In Southeast Asian countries that hold competitive elections, there has been a noticeable erosion of electoral integrity, leading to a regression in democracy since 2010. This has been evidenced by global democracy indexes.[1] In several of these countries, the traditional elites initially either choose to accept or endorse efforts to strengthen competitive multi-party democracy. Multi-party elections were accepted, in some instances, due to the pressure from the international community to promote democracy.[2] In other cases, it was driven by the internal momentum for democratic reforms and the aspirations of their populations.[3]
However, when these reforms began to dissipate and threaten their political hegemony, these very elites, who initially supported multiparty elections, began to undermine and dismantle the electoral framework to re-establish their political grip over power.
Free and fair elections are key to ensuring electoral integrity, as they promote trust, inclusivity, and peaceful transitions of power. Election legitimacy largely depends on the consistent application of electoral integrity principles throughout the entire electoral cycle – from the pre-election period to polling day and the announcement of results.[4] These principles, supported by electoral laws and impartial administration, ensure free deliberation, equal participation, and a level playing field for all candidates. They sustain public confidence in the electoral process and broader democratic system.[5]
What the survey-based expert assessments, such as the Perceptions of Electoral Integrity (PEI) index compiled by the Electoral Integrity Project (EIP) and published as the Electoral Integrity Global Report 2019–2021,[6] 2023,[7] and 2024,[8] do not explain is the active and sustained pattern of dismantling the established competitive multi-party democracy. These efforts extend beyond short-term subversion of election results aimed at negating gains made by democratic forces. Instead, they represent a longer-term strategy to redesign electoral systems in ways that guarantee outcomes favourable to authoritarian elites who once approved competitive elections.
To explain this gap and the phenomenon of sustained efforts to undermine electoral democracy, the collection assembled by the Asia Centre and its researchers for this volume of the Kyoto Review of Southeast Asia examines cases from Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, and Thailand, where elections were held between 2020 and 2024. These case studies provide detailed insights into how ruling elites have actively worked to reshape electoral systems and institutions to preserve their dominance, revealing the reasons behind democratic regression across Southeast Asia.
This collection builds on the Asia Centre’s research on election integrity in Southeast Asia, which includes Fake News and Elections in Southeast Asia: Impact on Democracy and Human Rights (2023),[9] State-Sponsored Online Disinformation: Impact on Electoral Integrity in Thailand (2023),[10] Youth and Disinformation in Malaysia: Strengthening Electoral Integrity (2022)[11] and COVID-19 and Democracy in Southeast Asia: Building Resilience, Fighting Authoritarianism (2021).[12] These works argue that understanding the causes of democratic regression in the region requires a deep analysis of the erosion of electoral integrity and the dismantling of the genuine competitive features of electoral democracy.
In Cambodia, the ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) has systematically weakened electoral integrity, reducing the multi-party system to a mere democratic facade. By employing a mix of political violence until the mid-2000s, and later through legal manoeuvring, administrative tactics, and tight media control, the CPP has effectively minimised opportunities for opposition parties to compete on a level playing field. This approach has stifled political dissent and entrenched the CPP’s dominance, making genuine democratic competition virtually impossible and rendering electoral processes more about legitimising the ruling party’s authority than reflecting the will of the people.
In Indonesia, grand governing coalitions – known as “political cartels” – have become a defining feature of the direct presidential election introduced in 2004. These coalitions, formed among parties and lead personalities that have previously competed against one another, prioritise power-sharing agreements among political elites over the competitive feature of multi-party democracy. In this process, the political parties have chosen to undermine the rationale behind Indonesia’s transition to democracy and instead pursue power sharing. This concentration of power within elite circles marginalises dissenting voices and conceals genuine political competition, creating an “opposition-less democracy”.
In Malaysia, unbridled party-hopping resulted in the fall of the 2018 elected Pakatan Harapan government. Ignoring voter choice, in March 2020, the “Sheraton Move” resulted in a change in government without elections and ignited a period of post-election political instability in Malaysia. Hence, in the run-up to the 2022 general election, the Malaysian Parliament enacted the Anti-Hopping Law (AHL). However, concerns remain about whether this new law will provide political parties with uncontrolled power over their members of parliament and whether political parties themselves are subjected to this law. Thus even with this law in place, which was largely seen as a compromise among different parties in the parliament, a coalition-based government in Malaysia continues to be at risk of being subverted and, by extension, voters’ preference denied.
In the announced run-up to the 2025 general election in Myanmar,[13] the Tatmadaw (Myanmar Armed Forces) is actively reversing the democratic progress achieved through the electoral framework that guided the multiparty elections of 2015 and 2020. Citing electoral fraud by the National League for Democracy (NLD)-led government, the Tatmadaw carried out a coup on 1 February 2021. Since then it has manipulated the legal and administrative measures to undermine the progress made in installing competitive multi-party elections. While it is unclear if elections will be held in 2025, the junta nevertheless has been actively dismantling the electoral framework that previously supported multi-party competition. This strategy seeks to consolidate military control while projecting a facade of democratic legitimacy and retaining their tight grip over the country.
In Thailand, serial petitions and rulings from the Constitutional Court have resulted in the dismissal of elected parliamentarians, the dissolution of political parties, and the annulment of elections. The Court wields extensive powers to review the constitutionality of laws and elections, while its self-selection and appointment of justices, along with a lack of oversight regarding its decisions, enable it to overturn electoral choices made by the electorate. This judicial overreach undermines the democratic process, effectively subverting the will of the voters and consolidating power among elites.
For the remaining Southeast Asia countries that have competitive elections, Freedom House’s Freedom in the World 2024 report provides some helpful insights.[14] For instance, elections in the Philippines are fought using fake news and vote buying that has advantaged the elites;[15] Singapore holds regular competitive elections. However, a variety of legal and political constraints on opposition parties, civil society and independent online media has allowed the ruling party to be in power uninterrupted since 1959;[16] and Timor-Leste, while competitive elections are acknowledged, its democratic institution is still considered fragile.[17] Laos[18] and Vietnam[19] are one-party states where there are no multi-party openly competitive elections, while Brunei[20] is an absolute monarchy.
In summary, the case studies in this collection reveal a trend in which election integrity is undermined through a combination of legal, bureaucratic, and information control measures designed to manipulate and subvert electoral outcomes. Such actions are particularly pronounced in countries that have undergone a transition to democracy, where ruling elites, dissatisfied with the loss of power and influence they are experiencing, are actively striving to regain their political dominance by re-setting the electoral framework in their favour.
Collective these and other developments have resulted in diminished trust in the electoral process.[21] As elections become less capable of accurately delivering voter preferences over candidates, parties, coalitions and policies, the value of elections will increasingly be called into question. It results in voter disillusionment and indifference to the electoral process. Unless election integrity is re-established, there will be less confidence in whether elections can deliver genuine democracy.
Given these developments, what is the future of elections in Southeast Asia and beyond?
As the trend in this collection shows, the existing electoral system in the different Southeast Asian countries will continue to be manipulated by the sitting elites. They either annul voter choice to return to power those who are aligned with them or engineer the electoral framework in a manner that elections return only results desired by them.
There will also be a tendency to move towards coalition politics both before and after elections. Often, pre-election coalitions give way to post-election coalitions that are based more on a pragmatic desire to seek political control and less motivated by principles of election integrity or democracy. In these cases, voter choices are not taken into account in the final makeup of a coalition.
Last but not least, elections will revolve around information campaigns based on misinformation and disinformation. This is already happening and is largely taking place at a national level, where political parties or coalitions in power as government are equally responsible for disseminating fake news about their opponents. However, moving forward, we are likely to witness increased online manipulation in the run-up, during and after elections in the form of foreign interference.
In this context, electoral assistance provided by the international community – in the form of financial support, technical assistance, or capacity-building activities, to name a few – will remain crucial. However, members of the international community must be aware of the potential drawbacks of providing electoral assistance to governments, election commissions and government agencies that are guilty of shrinking electoral integrity. This red flag would be an important indicator of whether the electoral assistance given contributed to the erosion of multi-party elections or endorsed genuine competitive elections.
James Gomez, Asia Centre
Guest Editor: Issue 40, Kyoto Review of Southeast Asia
Asia Centre is a civil society research institute in Special Consultative Status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council. It was first established in Bangkok, Thailand in 2015, in 2018 a second Centre was set up in Johor Bahru, Malaysia and in 2024, a third Centre was established in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. The Centre’s partners are CSOs, development aid agencies, INGOs, media workers, and policy-makers who serve marginalised end beneficiaries.
Main Articles in seven languages
Article 1
Dismantling Myanmar’s Election Integrity: A Post-Coup Review
Membongkar Integritas Pemilu Myanmar: Tinjauan Pasca-Kudeta
การรื้อทำลายความสุจริตและเป็นธรรมในการเลือกตั้งของเมียนมา: บททบทวนภายหลังการรัฐประหาร
ミャンマーにおける選挙の清廉性の崩壊：ポスト・クーデター再考
Phá hủy tính toàn vẹn của cuộc bầu cử ở Myanmar: Đánh giá sau đảo chính
Paglansag sa Integridad ng Halalan sa Myanmar: Isang Pagtatasa Matapos ang Kudeta
မြန်မာပြည်၏ ပျက်စီးသွားသော ရွေးကောက်ပွဲဆိုင်ရာ မျှတမှု – စစ်အာဏာသိမ်းပြီးနောက် အခြေအနေ
Article 2
Changing Governments Without Elections: Subverting Voter Choice in Malaysia
Mengganti Pemerintah Tanpa Pemilu: Menjungkirbalikkan Pilihan Pemilih di Malaysia
เปลี่ยนรัฐบาลโดยไม่ต้องมีการเลือกตั้ง: การทำลายมติของผู้ลงคะแนนเสียงเลือกตั้งในมาเลเซีย
選挙無き政権交代 マレーシアで覆される有権者の選択
Thay đổi chính phủ không qua Bầu cử: Lật ngược sự lựa chọn của cử tri ở Malaysia
Pagpapalit ng Pamahalaan nang Walang Halalan: Pagsira sa Pagpili ng mga Botante sa Malaysia
ရွေးကောက်ပွဲမှ မဟုတ်သော အစိုးရပြောင်းလဲမှု – မလေးရှားတွင် မဲဆန္ဒရှင်များ၏ ဆန္ဒကို ချိုးဖောက်ခြင်း
Article 3
Party Cartels in Indonesia: Towards an Opposition-Less Democracy
Kartel Partai di Indonesia: Menuju Demokrasi Tanpa Oposisi
การฮั้วของพรรคการเมืองในอินโดนีเซีย: เส้นทางสู่ประชาธิปไตยไร้ฝ่ายค้าน
インドネシアの政党カルテル 野党不在の民主主義へ
Các đảng phái ở Indonesia: Hướng tới một nền dân chủ ít có phe đối lập
Mga Kartel ng Partido sa Indonesia: Tungo sa Isang Demokrasyang Walang Oposisyon
အင်ဒိုနီးရှားရှိ ပါတီကာတယ်များ- အတိုက်အခံကင်းရှင်းသည့် ဒီမိုကရေစီသို့
Article 4
How the Constitutional Court Erodes Electoral Integrity in Thailand
Bagaimana Mahkamah Konstitusi Mengikis Integritas Pemilu di Thailand
เมื่อศาลรัฐธรรมนูญเซาะกร่อนบ่อนทำลายความสุจริตและเป็นธรรมของการเลือกตั้งในประเทศไทย
憲法裁判所はいかにタイの選挙の清廉性を損ねるか
Tòa hiến pháp làm xói mòn tính toàn vẹn của cuộc bầu cử ở Thái Lan như thế nào?
Kung Paanong Inanod ng Korteng Konstitusyunal ang Integridad ng Halalan sa Thailand
ထိုင်းနိုင်ငံတွင် ဖွဲ့စည်းပုံ အခြေခံဥပဒေ ခုံရုံးသည် ရွေးကောက်ပွဲ တရားမျှတမှုကို မည်သို့ထိခိုက်စေသည်
Article 5
Undermining the Integrity of Elections in Cambodia
Melemahkan Integritas Pemilu di Kamboja
การเซาะกร่อนบ่อนทำลายความสุจริตและเป็นธรรมของการเลือกตั้งในกัมพูชา
カンボジアで低下する選挙の清廉性
Phá hoại tính toàn vẹn của cuộc bầu cử ở Campuchia
Pagpapahina sa Integridad ng Halalan sa Cambodia
ကမ္ဘောဒီးယားတွင် ရွေးကောက်ပွဲများ၏ တရားမျှတမှုကို ထိခိုက်စေခြင်း
Book Review
 Author: ZHANG, Luka Lei (ed.) Brooklyn, NY: Hard Ball Press, 2024 Reviewed by Jafar Suryomenggolo |
 Author: Elliott Prasse-Freeman Stanford University Press, 2023 Reviewed by Melissa Crouch |
 Author: Shawna Herzog Bloomsbury Academic, 2021 Reviewed by Paul Chambers |
 Author: Terence Harkin Silkworm Books, 2021 Reviewed by Hai Hong Nguyen |
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NOTES
[1] See, for example: Economic Intelligence Unit (2024) Democracy Index 2023: Age of Conflict, Economic Intelligence Unit; Freedom House (2024) ‘Freedom in the World’, Freedom House, at: https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world; V-Dem Institute (2024) Democracy Report 2024: Democracy Winning and Losing at the Ballot, Gothenburg, Sweden: V-Dem Institute, at: https://www.v-dem.net/documents/43/v-dem_dr2024_lowres.pdf.
[2] Steven Levitsky and Lucan A. Way (2002) ‘Elections Without Democracy: The Rise of Competitive Authoritarianism’, Journal of Democracy 13 (2): 51–65, at: DOI:10.1353/jod.2002.0026.
[3] Electoral Integrity Initiative, Kofi Annan Foundation (2018) ‘Democracy in Southeast Asia: Achievements, Challenges and Prospects’, Conference Report, Kofi Annan Foundation, at: https://www.kofiannanfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Democracy-in-Southeast-Asia.pdf.
[4] Holly Ann Garnett et al. (2024) Electoral Integrity Global Report 2024, The Electoral Integrity Project, at: https://www.electoralintegrityproject.com/s/Year-in-Elections-PEI-10-Report_FINAL.pdf.
[5] Pippa Norris (2014) Why Electoral Integrity Matters, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, at: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781107280861.
[6] Garnett et al. (2022) Electoral Integrity Global Report 2019-2021, The Electoral Integrity Project, at: https://www.electoralintegrityproject.com/globalreport2019-2021.
[7] Garnett et al. (2023) Electoral Integrity Global Report 2023, The Electoral Integrity Project, at: https://www.electoralintegrityproject.com/global-report-2023.
[8] Garnett et al. (2024) Electoral Integrity Global Report 2024, The Electoral Integrity Project, at: https://www.electoralintegrityproject.com/s/Year-in-Elections-PEI-10-Report_FINAL.pdf.
[9] James Gomez and Robin Ramcharan (eds.) (2023) Fake News and Elections in Southeast Asia Impact on Democracy and Human Rights, Routledge, at: https://www.routledge.com/Fake-News-and-Elections-in-Southeast-Asia-Impact-on-Democracy-and-Human-Rights/Gomez-Ramcharan/p/book/9781032379821.
[10] Asia Centre (2023) State-Sponsored Online Disinformation: Impact on Electoral Integrity in Thailand, Bangkok, Thailand: Asia Centre, at: https://asiacentre.org/wp-content/uploads/State-Sponsored-Online-Disinformation-Impact-on-Electoral-Integrity-in-Thailand.pdf.
[11] Asia Centre (2022) Youth and Disinformation in Malaysia: Strengthening Electoral Integrity, Bangkok, Thailand: Asia Centre and Google, at: https://asiacentre.org/wp-content/uploads/Youth-and-Disinformation-in-Malaysia-Strengthening-Electoral-Integrity-1.pdf.
[12] Asia Centre (2021) COVID-19 and Democracy in Southeast Asia: Building Resilience, Fighting Authoritarianism, Bangkok, Thailand: Asia Centre and Empowering Freedom Defenders in East and Southeast Asia (EFDEA), at: https://asiacentre.org/wp-content/uploads/COVID-19-and-Democracy-in-Southeast-Asia-Building-Resilience-Fighting-Authoritarianism.pdf.
[13] Myanmar Election Watch (2024) ‘Myanmar junta chief announces “election” to be held in 2025’, Myanmar Election Watch, at: https://myanmarelectionwatch.org/en/news/myanmar-junta-chief-min-aung-hlaing-announces-2025-sham-election.
[14] Freedom House (2024) ‘Freedom in the World 2024: The Mounting Damage of Flawed Elections and Armed Conflict’, Freedom House, at: https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/2024/mounting-damage-flawed-elections-and-armed-conflict.
[15] Freedom House (2024) ‘Freedom in the World 2024: Philippines’, Freedom House, at: https://freedomhouse.org/country/philippines/freedom-world/2024.
[16] Freedom House (2024) ‘Freedom in the World 2024: Singapore’, Freedom House, at: https://freedomhouse.org/country/singapore/freedom-world/2024.
[17] Freedom House (2024) ‘Freedom in the World 2024: Timor-Leste’, Freedom House, at: https://freedomhouse.org/country/timor-leste/freedom-world/2024.
[18] Freedom House (2024) ‘Freedom in the World 2024: Laos’, Freedom House, at: https://freedomhouse.org/country/laos/freedom-world/2024.
[19] Freedom House (2024) ‘Freedom in the World 2024: Vietnam’, Freedom House, at: https://freedomhouse.org/country/vietnam/freedom-world/2024.
[20] Freedom House (2024) ‘Freedom in the World 2024: Brunei’, Freedom House, at: https://freedomhouse.org/country/brunei/freedom-world/2024.
[21] World Economic Forum (2024), ‘Global Risks Report 2024’, Geneva, Switzerland: World Economic Forum, at: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2024/07/global-democracy-charts-2024-trends-insights-election.