Astrologers say 2004 is the Year of the Monkey, but it's also a year of elections in Asia.
Hundreds of millions of people will determine the shape of presidencies, governments and parliaments in about a dozen countries and territories. Depending on location, the ballots could be groundbreaking or mundane, tightly contested or predictable, orderly or chaotic and even downright violent.
"The question is whether these elections are going to contribute to stability or instability," said Michael DeGolyer of the Hong Kong Baptist University. "I think we'll have an incredibly dynamic year all through Asia."
In Japan, a poll for the parliament's upper house won't directly threaten Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi. But it will test support for his spluttering plans to fix the world's second largest economy. Up for judgment will also be his unprecedented deployment of 1,000 non-combat troops to Iraq despite Japan's postwar pacifism.
In India, the world's most populous democracy, 79-year-old Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee must name a date for 600 million people to vote.
His Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party leads a 17-party government and has won a spate of state elections recently. The unruly alliance has weathered bloody rioting among Hindus and Muslims and is reconciling with Pakistan just two years after they stepped back from nuclear war over ownership of divided Kashmir.
But as one flashpoint calms, another maybe about to flare.
A bitter tussle for Taiwan's presidency will be decided on March 20. At issue is the island's identity. Is it an independent sovereign nation? Or should it one day unite with China after splitting away 54 years ago amid civil war?
President Chen Shui-bian (
Challenger Lien Chan (
"This election isn't a contest between me and Lien. It's a battle between me and China's Communist Party," Chen declared recently.
"The absolute majority of people in Taiwan don't agree with Chen Shui-bian -- that we should be provocative with our relations with China," countered Lien.
In South Korea, an April 15 parliamentary election will be a test for President Roh Moo-hyun, whose administration is in disarray only 11 months after he took office.
Roh promised to fight graft but he's been swept up in scandals involving aides indicted on charges of collecting illicit funds during his campaign. The forthcoming election has also been clouded by the world's failure so far to get North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons program and Roh's unpopular decision to send 3,000 troops to Iraq.
In central Asia, a parliamentary election in December could highlight the real extent of democratic reform in Uzbekistan. Since deploying troops there in 2001 for the anti-terrorism operation in neighboring Afghanistan, the US has been under pressure from international human rights groups to push President Islam Karimov to loosen his authoritarian grip.
Meanwhile a battle is brewing among nine parties for control of the legislature in another former Soviet republic, Kazakhstan. A strong contender will be the Asar Party, newly formed by the daughter of Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev. She's not standing for office this time but some speculate she plans to succeed him in the top job one day.
In Afghanistan, elections slated for June are supposed to crown a UN-sponsored drive for stabilization after more than two decades of fighting.
Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation, has a long sad history of election violence. And, security will be high when it tries out a new direct, but likely messy, voting system to pick its president.
Incumbent President Megawati Sukarnoputri, the daughter of the nation's founding leader, was swept to power as a pro-reform movement darling just three years ago. But Muslim extremism, including the 2002 Bali bombings that killed 202 people, has done much to destabilize her government.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not