Can democracy survive?

Second of 2 parts
Part 1 | ASEAN newsrooms band together: Democracy under siege

MANILA, Philippines – The concluding part of the series of the state of democracy in select ASEAN countries covers Cambodia, Indonesia, and the Philippines.

Contributions from Kiripost, Tempo, and Rappler reflect different stages of democracy: nascent, if not struggling in Cambodia, setbacks in Indonesia and the Philippines, with resilience still evident in the Philippines itself, despite fears of backsliding.

Cambodian youth uninterested in politics

Cambodia’s tightly-controlled political landscape is dominated by the ruling Cambodian People’s Party, which holds 120 of 125 parliamentary seats under Prime Minister Hun Manet. 

Authorities have continued to pursue legal action against opposition figures, with hundreds of members and supporters facing charges, including treason and incitement, while the former opposition leader remains under house arrest alongside others on trial or living in exile. 

Against this backdrop, youth engagement in politics remains notably low despite Cambodia’s large Gen Z population. 

A 2022 Transparency International Cambodia survey found that 82% of 1,600 young respondents expressed little or no interest in politics, and 76% rarely or never discussed political issues.

Limited avenues for participation, gaps in political knowledge and broader structural constraints are cited as key barriers, prompting calls for a national youth policy and stronger youth representation in decision-making.

Kiripost Media, founded in 2021, is a leading independent media outlet in Cambodia with a focus on business and technology.

Indonesia: The end of the 1998 reform era 

By Anton Septian

The awarding of the national hero title to Soeharto marks the official end of Indonesia’s reform era, which began in 1998. Twenty-seven years ago, students and the public forced Soeharto to step down after ruling in a corrupt and authoritarian way for 32 years.

On November 10, 2025, Indonesia’s National Heroes Day, President Prabowo Subianto — Soeharto’s former son-in-law — granted him the national hero title. This decision appears to cleanse Soeharto’s wrongdoings while rewriting historical narratives. A key question emerging from the public is: if Soeharto is now considered a hero, does that make the students and citizens who ousted him rebels?

Beyond that, many suspect this is part of Prabowo’s effort to clear his own past. Prabowo, a former army officer, was dismissed for his proven involvement in the abduction of activists who opposed Soeharto in 1998. Obscuring the history of reform means concealing Prabowo’s actions at the time.

Granting Soeharto the national hero title is not the only controversial decision Prabowo has introduced since taking office in 2024. His administration is rewriting Indonesia’s national history, including the timeline of the 1998 reform movement. One example is the omission from “official history” of the mass rapes targeting ethnic Chinese women during the May 1998 riots.

Since assuming the presidency, Prabowo has given the military broad access to state affairs, including food security programs. This ranges from forest-clearing for food-estate projects to appointing army generals as the head of the State Logistics Agency (Bulog), which oversees rice supplies. He also appointed his former subordinate in the military as director general of Customs.

Prabowo has also established 150 new battalions in every city annually over five years. By 2029, more than 500 new battalions will exist, comprising around 500,000 soldiers. The deployment of additional troops across regions raises concerns about interference in practical politics, including mobilization during elections. More broadly, the military’s expanding presence down to the local level threatens the principle of civilian supremacy upheld by the 1998 reform movement.

Indonesia’s democracy faces further threats as Prabowo and several political elites plan to eliminate direct regional elections and replace them with elections by regional legislative councils (DPRD). Such a shift would diminish public participation and result in local leaders who are not chosen by the people. These leaders would be more inclined to serve political elites than their constituents. Moreover, elections in regional councils tend to be transactional and prone to bribery for securing political party votes.

These setbacks had, in fact, begun under President Joko Widodo, who governed from 2014 to 2024. Widely known as Jokowi, he weakened Indonesia’s democratic institutions by undermining bodies tasked with checking executive power. This was not done through drastic systemic change, but through executive aggrandizement.

By embracing most political parties, Jokowi co-opted the House of Representatives (DPR), making parliament uncritical and reducing it to a rubber stamp for government policies. Two major products of the 1998 reform era — the Constitutional Court (MK) and the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) — were also weakened. The government and parliament revised the Constitutional Court Law to exert control over constitutional judges, while amendments to the Corruption Eradication Commission Law stripped the anti-corruption agency of its independence.

On the surface, Indonesia still appears democratic. But in reality, its democratic pillars are nearly collapsed. By the end of Jokowi’s presidency in 2024, Indonesia had already become a state characterized by autocratic legalism.

Thus, Prabowo — who secured Jokowi’s support in the 2024 presidential election by choosing his son, Gibran Rakabuming Raka, as his running mate — rose to power with a democracy already battered and on the verge of collapse.

Tempo is an Indonesian news organization well-known for its in-depth and investigative reporting. It was first published in 1971 as a magazine. Banned in 1994 by the New Order regime, Tempo resumed publication in 1998 after Soeharto stepped down. Anton Septian is Tempo’s Executive Editor.

The ironies of Philippine democracy 

By Chay F. Hofileña

After surviving the turbulent, authoritarian-pretending-to-be-democratic years of Rodrigo Duterte, the Philippines was bracing for what was anticipated as possibly worse years under the son of a former dictator, Ferdinand E. Marcos.

The return of a Marcos to power — made possible by an unlikely alliance of Marcos Jr. and Sara Duterte, then-mayor of Davao City and daughter of the man who initiated a brutal “war against drugs,” dashed hopes of the opposition led by then-independent candidate Leni Robredo. 

Despite having ushered in what would be called an impressive “Pink” wave that manifested in huge crowds that attended rallies in 2022 in the lead up to the presidential elections, Robredo got only close to 28% of votes cast. Her opponent Marcos won by a landslide with 31.6 million votes (equivalent to over 58% of those who voted). Robredo got less than half, or over 15 million. 

Not a few of the Filipino youth who actively campaigned for her wept after her heart-breaking loss. They had to be reminded that crowd turnouts in rallies alone do not win elections. Many were of the belief that a massive disinformation network boosted and sealed Marcos’ victory.

Voter turnout was at a high 83%, indicative of high interest in the first presidential elections held since the COVID-19 pandemic.

Approaching mid-terms, the Marcos-Duterte alliance of convenience quickly tumbled towards the inevitable: an ugly and bitter rupture after allegations of misspent confidential funds by Sara Duterte, the arrest and hauling to the International Criminal Court in The Hague of her father Rodrigo for alleged crimes against humanity, and a failed attempt to impeach her. The Supreme Court played a pivotal role in this controversial decision that ruled the congressional impeachment moves to be unconstitutional.

Mid-term elections in May 2025 were a dismal failure for the Marcos administration which secured only six of the 12 Senate seats that were up for grabs The results also signaled a significantly weakened presidency unable to muster all the political muscle needed to lift administration candidates to victory.

By the looks of it, democracy is vibrant and very much alive in the Philippines. 

Why, no less than the President made public, during his State of the Nation Address in July 2025, a list of the nation’s top contractors who bagged flood control contracts. He dared investigative journalists to do their own digging, which resulted in numerous exposés on billions of pesos lost to corruption. Both houses of Congress held hearings that revealed never-before-heard-of amounts of public funds being brazenly and shamelessly pocketed by contractors closely tied to politicians.

The Filipino citizenry rose up in anger, attending rallies that denounced manipulation of the national budget that facilitated incredible levels of corruption. Public funds were devoured by commissions that easily reached millions of pesos, leaving only half of the intended budget for projects. This produced substandard flood control infrastructure that resulted in a high number of deaths during disasters.

While democracy has permitted a cacophony of voices to be heard and allowed the different branches of government to operate with some semblance of independence — possibly the welcome consequence, too, of a weak president  — it has also stymied economic growth exacerbated by governance issues. 

For 2025, despite being weighed down by corruption scandals, the country is still projected by optimists to be among the fastest growing in ASEAN. Pro-democracy forces hope the forecast will prove to be true as a return to power of another Duterte in the 2028 presidential elections could see an ugly repeat of history, with lessons never taken to heart. – Rappler.com

Rappler was formally launched in January 2012, evolving from a Facebook page MovePH in 2011. It stands on three pillars — journalism, community, and technology — and has as its CEO Nobel Laureate Maria Ressa. Chay F. Hofileña, one of Rappler’s founders, is Investigative Editor and Head of Training.