2004 to be shaped politically by national elections in Asia

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 (陳水扁) has called for a rewritten Taiwanese constitution and legalized referendums -- demands that upset Beijing.

Challenger Lien Chan (連戰), of the former ruling Nationalist Party government, initially opposed Chen's stand only to see his lead in opinion polls shrink. The two rivals are now neck and neck, says political scientist Ho Szu-yin.

"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.