, then, require getting power-holders to support changes that potentially undermine their own positions. From this perspective, reforms that reduce electoral malpractice and manipulation appear to be difficult, if not impossible. Improvements Also Require Making Trade-Offs Nevertheless, across Asia, we do see many improvements in electoral integrity over time. In Indonesia, the introduction of honor commissions and electronic posting and transmission of results has eliminated fraud as a serious problem. In the Philippines, the adoption of optical scan machines and electronic voting has closed off the option of ballot stuffing and falsifying vote counts. In Malaysia, Taiwan, and South Korea, reforms required polling workers to be nonpartisan and made the vote count more transparent, eliminating election day fraud as a realistic option for manipulation in those cases. And in Taiwan and Japan, the judiciary became more aggressive about prosecuting vote buying, leading to a gradual reduction of this practice in both countries. These examples of reform supported by, and in many cases initiated by, incumbents, raise a theoretical puzzle: Why do improvements in electoral integrity happen? If the dominant strategy is always to manipulate elections to stay in power, then we should never see real reforms. Countries should remain trapped in this low-level equilibrium indefinitely. Yet in Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Indonesia, and even the Philippines, we observe shifts in the types of manipulations used over time, generally from methods that are crude, personalized, and arbitrary to sophisticated, institutionalized, and rules based. In some cases, like Indonesia and Taiwan, these shifts have even occurred at a very rapid pace. How is this possible? The answer that our case studies point to is that some kinds of manipulation are politically more costly than others, and some powerholders occasionally have incentives to switch from one to another. If autocrats allow contested elections to be held, they usually want the legitimacy benefits that come from “winning” those elections2: contested, rules-based, with voters given a real choice. From this perspective, not all electoral manipulation is equally bad for political legitimacy. Widespread vote fraud, the arrest or murder of opposition candidates, and military coups spell the end for leaders’ claims that they

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have won the support of “the people” in a way that vote buying or gerrymandering do not. Thus, power-holders may be willing to back real reforms that improve electoral integrity in one area, as long as they are confident they will hold advantages in others. In many of these cases, we observe a substitution effect: power-holders create new oversight mechanisms, professionalize election management bodies, and improve transparency in voter rolls, voting and counting, while still stonewalling reforms to prevent vote buying, reduce malapportionment, and strengthen campaign finance limits. It is precisely because other options from the menu of manipulation remain available to the incumbents that they can be made to support reforms that eliminate the worst practices from the electoral game. Improvements in one part of the electoral process may even come at the cost of deterioration in other parts. To return to Schedler’s metaphor of the pipe organ, reformers have to accept that closing one pipe will probably shift pressure to other pipes; in the short run, at least, the flaws in the electoral process may simply be redirected rather than eliminated. Sequencing Matters for Successful Reforms A reform that results in the redirection rather than elimination of electoral malpractice is an unsatisfying outcome. But it does point to a potential way that electoral manipulation can be gradually eliminated over the long run, and the quality of democracy improved, if reforms follow the right sequence. It may be worth increased abuse in one area in the short run to seal shut permanently a couple of the pipes on the pipe organ of manipulation. To develop this point further, from the perspective of political reform, it is useful to think about a hierarchy of forms of electoral malpractice, rising from the crudest and most democratically destructive actions to sophisticated, surgical, and democratically tolerable ones. At the bottom (let us call it Level 1) are the most pernicious practices: violence, military coups, and arrests of opposition candidates. Just above it (Level 2) are manipulations of the voter rolls, voting, counting, and reporting of results. At Level 3 are manipulations targeting the electoral institutions: malapportionment and gerrymandering of districts, reserved seats (e.g., for the military, as in Myanmar), the electoral system itself (as in Thailand and Mongolia), or even features like a requirement that presidential candidates obtain a minimum level of votes across regions (as in Indonesia). And at the top of the hierarchy (Level 4) are manipu-

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lations of the media environment, vote buying and campaign finance, campaign activities, and protections for political and critical speech. Moves up this hierarchy represent progress toward electoral integrity, however they are achieved. For a regime to be electorally contested, it needs at least to minimize Level 1 and 2 violations. It is therefore worth it, in our view, to accept additional manipulation at Levels 3 and 4—such as the introduction of reserved seats for military representatives or de facto use of financial advantages to buy votes—as the price for allowing real electoral competition, universal suffrage, and an accurate count of the vote. Almost all of the countries covered in this volume have experienced this shift at least once in their histories: Korea around 1987, Taiwan between 1986 and 1996, Mongolia between 1990 and 1992, Malaysia in the 1970s, Cambodia in 1998, Indonesia in 1999, the Philippines in 1986, Myanmar in 2015, and Thailand in 2008. What we know from their subsequent trajectories is that, when these political reforms definitively closed off the possibility of arrests, coups, violence, and electoral fraud, the long-term outcomes have been better for both electoral integrity and democracy. For instance, shifts toward freely contested elections in Taiwan and South Korea were made possible in part because power-holders expected to win even under more liberal conditions. This assumption was crucial for building a decisive reform coalition: the opposition was willing to play within a game in which they were disadvantaged, and power-holders were willing to allow contested elections to occur because they thought they would still win. In Thailand and Myanmar, by contrast, the military-backed regime has been very poor at electoral manipulation, and opposition coalitions—the National League for Democracy (NLD) in Myanmar, the TRT and its successors in Thailand—have won dominant victories whenever they have been allowed to contest elections. If the military regimes in these two cases had managed to build supporting parties like the KMT in Taiwan, or the conservative parties in Korea, they would probably be better-positioned to win elections and more committed to preserving electoral contestation—and their countries would be on a better political trajectory over the long run. Thus, for a pro-reform agenda to succeed in improving electoral integrity, its backers may have to accept the persistence of some types of electoral manipulation even as others are closed off for good. The patterns across Asia suggest that strengthening the integrity of the voter rolls, voting, counting, and reporting should be a higher priority than eliminating vote buying, malapportionment, and restrictions on campaign speech. If no one trusts that the votes will be counted accurately, everything else

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about the election also becomes suspect. It has also been more feasible to build decisive coalitions behind these kinds of improvements as powerholders themselves have often wanted the votes to be counted accurately: a trustworthy vote count shows how popular they are, and it allows them to convert their other advantages into a decisive election win. In Korea, Taiwan, Malaysia and Indonesia, this is how major improvements in the voting, counting, and reporting processes were achieved—power-holders supported or initiated integrity-improving reforms because they themselves expected to benefit, precisely because other problems like gerrymandering and vote buying were left unaddressed. As painful as it may be in the moment, we would recommend taking this trade if it presents itself, such as with the more recent adoption of optical scan machines and electronic vote counting in the Philippines.

Questions for Further Research The current collection of case studies points to several promising avenues for further research. First, scholars might examine in more detail the role of boycotts and post-election protests across the region. In some other parts of the world, these actions are a central part of the electoral game: opposition groups must decide whether to participate in a contest that is rigged against them, or instead to boycott the election entirely and deny the incumbents the appearance of having “won” a contested election. In other cases, the losing camp refuses to accept the official results of the election and tries to overturn it, force a rerun, or raise doubts about the legitimacy of the winners. These practices have not been especially common in Pacific Asia, and so we have not given them much attention in the present study. Nevertheless, there are a couple important cases of boycotts and post-election protests in the region. The most prominent instance was in Thailand in 2006, when the pro-royalist opposition Democrat Party refused to participate in the general election called by Prime Minister Thaksin; the boycott and subsequent political crisis precipitated the first military coup there. In Cambodia, the primary opposition led by Sam Rainsy used a boycott as its one remaining weapon to fight Hun Sen’s massive violations of electoral integrity. In the Philippines, most opposition figures boycotted President Marcos’s attempt to win another presidential term in 1981, further eroding his declining domestic and international legitimacy. And in Indonesia, indigenous independence activists in West Papua have attempted to boycott elections there to deny the legitimacy of the state’s claim to those territories.

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A more concerning development is the recent refusal of the losing presidential candidate in Indonesia, Prabowo Subianto, to accept defeat in both 2014 and 2019—even though both elections were not particularly close and there was very little evidence of irregularities or fraud. Prabowo’s behavior looks much like that of Donald Trump in the United States and Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, and it is part of an alarming new phenomenon in which candidates preemptively make false claims about fraud and manipulation, often disseminated to their supporters through alternative information channels, to prepare the ground for a challenge to their impending defeat. The absence of “loser’s consent” in these cases, and the shamelessly bad faith claims of electoral fraud, pose a serious threat to democratic legitimacy, and it is especially problematic behavior given the number of mechanisms already in place in to detect and deter electoral malpractice. We have not paid much attention to this possibility in this book, but it is now a growing concern for electoral integrity. Democracy cannot survive in a world where opponents live in a completely different epistemic universe and cannot agree on even basic facts about an election. A related topic is the fragmentation of the news media and its impact on electoral integrity. Internet penetration and the rise of social media has been especially disruptive to the political information environments in most of our cases. The expectation two decades ago was that these new channels for disseminating information would have a liberalizing effect, improving the transparency of elections, leveling the playing field for opposition campaigns, and reducing the impact of biased or partisan media and state censorship. In recent years, however, authoritarians have responded by extending their control over and censorship of media to online outlets and social media platforms, and these efforts have been surprisingly successful. In addition, alternative and social media have been weaponized in some cases as a channel for election disinformation—damaging false rumors can quickly go viral and evade attempts by their targets, traditional media, and the platforms themselves to debunk them. This is a relatively new subject for research, and it remains an open question how changing media environments in the region have impacted electoral integrity. A third area is the impact of money on electoral integrity. There is extensive discussion in some of our case studies about vote buying, patronage, and the exploitation of private or state funds for partisan ends in election campaigns, but we have not attempted a systematic comparison of campaign finance regulation and practices across the cases. There is also lurking in the background a more fundamental question about

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state-business relations and electoral integrity. One promising avenue for future research is to look for systematic relationships between macroeconomic variables, such as state share of the economy or the distribution of income and wealth, and patterns of electoral manipulation. The existing literatures on one-party dominance and clientelism suggest that a large private sector and relatively equal distribution of wealth and economic opportunities should be correlated with higher electoral integrity. The combination of the case study method used in this book with comparative quantitative analysis appears to be a promising approach for answering this question. Finally, the broader questions about social and political antecedents for free and fair elections would take us further into the immense literature on democracy, including the preconditions for democracy, democratization, and democratic consolidation. It is our hope that this book will provide some additional empirical evidence with which to evaluate some of the theoretical claims in that field, even if we do not attempt the task ourselves here.

Conclusion In this study, we have sought to add to the current literature on electoral malpractice and manipulation by covering a part of the world where it has not previously been examined systematically: Pacific Asia. As we noted in Chapter 1, cases in this region have been mostly absent from the burgeoning literature on pre-election intimidation, electoral fraud, election management bodies, election observers, vote buying, and post-election protests and violence. It is our hope that the descriptive work by knowledgeable country experts included in this book will bring these cases to a wider, comparative audience that may not be familiar with Asia but is interested in the comparative study of the conduct of elections. We have also been motivated to write this book by a policy question: how can electoral integrity best be improved over the long run? In the study of electoral malpractice, it is natural to focus first on documenting the bad outcomes: voter intimidation, inaccurate voter rolls, restrictions on campaign activities and speech, unfairly drawn districts and malapportioned representatives, and fraud in the voting, counting, and reporting of election results. But this approach also contributes to a selection bias issue in the literature: we know quite a bit about how and why electoral manipulation occurs in notorious cases like Russia,

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Mexico, Kenya, or Zimbabwe—but we know much less about why it does not in many other similar cases. The case studies in this book offer at least a modest corrective to this problem. By taking a more holistic approach to the study of electoral manipulation, and by considering changes over time, the authors have also highlighted some overlooked success stories, where lasting improvements in electoral integrity have occurred without much recognition. In Indonesia, the development of a better and more transparent system of vote-counting and reporting offers hope for other countries struggling to combat electoral fraud. The creation and institutionalization of independent election commissions in Korea, Taiwan, Mongolia, and Japan has received far less attention than it deserves. The gradual reduction in vote buying in Japan, Korea, and even Taiwan is another underappreciated achievement in the region. And the introduction of optical scan voting machines and electronic transmission of results in the Philippines, a country with a particularly long and sordid history of all kinds of electoral malpractice, represents a real and hard-won improvement in electoral integrity there, despite the daunting set of challenges that remain. Learning from these “hidden” successes is worth the effort because the association between electoral integrity and the quality of democracy is only growing stronger in the region—and indeed, around the world. Where electoral integrity has improved over time, trust in the electoral process has acted as a crucial bulwark against democratic erosion. Since their respective transitions to democracy, South Korea, Taiwan, and Mongolia have all experienced fiercely contested presidential elections that were decided by less than one percent of the vote. In each case, a professional administration of the vote and the count made a crucial difference for the legitimacy of the winner and helped prevent a prolonged democratic crisis. It is not a coincidence that those three now score higher on most democracy indices than any of the cases in southeast Asia. Indonesia has also been remarkably resilient since its transition to democracy in 1999; the hard-won improvements there in monitoring and transparency have been crucial to the legitimacy of election winners, especially after the presidential elections of 2014 and 2019 when the losing candidate disputed the results. These cases stand out in a positive way against global trends, and they offer some encouragement for how committed democrats might fight back against would-be dictators everywhere. As the long “democratic recession” afflicting the world today shows no signs of reversing, concerns about electoral malpractice and manipulation are likely to

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become even more central to the problem of democracy promotion than they have been in past waves and counterwaves. Compared to the past, autocrats have become more adept at manipulating elections, and fewer have had need to resort to coups and arrests of opponents to keep themselves in power. It is our hope that the case studies in this book will provide not only cautionary tales, but also inspirational ones, to anyone who wishes to see democracy expand and thrive in the world.

Notes 1. Levitsky and Way, “International Linkage and Democratization.” 2. We acknowledge that in some cases, autocrats may use elections and electoral fraud for other purposes, such as a demonstration of regime strength and resilience (e.g. Simpser, Why Governments and Parties Manipulate Elections). Nevertheless, with the possible exception of Suharto-era Indonesia, we do not see much evidence that this is what has motivated power-holders in the region.

Acronyms

AFP ANFREL BN BTI CCIM CEC CNRP COJ COMELEC COMFREL CPP DAP DKPP DP DPP EBRC EC ECT EIP EMB FDI FELDA FUNCINPEC GAM

Armed Forces of the Philippines Asian Network for Free Elections Barisan Nasional (Malaysia) Bertelsmann Transformation Index Cambodian Center for Independent Media Central Election Commission (Taiwan) Cambodian National Rescue Party Constitution of Japan Commission on Elections (Philippines) Committee for Free and Fair Elections in Cambodia Cambodian People’s Party Democratic Action Party (Malaysia) Dewan Kehormatan Penyelenggara Pemilu   (Election Administrator Honor Council) (Indonesia) Democratic Party (Mongolia) Democratic Progressive Party (Taiwan) Electoral Boundary Review Committee (Singapore) Election Commission (Malasia) Electoral Commission of Thailand Ethnic Integration Policy (Singapore) Electoral Management Body foreign direct investment Federal Land Development Authority (Malaysia) National United Front for an Independent, Neutral,   Peaceful, and Cooperative Cambodia Free Aceh Movement 283

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Acronyms

GDP GEC GEOM GRC IFES ISA JBJ KMT KPU

gross domestic product General Election Commission (Mongolia) Gender Election Observation Mission Group Representative Constituency (Singapore) International Foundation for Electoral Systems Internal Security Act (Malaysia) Joshua Benjamin Jeyaretnam (Singapore) Kuomintang (Taiwan) Komisi Pemilihan Umum (General Election   Commission) (Indonesia) LAKAS-CMD National Union of Christian Democrats (Philippines) LDP Liberal Democratic Party (Japan) MARA Majlis Amanah Rakyat (People’s Trust Council)   (Malasia) MCA Malaysian Chinese Association MMD multimember district MIC Malaysian Indian Congress MP member of parliament MPP Mongolian People’s Party MPRP Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party NAMFREL National Movement for Free Elections (Philippines) NCC National Communications Commission (Taiwan) NCMP Non-Constituency Member of Parliament (Singapore) NDI National Democratic Institute (Cambodia) NEC National Election Commission (Cambodia, Korea) NEP New Economic Policy (Malaysia) NGO nongovernmental organization NICFEC Neutral and Impartial Committee for Free and Fair   Elections in Cambodia NLD National League for Democracy (Myanmar) NMP Nominated Member of Parliament (Singapore) ODA official development assistance OECD Organisation for Economic Co-operation and   Development PAD People’s Alliance for Democracy (Thailand) PAN Partai Amanat Nasional (National Mandate Party)   (Indonesia) PAP People’s Action Party (Singapore) PAS Malaysian Islamic Party (Parti Islam Se-Malaysia) PBB Partai Bulan Bintang (Crescent Star Party)   (Indonesia)

Acronyms

PCIJ PDA PDIP PEI PH PKB PKPI PKR PNP POEA PPBM PPP PPP PPRP PR PR PRC PT PUNB ROC RoS RSF RT RW SCJ SDA SDP SMC SMD SNTV SOC SPP SSHRC TEC TFD TRT

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Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism Political Donations Act (Taiwan) Partai Demokrasi Indonesia Perjuangan (Party of   Indonesian Democratic Struggle) Perceptions of Electoral Integrity (index) Pakatan Harapan (Malaysia) National Awakening Party (Partai Kebangkitan   Bangsa) (Indonesia) Indonesian Justice and Unity Party (Partai Keadilan   dan Persatuan Indonesia) (Indonesia) Keadilan (Parti Keadilan Rakyat) (Malaysia) Philippine National Police Public Office Election Act (Japan) Bersatu (Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia) United Development Party (Partai Persatuan   Pembangunan) (Indonesia) People’s Power Party (Thailand) Palang Pracharat Party (Thailand) Pakatan Rakyat (Malaysia) proportional representation People’s Republic of China Pheu Thai Perbadanan Usahawan Nasional Berhad (National   Entrepreneurs Corporation) (Malaysia) Republic of China Registrar of Societies (Malaysia) Reporters sans Frontières (Reporters Without Borders) kepala rukun tetangga (neighborhood leader) (Indonesia) kepala rukun warga (hamlet leader) (Indonesia) Supreme Court of Japan Singapore Democratic Alliance Singapore Democratic Party single-member constituency single-member district single nontransferable vote State of Cambodia Singapore People’s Party Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Territorial Election Commission (Mongolia) Taiwan Foundation for Democracy Thais Love Thais (Thai Rat Thai)

286

Acronyms

TSU UEC UMNO UNCTAC USDP V-Dem WP

Taiwan Solidarity Union Union Election Commission (Myanmar) United Malay National Organization United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia Union Solidarity and Development Party (Myanmar) Varieties of Democracy Workers’ Party (Singapore)

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The Contributors

Elin Bjarnegård is associate professor of political science and senior

lecturer in development studies at Uppsala University.

Cleo Calimbahin is associate professor in the Department of Political

Science at the De La Salle University–Manila. Previously, she was executive director of Transparency International–Philippines.

Max Grömping is research associate in the Department of Government

and International Relations at the University of Sydney. Previously, he was program manager of the “Perceptions of Electoral Integrity” expert survey for the Electoral Integrity Project based at Harvard and Sydney Universities and has helped develop the Secure and Fair Elections (SAFE) Model Curriculum for the United Nations Development Program.

Kenneth Mori McElwain is professor of comparative politics at the

Institute of Social Science at the University of Tokyo.

Kai Ostwald is associate professor in the School of Public Policy and Global Affairs and the Department of Political Science at the University of British Columbia, where he is also director of the Institute of Asian Research and associate editor of Pacific Affairs. Michael Seeberg is chief development officer at YMCA’s Social Work

and a former associate professor in the Department of Political Science and Public Management at the University of Southern Denmark.

311

312

Contributors

Joel Selway is associate professor of political science at Brigham Young University. Seth Soderborg is a PhD candidate in the Department of Government

at Harvard University.

Netina Tan is university fellow and associate professor of political science at McMaster University. Kharis Templeman is lecturer at the Center for East Asian Studies and

research fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, where he manages the Project on Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific. Tomoshi Yoshikawa is lecturer in the Faculty of Law of Teikyo University, where he specializes in constitutional law, comparative constitutional law, and election law. Jong-sung You is a guest professor of public policy and director of the

Inequality and Social Policy Institute at the Gachon Liberal Arts College in South Korea. Before pursuing an academic career, he fought for democracy and social justice in South Korea.

Index

Abalos, Benjamin, 212–213 absentee ballot: Taiwan’s lack of, 73, 87(n5) access, electoral: Taiwan, 72–73 accountability: Indonesia’s initiatives, 195– 196 Aceh province, Indonesia, 192–193; election-based violence, 191–192 Act Concerning Public Officials Election and Prevention of Electoral Corruption (Korea), 56 administrative competence, 3 advertising: Australian Labor Party ban, 34–35; Japan’s electioneering regulation, 41(n9); regulating electioneering, 29–30 aid donors: Cambodian aid, 158 Albayalde, Oscar, 202 Amarsanaa, Jugnee, 94–95 apportionment of seats, 37, 55–56; Thailand’s elections, 245–246; Thailand’s junta, 248–249 Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), 199–200 arrests of opposition candidates, 7–8; hierarchy of malpractice forms, 276– 277; Taiwan’s elections under the Kuomintang, 68–69 Arroyo, Gloria, 212–213, 266 Asia Barometer survey: Mongolian democratic support, 91; Singapore’s electoral integrity, 120–121 Asian Financial Crisis, 258

Asian Network for Free Elections (ANFREL), 157, 225–226 assessing elections: Myanmar, 224–228 Aung San Suu Kyi, 6, 219–222 Australia: campaign environment evaluation, 45 Australian Labor Party, 34–35 authoritarian regimes: Cambodia’s competitive authoritarian rule, 149; electoral malpractice methods and motives, 146; ensuring regime stability, 221–222; the point of election manipulation, 274; Singapore, 107; Taiwan’s political and electoral evolution, 66–68. See also Cambodia Automated Election Law (Philippines), 204–205 automation of vote counting, 266; Philippines, 204–206, 258–259 ballot counting. See vote counting ballot design: Mongolia’s Braille ballot covers, 96; Taiwan, 84, 88(n30); types of electoral manipulation, 4(table), 11 ballot manipulation, 11, 14 ballot spoiling, 12–13; Malaysia, 136; through Indonesia’s rekapitulasi aggregation process, 182 ballot stuffing, 1, 3, 12; Cambodia, 150; Indonesia, 179–180; Taiwan’s elections under the KMT, 69 Barisan nasional (BN; Malaysia), 129–132, 134–136, 138, 140–142, 256, 261

313

314

Index

Bawaslu (Indonesia), 173–174, 178–180, 184, 193–194 Belgium: electioneering regulations regarding advertisements, 29 Bersatu (Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia), 141 Bhumibol Adulyadej, 247 bias: Taiwan’s registration process and electoral access, 72–73; types of malpractice, 224 Birch, Sarah, 3–4, 92 blatant manipulation: Cambodia, 151, 157 bloc voting: allegations of Indonesia’s election manipulation, 189–190 boundaries, electoral, 56; Cambodia’s electoral integrity, 152(fig.); Cambodia’s manipulation, 150; electoral integrity in East and Southeast Asia, 133(fig.); Japan’s challenges to manipulation, 270; manipulation of Malaysia’s, 135–136; Mongolia, 95, 99; Singapore’s ethnic housing quotas affecting, 113–114; Singapore’s gerrymandering and redistricting, 117– 120. See also gerrymandering; malapportionment Braille ballot covers: Mongolia, 96 bribery: Indonesia’s civil servants, 182– 183; Indonesia’s malpractice methods, 178–179 BRIM program (Malaysia), 139 Buckley v. Valeo, 35, 38 Buddhism: Mongolia’s heritage, 90 Bunchhay, Nhoek, 155 Cambodia, 116; ballot spoiling, 12; campaign finance, 262; centrally controlled malpractice, 160–161; China’s increasing ties and influence, 272–273; development of electoral malpractice, 147–149; electoral observers, 13–14; electoral violence, 12; locally controlled malpractice, 161–162; mistrust of election officials, 12; pattern of ruling party survival, 256–257; postelection protests, 145–146; repression of opposition parties, media, and civil society, 154–158; spatial patterns of malpractice, 159–163; tactical patterns of malpractice, 151–154; temporal patterns of malpractice, 147–150; types of manipulation, 19; violence against voters, 9; voter roll falsification, 263– 264

Cambodian National Rescue Party (CNRP), 145–146, 150, 154–155, 161 Cambodian People’s Party (CPP), 145, 149–150, 153, 155, 157 campaign activities and speech: rules manipulation, 263 campaign finance: asymmetries in Malaysia’s resources, 139–140; Cambodia’s electoral integrity, 152(fig.); candidate deposits as manipulation, 260–261; election laws regulating, 29; electoral integrity in East and Southeast Asia, 133(fig.); high spending levels in the Philippines, 201– 202; history of irregularities in the Philippines, 211; Japan’s regulation and limits, 34, 42(n26); judicial role in regulating, 35; Korea’s campaign regulation, 49–50; Korea’s illegal campaign contributions, 56; Korea’s regulations favoring incumbents, 54; Mongolia, 100; Philippines, 206–209, 211; Singapore’s high electoral deposit, 115–117; Taiwan’s candidate deposit, 79, 87, 87(nn15,16), 88(n18); Taiwan’s regulation, 81–82; as tool of manipulation, 262–263 campaign materials, regulating, 47–48, 64(n32), 71, 80–81. See also canvassing campaign period length, 30, 34(table); Japan’s restrictions on, 32–33; Korea’s campaign regulation, 46; Korea’s increasing stringency of campaign regulation, 57–58, 58(table); Mongolia’s electoral law, 99; Philippines, 63(n10); Singapore, 114– 115; Taiwan, 77–78 campaign regulation: consequences of Korea’s, 54, 61; key feature’s of Korea’s, 46, 50; Taiwan’s, 65–66, 77; Taiwan’s liberalization, 70–71; Taiwan’s media regulation, 82–83, 88(n27); Taiwan’s regulations and practices, 80– 81 campaigns, targeting and manipulating, 6– 7; incumbent party control of the media, 10–11; Japan’s bias towards incumbents, 27–28. See also electioneering Canada: campaign environment evaluation, 45 candidate registration: Cambodia’s electoral integrity, 152(fig.); hierarchy of malpractice forms, 276–277; restrictions

Index on Mongolia’s, 98–99; Taiwan, 78–79, 87(nn15,16) candidates, targeting and manipulating, 6– 7; perpetrators of Myanmar’s intimidation, 233–234; targeting free speech, 7–8; victims of Myanmar’s invisible intimidation, 233–234 canvassing: Japan’s ban on, 37–38; judicial campaign regulation, 35–36; Korea’s ban on, 54; Korea’s criminalization of, 46; Myanmar, 222–223 Carter Center, 224–225 case studies, 15–21 Catholic Church: walkout of COMELEC election workers, 212 Central Election Commission (CEC; Taiwan), 66–67, 69–70, 75–76, 78–80, 82 checks and balances, institutional: Mongolia’s election management, 20, 90–92, 97, 101; potential democratization in Thailand, 250 Chee Soon Juan, 7–8, 111 Chen Shui-bian, 71 Chiam See Tong, 112 Chiang Ching-kuo, 69–71 Chiang Kai-shek, 67–68 China: Cambodian investment, 146, 158; election interference in Taiwan, 83; the point of election manipulation, 274; shifting Asia’s cost-benefit calculation of repression, 272–273; Taiwan’s political evolution, 67–68 Chung Bong-ju, 54 civil servants: non-neutrality of Indonesia’s, 182–183; ties to ruling parties, 8 Civil Servants Election and Recall Act (Taiwan), 66–67, 69–70, 76 civil society organizations: automation of vote counting in the Philippines, 205– 206; failure of manipulations, 268–269, 271; Mongolia’s elections, 100; Philippines, 204 cleavages, political: Myanmar’s electionrelated violence, 229; Thailand’s ethnic politics, 250–251 clientelism, 8–9; Cambodia’s malpractice, 149–150; questioning COMELEC’s impartiality, 212–213 closed autocracies, 2 closed-list proportional representation: Indonesia, 170–171 colonialism: Malaysia’s strong state, 129– 130

315

Commission on Elections (COMELEC; Philippines): digital campaigns, 213– 214; election violence, 199–200; history of election integrity issues, 210–215; vote buying, 202; vote counting methods, 205 Committee for Free and Fair Elections in Cambodia, 161–162 Comparative Constitutions Project database, 33–34 competition, electoral, 18, 20; the benefits of, 2; Cambodia, 149–151, 164(n2); disproportionality as manipulation strategy, 5; effect on manipulation in Indonesia, 171; effects of single nontransferable vote system, 71; election-related violence in Myanmar, 224–225; Indonesia’s intraparty competition, 9–10; Indonesia’s ruling party, 258; Japan, 33–35, 39; Malaysia’s political context, 131; money politics in the Philippines, 201–202; Mongolia’s democratization, 92, 98; Myanmar’s manipulation, 6–7; opening political space in Myanmar, 222; open-list proportional representation in Indonesia, 183–184; Singapore’s restriction and repression, 108–109, 116–119, 122; Taiwan’s electoral system, 66–67, 70; Thailand’s intraparty competition, 246; types of electoral manipulation, 260. See also incumbency confidence in elections: Indonesia, 196 consolidated liberal democracy, 43 Constitutional Court (Indonesia), 174–175, 178; Aceh’s separatist violence, 193; allegations of electoral manipulation, 185–191; block voting, 193–194; nonneutrality of Indonesia’s civil servants, 182–183 Constitutional Court (Korea), 57 constitutions, national: campaign regulations, 33–37; explaining Mongolia’s electoral integrity, 92; judicial discretion over campaign regulation, 37–39; Malaysia’s indigenous groups, 128; military bias in Myanmar, 220; Singapore’s PAP coopting electoral opposition, 111–112; Taiwan’s campaign regulations, 80–81; Thailand’s 1997 constitution, 243–244; Thailand’s 2007 constitution, 244–246; Thailand’s 2017 constitution and 2019 elections, 247–249

316

Index

co-optation: Singapore’s PAP co-opting electoral opposition, 111–112; Singapore’s suppression of electoral competition, 109–114; Thailand’s PPRP, 250 cost-benefit analysis: Myanmar’s political liberalization, 223–224 coups d’état: Cambodia, 147–149; Myanmar, 220–221, 223–224

dispute resolution: Indonesia’s interparty bargaining, 184–185; Mongolia, 100, 102 districting. See boundaries, electoral door-to-door canvassing. See canvassing Duterte, Rodrigo, 7–8, 201, 208–209, 214, 258–259 dynastic politics: Philippines, 201–204, 209–210

de Lima, Leila, 7–8 dead people, voting by, 179–180 deductive theory-building in case studies, 16–17 defective democracy: Philippines, 203–204 democracy: comparison of East Asian democracies, 44(table); defectiveness of democracy in the Philippines, 200–201, 258–259; defining and characterizing electoral malpractice, 2–3; failure of manipulation, 267–273; Korea’s democratic quality and capacity, 43–45; Mongolia’s Freedom House classification, 90–91; Philippines oligarchical state, 203–204; recent influences in Thailand, 242–243; subversion by Thailand’s junta, 250–251 Democratic Party (DP; Mongolia), 95, 97– 101, 270 Democratic Party (DP; Thailand), 246–247 Democratic Party (Indonesia), 172 Democratic Progressive Party (DPP; Taiwan), 71, 75, 83, 257 democratic transition: Mongolia’s electoral history, 90–91 democratization: Cambodia’s competitive authoritarian rule, 149; effect on campaign regulation in Korea, Japan, and Taiwan, 60–61; effect on Indonesia’s manipulation, 169–170; increasing stringency of Korea’s campaign regulation, 57–58; Indonesia’s election administrators, 175; Indonesia’s electoral reform, 258; party growth in Indonesia, 171–172; removal of Myanmar’s military dictatorship, 221–224; Taiwan’s electoral history, 66, 70–72 demos-constraining arrangements: Thailand, 250 Diet (Japan): campaign length, 34(table); disproportionality, 5–6; electioneering regulations, 31–33; redistricting, 270; Taiwan, 73–77 disciplined democracy: Myanmar, 223

early voting options, Taiwan’s lack of, 73 East Java, 174–175, 177–178, 180–182, 186 economic development: correlating types of manipulation with, 16; effect of campaign length on election outcomes, 30; Mongolia’s electoral integrity, 91– 92 economic downturn: Mongolia, 90; Thailand, 242–243 Edelman Trust Barometer: Singapore’s trust in government, 120–121 Ejercito, Emilio Ramon, 208 Election Administration Honor Commission (DKPP; Indonesia), 174, 178–179, 181 election administrators: increasing transparency, 267; Indonesia’s bodies and responsibilities, 172–176; Indonesia’s electoral reforms, 170, 194– 195; Indonesia’s malpractice, 178–179, 181–182; Papua’s election-related scandals, 194; resisting abuses of power, 12; walkout in the Philippines, 212 election challenges: Indonesia’s Constitutional Court, 174–175 Election Commission (EC; Malaysia), 134 election management bodies (EMBs), 17, 19, 47, 96, 98, 276, 280 election results. See vote counting electioneering: the importance of regulations, 28, 30; Japan’s judicial control over, 37–39; Japan’s restrictions on, 30–33; judicial discretion over campaign regulation, 37–39; role of Japan’s courts, 33–37. See also campaigns, targeting and manipulating Elections Commission (Singapore), 115 Elections Department (ED; Singapore), 114 Electoral Act (1925; Japan), 31 electoral administration: Indonesia’s regulators and courts, 172–176; types of electoral manipulation, 4(table)

Index Electoral Boundary Review Committee (EBRC; Singapore), 117 Electoral Commission of Thailand (ECT), 249 electoral commissions: actors in manipulation, 256 Electoral Democracy Index (Varieties of Democracy project), 65 electoral formula, 37; constitutional codification of electoral rules, 33–34 electoral laws: Korea’s freedom House score, 43–45 electoral malpractice: defining and characterizing, 2–3, 21(nn2,5), 21(n5) electoral management bodies (EMBs), 13, 268–269 electoral process: addressing violence in the Philippines, 199–200; Cambodia’s electoral integrity, 152(fig.), 153; Cambodia’s spatial patterns of malpractice, 159–160; evaluating Cambodia’s malpractice, 161–163; Malaysia, 134. See also campaign finance; voting process electoral reform, 93; the importance of sequencing, 276–278; integrityenhancing reforms at political transitions, 266–267; manipulation of Thailand’s electoral system, 241–242; manipulation through changing the electoral system, 261; Mongolia’s electoral integrity, 89, 92; Taiwan under the Kuomintang, 66–67, 69–72; Thailand’s 2011 elections, 246–247; Thailand’s 2017 constitution and 2019 elections, 247–248; trade-offs for making improvements, 275–276; vote counting in the Philippines, 204–206, 258–259 electoral systems: hierarchy of malpractice forms, 276–277; manipulation of Thailand’s, 241–242; manipulation through changing the system, 261 electronic vote counting: Mongolia, 96–97 eligibility rules, 6–7 elites. See ruling elites; ruling parties employment: coercive clientelism, 9 equal representation: Thailand, 250–251 ethics: Japan’s election crimes, 50 Ethnic Integration Policy (EIP; Singapore), 113–114 ethnic populations: Malaysia’s cleavages, 128–129; Malaysia’s political environment, 131–132; Malaysia’s voter

317

roll falsification, 264; Mongolia, 90; Singapore’s ethnic housing quotas, 113– 114; Thailand’s junta subverting democratization, 250–251 EU European Observation Mission, 225 expatriates: voting rights, 5 Fair Election Act (Philippines), 208 fairness of elections: Cambodia’s decline, 149, 157; COMELEC’s effect on fairness in the Philippines, 210–211; effects of manipulations on, 12; government interest in, 35–36; Indonesia’s transparency and accountability initiatives, 195–196; Korea and Japan’s campaign restrictions, 53–55, 61–63; nonneutrality of Indonesia’s civil servants, 182–183; Philippines automation law, 204–205; priorities of ruling powers, 256; privileging freedom versus, 28–29, 31, 38, 40–41; Thailand’s democratic stirrings, 242–243; trust in Singapore’s elections, 121(table) fake news bill, Malaysia’s, 138 falsification of vote counts, 12–14 Fan Yun, 87–88(n18) Federal Election Campaign Act (US), 35 federal government: Malaysia, 129–130 FELDA Global Ventures Holdings, 139 Ferrer, Jaime, 211 Finland: electioneering regulations regarding advertisements, 29 first-past-the-post system: Mongolia, 93 flawed democracies: Philippines, 203–204; types of electoral manipulation, 19 foreign direct investment (FDI): Cambodia, 138 forensics, election: Indonesia’s election manipulation, 186–190 France: electioneering regulations regarding advertisements, 29 fraud, electoral: defining, 3; Taiwan’s elections under the Kuomintang, 68–69 Free Aceh Movement (GAM), 192–193 free elections. See fairness of elections free speech: Australian ban on advertising, 34–35; election crime in Japan and Korea, 51(table); electoral integrity in Myanmar, 230–231; falsification of, 51(table); judicial role in regulating campaign communications and spending, 35–36; Korea and Japan’s restrictions favoring incumbents, 53–54, 270;

318

Index

Korea’s ban on slanderous statements, 50; Korea’s campaign regulation, 46–47; Korea’s decline in freedom of expression, 60, 62; litigation as electoral suppression in Singapore, 110–111; Malaysia’s coercive intimidation methods, 132. See also advertising Freedom House global freedom score: Korea, 43–44; Mongolia, 90–91 freedoms, electoral: versus fairness, 28 Future Forward Party (FFP), 248 Gabunada, Nic, 214 gender: Mongolia’s gender quota requirements, 94; public perception of malpractice in Myanmar, 229–230; Taiwan’s electoral gender quotas, 77; victims of Myanmar’s invisible intimidation, 233–234, 233(table) Gender Election Observation Mission (GEOM; Myanmar), 225 General Election Commission (KPU; Indonesia), 173 General Election Committee (GEC; Mongolia), 95–98 Gerindra party (Indonesia), 172 gerrymandering, 5–6; Cambodia, 150; hierarchy of malpractice forms, 276– 277; Malaysia and Singapore, 117–120, 135–136, 261; Mongolia, 99; Taiwan, 73–77; Thailand’s junta, 249–250. See also boundaries, electoral ghost ballots, 12, 179–180 gift-giving: Cambodia’s coercive tactics, 149–150 Goh Chok Tok, 108 Golkar party (Indonesia), 169, 172, 258 group representative constituency (GRP; Singapore), 111, 113, 118–119 guilt-by-association election violations: Japan, 32 gun ban: Philippines, 199–200 House of Representatives Election Act (Korea), 55 housing policy: Singapore’s ethnic quotas, 113–114 Hsu Hsin-liang, 69 human rights: Korea’s democratic transition, 57 Hun Sen, 145, 147, 150, 157, 257 Huntington, Samuel, 90 hybrid regimes: Malaysia’s UNMO-led coalition, 127–128

Ibrahim, Anwar, 132, 271 incumbency: Aceh’s separatist violence, 192–193; advantages in Mongolia’s elections, 100; alternative priorities of power-holders, 271–273; analysis of Japan’s electioneering regulation, 40– 41; banning opposition parties, 260–261; Cambodia’s electoral manipulation, 149; dynastic politics in the Philippines, 201–204, 209–210; election violence in the Philippines, 199–200; electioneering regulations, 28–30; failure of manipulation, 267– 268; as a form of electoral manipulation, 10–11; gerrymandering, disproportionality, and malapportionment, 6; Japan’s bias towards, 27–28, 31; Korea and Japan’s campaign regulations favoring, 53–54, 62–63; Malaysia’s pro-incumbent bias, 133–134; Mongolia’s electoral reforms, 89; non-neutrality of Indonesia’s civil servants, 182–183; Singapore’s oneparty rule and election manipulation, 107–108; vote count manipulation, 266 independent monitoring bodies: Indonesia, 172–176 India: campaign environment evaluation, 45 indigenous populations: Taiwan’s malapportionment of reserved seats, 74–75 Indonesia: Aceh’s separatist violence, 192– 193; allegations of electoral manipulation, 185–191; ballot stuffing and voting by the dead, 179–180; communal and separatist violence, 191– 192; Constitutional Courts, 174–175; contemporary electoral politics, 170– 171; dependence on witnesses to elections, 183; Election Administration Honor Commission, 174; election regulators and courts, 172–176; electoral integrity improvements, 275; electoral management bodies, 269; electoral violations and money politics, 177; first elections, 169; General Election Commission, 173; integrityenhancing reforms at political transitions, 266–267; interparty bargaining, 184–185; intimidation and ballot stuffing, 180; intraparty bargaining and theft, 183–184; malpractice by election administrators,

Index 178–179; manipulating voting and counting, 265–266; manipulation by elites, 257–258; marginalization of election manipulation, 194–196; media manipulation replacing vote buying, 265; methods of manipulation, 169– 170; non-neutrality of civil servants, 182–183; Papua’s election-related violence, 193–194; parties and candidates, 171–172; paying people not to vote, 180–181; rigging the results, 13; source of electoral manipulation, 257–258; targeting opposition candidates, 6–7; types of electoral manipulation, 19; violence against voters, 9; vote aggregation process, 18, 181; vote buying, 262; vote counting process, 175–176; voting rights for expatriates and overseas workers, 5 Indonesian Justice and Unity Party (PKPI), 185 integrity, electoral, 2–3; in East and Southeast Asia, 133(fig.); evaluating Cambodia’s, 151–154; evaluating Myanmar’s elections, 229–236; hierarchy of malpractice forms, 276– 278; history of election integrity issues in the Philippines, 210–215; integrityenhancing reforms at political transitions, 266–267; Malaysia’s low rank, 130–131; Malaysia’s UMNO-led coalition, 127–128; methods of improving, 273–278; Mongolia, 91–92, 102–103; perpetrators of Myanmar’s violations, 234–235; Singapore, 120– 121; Taiwan, 65–66, 73; Taiwan’s political evolution, 67–72; uncontested elections in the Philippines, 209–210; variations in actors in malpractice, 255– 259 International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES), 228 international linkage, 272–273 interparty bargaining: Indonesia, 184–185 intimidation: Cambodia’s voter intimidation, 149; election observers in Myanmar, 224–225; Indonesia’s malpractice, 180; invisible intimidation in Myanmar, 224, 227–234; Malaysia’s coercive mechanisms, 132; Myanmar, 219–240; opposition supporters, 14–15; as tool of voter manipulation, 264; victims of Myanmar’s invisible intimidation, 232–234

319

invisible intimidation: Myanmar, 224, 227– 234 Ireland: campaign length, 30; electioneering regulations regarding advertisements, 29 Islamic parties: Indonesia, 171–172 Israel: campaign environment evaluation, 45 Japan: campaign environment evaluation, 45; campaign finance, 49, 262; campaign length, 30; clientelism, 8–9; correlating types of manipulation with economic development, 16; door-todoor canvassing, 46–47; election crimes, 50–52; electioneering regulation, 29–33; electoral reform, 27– 28; failure of manipulations, 268–270; Freedom House score, 43–44; increasing liberalization of campaign regulation, 60–61; judicial role in campaign regulation, 34, 37&&&; malapportionment, 6; manipulating campaign logistics, 7; mixed-member parallel electoral system, 262; pattern of ruling party survival, 256–257; political support by private organizations, 48–49; vote buying legislation, 265 Jeyaretnam, J.B., 7–8 Jokowi, Indonesia, 172, 185–190 judiciary: campaign finance in the Philippines, 206–209; campaign regulations, 33–37; constitutionality of Mongolia’s electoral law system, 94– 95; failure of manipulations, 268–271; increased power under Thailand’s 2007 constitution, 245; Indonesia’s Constitutional Court, 174–175, 178; Indonesia’s election regulators and courts, 172–176; Japan’s bias towards incumbents, 28; Korea’s campaign regulation, 49; upholding illiberal regulations, 263 Kao Yu-shu, 68, 86–87(n1) kepala rukun tetangga (RT; Indonesia), 182–183 kepala rukun warga (RW; Indonesia), 182– 183 Khem Sokha, 155 Khmer People’s National Liberation Front (KPNLF), 147 Khmer Rouge (Cambodia), 147 killings, political, 9

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Index

Komisi Pemilihan Umum (General Election Commission; Indonesia), 178, 191, 193–194 Korea: campaign environment evaluation, 45; campaign finance, 262; consequences of electoral campaign regulations, 53–54; correlating types of manipulation with economic development, 16; democratic capacity and quality, 43–44; electoral integrity improvements, 275; enforcement of campaign regulations, 50–52; failure of manipulations, 268– 271; historical evolution of campaign regulations, 54–61x; internet campaign restrictions, 47–48; key features of campaign regulations, 46–50; manipulating campaign logistics, 7; mixed-member parallel electoral system, 262; pattern of ruling party survival, 256– 257; ruling party manipulation, 257; vote buying legislation, 265 Kuomintang (Taiwan): ballot stuffing, 12; electoral reform, 69–72; history of electoral integrity, 65–67; Taiwan’s partisan divide, 75; Taiwan’s party registration regulation, 78; Taiwan’s political evolution, 67–72; vote buying allegations, 81 la Rue, Frank, 53, 60 Labaria, Eliseo, 205 Law on Associations and Nongovernmental Organizations (Cambodia), 154–155 Law on Political Parties (Cambodia), 155 Lee Hsien Loong, 108, 119 Lee Kuan Yew, 108–110 Lee Teng-hui, 70–71 legal framework of elections: Mongolia, 93–96 legislative elections: enforcement of campaign regulations in Japan and Korea, 51–52; Indonesia, 170–171; malapportionment in the Philippines, 261–262; Mongolia, 93–94; Mongolia’s power-sharing and dispute resolution, 101 legislative institutions: Malaysia’s contemporary politics, 128–130 legitimacy, political: Taiwan, 69–70; Taiwan’s election management, 65–66 Lei Chen, 67–68 lèse-majesté laws, 7–8 libel: electoral integrity in Myanmar, 230– 231

Liberal Democratic Party (LDP; Japan), 75, 257 Lim, Sylvia, 111 litigation: Indonesia’s dependence on witnesses to elections, 183; Indonesia’s KPU commissioners, 173; as rules manipulation, 260–261; Singapore’s suppression of electoral competition, 109–111 locally controlled malpractice: Cambodia, 161–162 Low Thia Khiang, 111 magnitude, district, 119–120 majoritarian system: consolidating democracy in Mongolia, 89–90, 93, 95– 96 malapportionment, 5–6; hierarchy of malpractice forms, 276–277; Malaysia, 135–136; Singapore, 120; Taiwan, 73– 77. See also boundaries, electoral Malaysia: alternative priorities of powerholders, 271–272; bias in party registration, 137; bias in the voter registration process, 136–137; campaign finance, 139–140; campaign period length, 115; contemporary politics, 128–130; election upset, 127–128; electoral boundaries, 135–136; electoral integrity improvements, 275; electoral laws, 133–134; electoral process, 132– 140; failure of manipulations, 271; magnitude of electoral manipulation, 141–142; malapportionment, 5–6; media bias, 137–138; media manipulation replacing vote buying, 265; political environment, 131–132; targeting candidates’ speech, 7–8; vote process and vote count, 140; voter roll falsification, 264 Malaysia United Indigenous Party (PPBM), 129; pattern of ruling party survival, 256–257 Malaysian Chinese Association (MCA), 120, 138 Malaysian Indian Congress (MIC), 129 malpractice: variations throughout Asia, 255–259 malpractice, defining, 224 manipulation: alternative priorities of power-holders, 271–273; as default for important elections, 273–275; failure of, 267–273; hierarchy of forms, 276–278. See also specific types

Index Marcos, Ferdinand, Sr., 211–212 martial law: Taiwan, 66 McCutcheon v. FEC, 35 media: crackdown on Cambodia’s, 146; electoral integrity in East and Southeast Asia, 133(fig.); failure of manipulations, 271; hierarchy of malpractice forms, 277; incumbent party control of campaigns, 10–11; media manipulation replacing vote buying, 265; Philippines’ campaign finance, 209; Philippines’ press freedom, 204; pro-government bias in Malaysia’s, 137–138; regulating television campaigning, 29–30; silencing Singapore’s media as electoral suppression, 110–111; suppression of Cambodia’s, 155–156; Taiwan’s campaign regulation, 82–83, 88(n27); Taiwan’s electoral evolution, 67–68; Thailand’s junta’s political reforms, 248; victims of Myanmar’s invisible intimidation, 233–234. See also social media menu of manipulation, 14–15, 21(n2), 260; manipulating voting and counting, 265– 267; rules manipulation, 260–263; voter manipulation, 263–265 military coups, 2, 7–8, 219–224, 241–242, 244, 247–248, 259, 276–277 military junta: source of electoral manipulation, 257–258; Thailand, 241– 242, 247–249 military junta, Korea’s, 55 military suppression of election violence: Philippines, 199–200 miscalculation leading to manipulation failure, 267–268 mistrust of election officials, 12 mixed-member governmental system: Thailand, 247–249 mixed-member parallel voting system, 262; Taiwan, 71–72 Mohamad, Mahathir, 132, 136, 141 Mokhtar Akil, 178 money politics: Philippines, 206–209; Thailand’s “Walking ATM,” 242. See also vote buying money politics, Indonesia’s, 177–178 Mongolia: ballot access, constituency demarcation, and campaign regulation, 98–99; campaign finance, 262–263; election management, 96–98; electoral integrity, 91–92; electoral observers, 13–14; electoral system, 89–90; failure

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of manipulation, 268–269; Freedom House score, 43–44; legal framework of elections, 93–96; manipulation through changing the electoral system, 261; polling and election results, 100; powersharing, 100–102; ruling parties’ role in manipulation, 256; sound and clean elections, 90–91; types of electoral manipulation, 19 Mongolian People’s Party (MPP), 95, 97– 98, 101, 270 Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party (MPRP), 94–95, 97 multimember district (MMD) systems: malapportionment in Japan and Taiwan, 75; Mongolia, 93 murder: Aceh’s separatist violence, 192– 193; election-related violence in the Philippines, 211; of opposition candidates, 2 Myanmar: assessing elections, 224–228; barring opposition candidates, 6; data collection methods for election evaluation, 228–229; elections as military survival strategy, 220–224; electoral observers, 13–14; electoral violence, 12; invisible intimidation, 224, 227–234; manipulation by elites, 257–258; perpetrators of election violations, 234–235; political context of the elections and coup, 219–220; Rohingya voting rights, 5; timing of election-based violence, 236–237; variations of electoral manipulation, 259; victims of invisible intimidation, 233–234; violence against voters, 9; voting rights for overseas workers and expatriates, 22(n11) National Assembly Members Election Act (Korea), 54–55 National Awakening Party (PKB; Indonesia), 171–172 National Communications Commission (NCC; Taiwan), 83 National Democratic Institute (NDI), 156 National Election Commission (NEC; Cambodia), 134, 153 National League for Democracy (NLD; Myanmar), 219–225 National Mandate Party (PAN), 172 National United Front for an Independent, Neutral, Peaceful, and Cooperative Cambodia (FUNCINPEC), 147, 155

322

Index

nationalism: Indonesia’s secular nationalism, 171–172 native populations: Taiwan’s political and electoral evolution, 67–68 neutrality: non-neutrality of Indonesia’s civil servants, 182–183 New Economic Policy (NEP; Malaysia), 131–132 New Power Party (Taiwan), 79 New Zealand: campaign environment evaluation, 45 Nominated Members of Parliament (NMP; Singapore), 112–113 non-constituency member of Parliament (NCMP) scheme (Singapore), 112 nongovernmental organizations (NGOs): Cambodia’s impediments to, 146, 154– 156; Myanmar’s political liberalization, 222; strengths of Philippine civil society, 204 Non-Independent Elections Commission (Singapore), 114 Norris, Pippa, 91–92 observers, electoral, 13–14, 22(n42); Cambodia’s first elections, 147, 149; Cambodia’s impediments to, 156–157; Malaysia, 149–150; Mongolia’s electoral history, 90–91; Mynamar’s election observation missions, 224– 228; oversight of voter manipulation, 263–264; vote buying in the Philippines, 202 official development assistance (ODA) flows: Cambodia, 158 Official Secrets Act (Malaysia), 138 offshore island (Republic of China), 72–74 oligarchical state control: Philippines, 203– 204 one-party control: Malaysia’s UMNO-led coalition, 127–128; Mongolia, 89; Singapore, 107; Singapore’s electoral integrity, 120–121; Taiwan’s electoral history, 65–66; Thailand, 243–244 open-list proportional representation (PR) system, 9–10, 170–171, 183–184 opposition leaders: Cambodia’s electoral history, 150; litigation as Singapore’s electoral suppression, 110–111; Singapore’s NCMP scheme, 112 opposition parties: Cambodia’s oppression of, 154–158; Cambodia’s protests, 145; cooperation between Malaysia’s, 130; evaluating Cambodia’s malpractice,

163; Malaysia’s election upset, 127– 128, 136; Malaysia’s parties, 129 Pak Geun-hue, 54 Pakatan Harapan (PH; Malaysia) coalition, 127, 130, 142 Palang Pracharat Party (PPRP; Thailand), 248–249 Papua province, Indonesia, 189–190, 193– 194 Park Chung-hee, 55 Partai Demokrasi Indonesia Perjuangan (PDIP), 171–172, 185 partisan bias. See bias partisan divides: Taiwan, 75 Party of Indonesian Democratic Struggle (PDIP), 171–172, 185 party registration: bias in Malaysia’s, 137; Cambodia’s electoral integrity, 152(fig.); electoral integrity in East and Southeast Asia, 133(fig.) party-list system: Philippines, 206–207 paternalistic governance: Singapore, 107 patrimonial states: Philippines, 203–204 patronage politics: Cambodia, 262 People’s Action Party (PAP; Singapore), 6– 7, 107–114, 119, 121, 256 People’s Alliance (Malaysia), 130 People’s Alliance for Democracy (PAD; Thailand), 244 People’s Power Party (PPP; Thailand), 245–247, 251, 261 Perceptions of Electoral Integrity (PEI) index, 44; Cambodia’s blatant manipulation, 151–154; dimensions of, 132–133; electoral integrity in East and Southeast Asia, 133(fig.); Malaysia’s manipulated elections, 130–131; Mongolia, 91; Philippines, 204; Taiwan, 65 phantom voters, 3, 12, 263–265 Pheu Thai (PT; Thailand) political party, 247–249, 261 Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ), 209 Philippines: ballot spoiling, 12–13; campaign finance, 206–209, 262; campaign length, 63(n10); coercive clientelism, 9; court failure to address malapportionment, 270; digital campaigns, 213–214; election violence, 199–201; electoral integrity improvements, 275; failure of manipulations, 268–269; history of

Index election integrity issues, 210–215; malapportionment, 261–262; manipulation by elites, 257–258; poverty, populism, elitism and electoral manipulation, 201–204; sources and effects of manipulation, 258–259; targeting and prosecuting opposition candidates, 7–8; uncontested elections, 209–210; violence against voters, 9; vote counting method, 204–206, 266; voting rights for expatriates and overseas workers, 5 police activity: election violence in the Philippines, 199–202 political freedoms: Korea’s democratic transition, 57 political institutions: contemporary politics, 128–130 political liberalization: Myanmar, 220–221 political parties: Aceh’s separatist violence, 192–193; alternative priorities of power-holders, 271–273; banning opposition parties, 260–261; Cambodia, 147; democratic stirrings in Thailand, 242–243; Indonesia, 171–172; Indonesia’s intraparty bargaining and theft, 183–184; Korea’s bipartisan Election Act, 55; Korea’s campaign regulations, 48–49; Mongolia’s control of ballot access, 99; Mongolia’s dispute resolution, 100–101; shifts under Thailand’s 2007 constitution, 244–246; Singapore’s hegemonic rule, 109–110; sources and effects of manipulation in the Philippines, 258–259; Taiwan’s party and candidate registration regulation, 78–80; Taiwan’s public campaign funding, 82; Taiwan’s singleparty rule, 69; Thailand’s election upset, 243–244; Thailand’s military junta parties, 248 Political Parties Act (Taiwan), 78 political transitions: integrity-enhancing reforms, 266–267 popular movements: Thailand’s PAD, 244 popular protest: Bawaslu monitoring Indonesia’s elections, 174; Cambodia’s blatant electoral manipulation, 145, 147, 157; Singapore’s one-party rule, 108–109 populism: Philippines, 201–204 post-election environment: Cambodia’s electoral integrity, 153–154 power-sharing: Cambodia’s failed arrangement, 147; Mongolia, 100–102;

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Myanmar’s military dictatorship, 222– 223 Prabowo Subianto, 172, 180, 185–191, 195–196 Prayuth Chanocha, 247 pre-electoral period, 1; forms of manipulation, 21(n3); Korea’s campaign regulation, 36–37, 55; Korea’s increasing stringency of campaign regulation, 57–58; manipulation of electoral rules, 3–4; Singapore’s election manipulation, 108, 120–121 preliminary candidates: Korea’s campaign regulation, 47, 56–57 presidential election requirements: Taiwan, 78 presidential elections: allegations of Indonesia’s electoral manipulation, 185–191, 195; Indonesia’s electionbased violence, 191–192; Mongolia’s power-sharing and dispute resolution, 101; questioning COMELEC’s impartiality, 212–213; walkout of elections in the Philippines, 211–212 presidential power: Mongolia’s powersharing and dispute resolution, 101, 103 private organizations, political support by, 48–49 private sector: ties to ruling parties, 8 proportional representation, 12; Mongolia’s electoral system, 89, 94; national constitution codification of electoral rules, 33–34; Singapore’s GRC, 113; Taiwan’s legislative electoral system, 76–77; Thailand’s electoral reform, 261 Prosperous Justice party (PKS; Indonesia), 172 protest. See popular protest provincial-level malpractice analysis: Cambodia, 159–161 psychological violations: Myanmar’s electoral integrity, 230–231 Public Office Election Act (POEA; Japan), 30–33, 36, 38–40, 46–47 public perception of malpractice: Myanmar, 229–230 public vote count: Taiwan, 84–85 race-based model: Malaysia, 141–142 Rainsy, Sam, 150 Ranariddh, Norodom, 147 Razak, Najib, 132, 138–139, 257 referenda: Taiwan’s increase in, 85, 88(n33); Thailand’s 2007 constitution, 244–245

324

Index

regime change: Myanmar, 221–222 regime type: correlating types of manipulation with, 15–17; registering parties and candidates, 78–80 regional observers, 225 rekapitulasi (Indonesian vote aggregation process), 181–184, 190, 265–266 religion: Malaysia’s cleavages, 128–129 Rendel Constitution (Singapore), 110 Reporters sans Frontières, 155 rigging the results, 12–13, 257–258, 266 Rohingya population (Myanmar), 5 rules, electoral, 4(table); importance of electioneering regulations, 28–30; Japan’s bias towards incumbents, 28; manipulation of Singapore’s, 114–120; the menu of manipulation, 260–263; targets of manipulation, 3–8 ruling elites: perpetrators of electoral manipulation, 257–258; the point of election manipulation, 273–274; Singapore, 109; TRT challenging Thailand’s, 243–244 ruling parties: alternative priorities and manipulation, 271–273; banning opposition parties, 260–261; case studies and sources of manipulation, 19–21; improving electoral integrity, 275–276; as manipulators in electoral malpractice, 255–256 Russia: campaign environment evaluation, 45 Schedler, Andreas, 14–15, 21(n2) secret ballots, 8, 180–181 secular nationalism: Indonesia, 171–172 Sedition Act (Malaysia), 132 selection bias in case studies, 16 semi-presidential system: Mongolia, 103 separation of powers: Mongolia, 102–103 Singapore: clientelism, 8; co-optation as voter suppression strategy, 111–114; electoral deposit, 115–117; electoral integrity, 120–121; gerrymandering and redistricting, 6, 117–120; group representative constituency, 113; litigation, co-optation and manipulation, 109–120; manipulating voting and counting, 265–266; manipulation of electoral rules, 114–120; manipulation through districting, 261; media manipulation replacing vote buying, 265; Nominated Members of Parliament, 112–113; reasons for

election manipulation, 108–109; ruling parties’s role in manipulation, 256; single-member and group representative constituencies, 118(table); targeting free speech, 7–8; targeting opposition candidates, 7; timeline for 2015 and 2020 general elections, 115(table) Singh, Pritam, 111 single nontransferable vote (SNTV) electoral system, 9–10, 71–72, 75 single-member constituency (SMD), 119 single-member districts (SMDs), 76–77 single-party states. See one-party control snap election: Philippines, 211–212 social media: digital campaigns in the Philippines, 213–214; Japan’s judicial regulation of campaign content, 39; Japan’s restrictions on campaign activities, 27–28; Korea and Japan’s campaign regulation, 47–48; Korea and Japan’s restrictions favoring incumbents, 53–54; leveling the playing field, 11; Taiwan’s campaign regulation, 88(n21). See also media socioeconomic status: Malaysia’s politics, 141–142 Soong, James, 87(nn15,16) South Africa: campaign environment evaluation, 45 South Korea. See Korea state capacity: patterns within case studies, 18–19 state institutions: ruling parties manipulating, 256–257 State of Cambodia (SOC) party, 147 stolen elections, Cambodia’s protests over, 145 suffrage. See voting rights Supreme Court (Philippines): campaign finance, 206–209 Supreme Court, US, 35 Supreme Court of Japan (SCJ), 28, 35–36; ban on door-to-door canvassing, 37–38; campaign regulation, 35 surveys: data collection methods for Myanmar’s election evaluation, 228–229 Taiwan: ballot spoiling and stuffing, 12; campaign environment evaluation, 45; campaign finance, 81–82, 262; campaign regulation and practice, 46, 80–81; correlating types of manipulation with economic development, 16; court protection of electoral rights, 270;

Index election law violations, 52; electoral competition regulation, 77–83; electoral integrity and political evolution, 65–72; electoral integrity improvements, 275; electoral observers, 13, 22(n42); failure of manipulations, 268–269; Freedom House score, 43–44; increasing liberalization of campaign regulation, 60–61; malapportionment, gerrymandering, and disproportionality, 73–77; media independence, 271; media regulation, 82–83; mixed-member parallel electoral system, 262; vote buying legislation, 265; voter registration and access, 72–73; voting process and ballot counting, 83–85; voting rights, 87(nn2,3) Taiwan People’s Party, 79, 256–257 Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU), 75 Tan Cheng Bock, 109 targets of manipulation, 3–8 television campaigning, 29–30, 34–35 Territorial Election Commission (TEC; Mongolia), 97–98 Thailand: China’s increasing ties and influence, 272–273; democratic stirrings, 242–243; manipulation by elites, 257– 258; manipulation through changing the electoral system, 261; media manipulation replacing vote buying, 265; 1997 constitution, 243–244; targeting candidates’ speech, 7–8; 2007 constitution, 244–246; 2011 elections, 246–247; 2017 constitution and 2019 elections, 247–249; types of electoral manipulation, 19; variations of electoral manipulation, 259; violence against voters, 9; vote buying, 262; voting rights for expatriates and overseas workers, 5 Thais Love Thais (TRT) political party, 243–246, 259 Thaksin Shinawatra, 259 Thein Sein, 222 Tinsulanonda, Prem, 242 Titi Anggraini, 191–192 tolerance, political culture of, 90 transfer of power, 89; Malaysia’s election upset, 127; Malaysia’s dominant-party rule, 130; Mongolia, 101; Singapore’s dominant-party rule, 108–109 transparency: Indonesia’s initiatives, 195– 196; vote counting in the Philippines, 204–205 transparency building, 13

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Trillanes, Antonio, 8 Turkey: campaign environment evaluation, 45 uncontested elections: Philippines, 209–210 unelected officials: Taiwan’s electoral history, 65–66 Union Election Commission (UEC; Myanmar), 225 Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP; Myanmar), 219–220, 222–224, 229–231, 236–237, 259 United Development Party (PPP; Indonesia), 172, 185 United Kingdom: electioneering regulations regarding advertisements, 29 United Malay National Organization (UMNO), 5–6, 127, 129–132, 134, 138– 141, 256, 261 United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC), 147 United States: campaign environment evaluation, 45; case studies in electoral manipulation, 17; constitutional specificity about regulation, 37; democratic imposition in Japan, 257; diplomatic recognition of China, 69; judicial role in regulating campaign spending, 35; Korea’s Election Act, 54 variations in electoral manipulation, 14–15, 255–259 violations: analysis of Japan’s electioneering regulation, 40–41; Indonesia’s manipulation and money politics, 177; investigated persons in Japan and Korea: falsification, 12, 141996–201251(table); investigations for Korea’s National Assembly Elections, 59(table); irregularities in Mongolia’s elections, 97–98; Japan’s electioneering regulations, 32, 32(fig.); Korea’s illegal campaign contributions, 56; Korea’s regulation stringency, 58– 60, 64(n32); Korea’s violations and punishments, 50–52; lawmakers losing seats, 58–59. See also specific types violence, election-based: Aceh’s separatist violence, 192–193; hierarchy of malpractice forms, 276–277; Indonesia’s communal and separatist violence, 191–192; Indonesia’s decrease in, 169–170; intimidation of opposition supporters, 14–15; investigated persons

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Index

in Japan and Korea, 51(table); Malaysia’s ethnic violence, 129, 131; manipulating the voting process, 12; Myanmar’s observer mission, 225; Papua’s election-related violence, 193– 194; Philippines, 211; post-election violence in Mongolia, 94, 97; prevalence of election violence in the Philippines, 199–201; psychological violations in Myanmar, 230–231; survey data on Myanmar’s elections, 228–229; Taiwan’s elections under the Kuomintang, 67–69; timing of Myanmar’s, 236–237; as tool of voter manipulation, 264; against voters, 9 vote aggregation process: Indonesia’s interparty bargaining, 185; Indonesia’s rekapitulasi process, 181–182; the point of election manipulation, 274 vote buying, 1, 9–11, 14–15; automation of vote counting in the Philippines, 205– 206; Cambodia, 149–150, 262; Indonesia’s interparty bargaining, 184– 185; Indonesia’s intraparty bargaining and theft, 183–184; Indonesia’s money politics, 177; investigated persons in Japan and Korea, 51(table); Korea’s decreasing occurrence of, 59–60; Mongolia, 100; Philippines, 201–204; prosecution in Korea, Japan, and Taiwan, 52; Taiwan’s campaign regulation, 81, 88(n22); Taiwan’s electoral history, 66– 67, 70–72; Thailand, 242–243; as tool of voter manipulation, 264–265 vote counting, 1, 3, 11–14; allegations of Indonesia’s electoral manipulation, 185–191; Cambodia’s electoral integrity, 152(fig.); defining electoral fraud, 3; electoral integrity in East and Southeast Asia, 133(fig.); electoral reform in the Philippines, 258–259; falsification of votes, 265–266; as form of electoral manipulation, 265–267; hierarchy of malpractice forms, 276– 277; Indonesia’s election regulators and courts, 172, 175–176; Malaysia, 140; malpractice by Indonesia’s election administrators, 178; manipulating Indonesia’s rekapitulasi process, 181– 182; manual methods, 23(n47); Mongolia’s election management, 96– 98; Mongolia’s election results, 100; Taiwan, 83–85; transition to machine counting in the Philippines, 204–206

vote theft: Indonesia’s intraparty bargaining and theft, 183–184 voter file (Indonesia), 180, 190 voter fraud, 2; Philippines, 266 voter manipulation, 3–4, 4(table), 8–11; diverse tactics, 263–267 voter registration: bias in Malaysia’s, 136– 137; Cambodia’s electoral integrity, 152(fig.), 153–154; Cambodia’s spatial patterns of malpractice, 159–161; electoral integrity in East and Southeast Asia, 133(fig.); falsifying voter rolls, 263–264; Indonesia’s ballot stuffing and voting by dead individuals, 179–180; Mongolia, 98–99; Taiwan, 72–73 voter rolls, 11, 263–264; hierarchy of malpractice forms, 276–277 voter turnout: allegations of Indonesia’s election manipulation, 187–190; high turnout in the Philippines, 202–203; Indonesia, 170; Mongolia’s elections, 91, 100; party strategies to reduce, 180–181 voting process: Cambodia’s electoral integrity, 152(fig.); hierarchy of malpractice forms, 276–277; Malaysia, 140; manipulation of, 11–14; Taiwan, 83–85. See also electoral process voting rights: differences in Aceh and Papua’s citizens’ rights, 195; expatriates and overseas workers, 22(n11); Japan’s electioneering restrictions, 30–31; manipulation of electoral rules, 5; Singapore, 110; Taiwan, 87(nn2,3) West Papua province, Indonesia, 170, 189– 191, 193, 278 Widodo, Joko, 185 witnesses: Indonesia’s dependence on witnesses to elections, 183, 196–197. See also observers, electoral Workers’ Party (WP; Singapore), 111 World War II: Japan’s electioneering regulation, 31 Yacob, Halimah, 7 Yuan (Taiwan): candidate requirements, 78–79; legislative electoral system, 76– 77; malapportionment and gerrymandering, 73–75; Taiwan’s elections under the KMT, 68 Yudhoyono, Susilo Bambang, 172 zombie candidates, 79

About the Book

WHAT CAUSES WIDESPREAD ABUSE OF THE ELECTORAL PROCESS? HOW do political elites choose and weigh the relative costs and benefits of differing kinds of electoral manipulation? How and why have patterns of electoral conduct changed over time? The authors of Electoral Malpractice in Asia answer these questions and more as they systematically compare the quality of elections across eleven democracies and electoral autocracies. Covering a range of regimes and practices, they highlight not only the varying ways that electoral integrity is violated, but also the consequences for the quality of democracy across the region. Netina Tan is associate professor of political science at McMaster University. Kharis Templeman is research fellow at the Hoover Institution

and lecturer in the Center for East Asian Studies, Stanford University.

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