Fake news and the resurgence of authoritarian leaders

Jakarta: Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak's decision to introduce a new law banning "fake news" has been lambasted by the opposition, the Human Rights Commission of Malaysia and civil society groups as a crackdown on free speech.

Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak in Parliament on Wednesday.Credit: AP

The government compromised a little this week by reducing the maximum proposed prison sentence from ten years to six, but the draconian law will be legislated just before Najib announces the date of general elections, due in a matter of weeks.

Singapore, too, is looking at how it can crack down on so-called fake news and in Indonesia, the recently passed "MD3 law" can allow an MP to press charges against someone who criticises the Parliament, or a member of the Parliament. MD3 is already being challenged by civil society groups.

Fake news, a term popularised by US President Donald Trump, is increasingly used by politicians around the world to discredit stories they simply don't like.

Griffith Univeristy's Lee Morgenbesser says Trump has eroded democratic norms in the United States and that has given Asian leaders the green light to do the same.

"Fake news is being used as a weapon, a blunt instrument to silence dissent in places like Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia. And then on top of that, China is increasingly supporting authoritarian regimes," he says.

"The region has never had a lot of democracy, but this is all happening at the same time and that's why the picture looks bad."

Countries such as Singapore and Malaysia have essentially been one-party states for close to 50 years, with local opposition parties having little chance of winning power.

Cambodia's strongman dictator Hun Sen leads an ever-more authoritarian government which has jailed opposition leader Kem Sokha, forced others such as Mu Sochua and Sam Rainsy into exile, and cracked down on the freedom of the press.

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen.Credit: AP

Myanmar's transition to a power sharing arrangement between the fading democracy activist Aung Sang Suu Kyi and the military looks more and more like a failure.

Thailand's Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha, the latest former military officer to lead the country, continues to delay elections that would restore, at least partially, democratic rule.

Myanmar's Aung San Suu Kyi, centre, with Thailand's Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-Cha, right, and Malaysia's Najib in Manila last year.Credit: AP

And the Philippines' Rodrigo Duterte, while popularly elected, revels in the role of strongman, sanctions extra judicial killings and regularly attacks human rights organisations.

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte.Credit: AP

It's a grim picture.

The Lowy Institute Asia specialist Matthew Busch says that after what seems, in hindsight, a purple patch in which the cause of democracy in the region advanced, things are now reverting to the status quo.

"Our assumptions about democracy in the region weren’t correctly calibrated," he says.

"We thought that things were heading in a certain direction, but there were still flaws in the systems that allowed leaders to make themselves more secure

"There are some examples of democratic back-sliding, but also we partially told ourselves over the last decade that south-east Asia had become less authoritarian that it had perhaps actually become."

The rise of China and its concomitant economic power has helped reshape the region in the last decade, too, tilting the axis of the region ever so slightly away from the United States and the west.

Cambodia, for example, is viewed as a client state of its giant northern neighbour.

This re-orientation arguably began under Barack Obama, despite his so-called pivot to Asia, and has accelerated under Trump.

However, some historical perspective is also needed. In the 1970s, for example, a trio of brutal dictators - Pol Pot in Cambodia, Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines and Suharto in Indonesia - ruled.

If the state of democracy in south-east Asia isn't as bad as it was in the 1970s, the region is hardly a shining beacon to the world (Indonesia, with presidential, parliamentary and regional elections due in the next year is an exception).

The Thailand-based deputy director of Human Rights Watch Asia, Phil Robertson, says that governments in Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand are "limiting the choices for voters, and gaming the democratic process, rather than denying the democratic process".

"There is still a desire to remain within the democratic club among countries that have been there. In these countries, by and large, their governments want to maintain political power but they want to be referred to as democratic".

"These governments are trying to rig it so the rules mitigate against a strong opposition party."

Robertson is scathing of what he describes as the Turnbull government's "profound reluctance" to raise human rights issues with ASEAN countries.

The loss of former US President Barack Obama and rise of Trump has removed another democratic advocate in the region but unlike Morgenbesser, Robertson questions the influence of China in promoting more authoritarian norms.

"Certainly the economic influence of China has been massive, just look at the massive growth in two-way trade. But China is also viewed with suspicion by these south-east Asian nations. Their support for communist insurgencies in Malaysia, Thailand and Burma hasn't been forgotten".