http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/asian-dynasties-in-need-of-deeper-gene-pools/story-e6frg6so-1226060641510
Asian dynasties in need of deeper gene pools
Rowan Callick, Asia-Pacific editor
From: The Australian
May 23, 2011 12:00AM
THAILAND'S Red Shirts have chosen fugitive former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra's youngest sister, Yingluck, to lead them into the country's next election on July 3 -- the latest round of their slugfest with the royalist Yellow Shirts.
Yingluck is a 43-year-old property developer. Previously, she was managing director of a mobile phone firm controlled by her brother. Her husband works for a different mobile phone company, which is owned by her sister. Thaksin calls Yingluck "my clone". Nice.
Asia is replete with such clones. After the colonial era, dictators installed themselves in much of the region, mostly with military backing. Since then, Asia has steadily democratised.
But the process has got stuck. In so many countries, the lists of candidates at elections bear an uncanny resemblance to those at the last few polls. That's because, of course, the names are the same. They're family.
Trust, not just at the level of party powerbrokers but even among voters, doesn't seem to have extended beyond blood relationships. People are looking for reliable leadership form, but are only really convinced by family resemblance, even if - as in the case of Yingluck Shinawatra - the candidates have no experience at all of public or administrative life.
In Cambodia the Prime Minister of 17 years, Hun Sen, earlier this year promoted his son, Hun Manet, to a major general, aged just 32. He's clearly on his way.
In nearby Singapore, founding father Lee Kuan Yew, aged 87, is wisely bowing out of the cabinet after a rather tepid election win by the standards of the ruling People's Action Party. However, his dynastic influence has not entirely dissipated. His elder son, Lee Hsien Loong, remains Prime Minister and Hsien Loong's wife, Ho Ching, is chief executive of state-owned finance giant Temasek Holdings, while another son is chairman of the Civil Aviation Authority.
In Indonesia, founding father Sukarno's daughter Megawati has already had a spin as president, after a spell of unbridled nepotism under Suharto. Now there is strong speculation that Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, the incumbent who is widely respected for presiding over strong and stable growth, and who cannot under the constitution stand for a third term, will be succeeded by his wife, Kristiani Herawati, and then one of their two sons.
In Malaysia, the wife of opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim, Wan Azizah, is president of the People's Justice Party of which he is the parliamentary head, and their brilliant daughter Nurrul Izzah Anwar is a parliamentarian.
The family has reasons for stepping in to such positions given the charges flung at Anwar Ibrahim. But the dynastic shadows lurk, should power finally shift from UMNO which has dominated government since independence in 1957.
To the north, all five of the post-Soviet Central Asian republics are run by first families.
Typically, in 2005 Kurmanbek Bakiyev led the Tulip Revolution - every coup now seems sponsored by florists - in Kyrgyzstan, vowing to end the nepotism of the Askar Akayev regime. Soon five Bakiyev family members were holding prominent positions in the government. Last year the Bakiyevs were ousted too.
So people can get too much of this Asian family politics. They tend to like the idea at elections. It feels comforting. But then when the families start to treat national budgets like household accounts, sourness sets in, and voters instead start to come over teary-eyed about the next lovely family lining itself up for a tilt - or for another go-round.
Over in The Philippines, Benigno Aquino has succeeded his mother Corazon as President. He took over from Gloria Arroyo, whose father was also president. A distastefully growing number of descendants and relatives of Ferdinand Marcos sit in the congress.
Up in Japan, since Junichiro Koizumi, member of a famed political family, retired as prime minister in 2006, two of those who have succeeded him - Shinzo Abe and Taro Aso - have been grandsons of prime ministers. In South Korea, Park Geun-hye, the daughter of assassinated president Park Chung-he, is strongly fancied to be elected president next year.
But it is across the 38th parallel in North Korea that nepotism has reached its post-colonial hereditary zenith.
There, the Great Leader, Kim Il-sung, ruled from 1948 until his death in 1994 when he was succeeded by his son, Dear Leader Kim Jong-il, who has finally named his younger son, Kim Jong-un, as his heir.
No epithet has yet emerged from the propaganda brains of the Democratic People's Republic to encapsulate Jong-un's particular claim to legitimacy. Accounts of his career to date might suggest "the luxury leader" or "the lost leader" might fit. Perhaps he'll emerge into the low-wattage North Korean spotlight as "the lovely leader".
And in China, the great new force in Asia, Xi Jinping, who will become the paramount leader next year, is the son of Xi Zhongxun, a great pioneering communist party figure who became vice-premier. This reflects the growing power in the party of the faction of "taizi", princelings, children of leading cadres.
Of course, the US has its Bushes and Clintons, and Kennedys before them. But the American political class will expand to eclipse them in time.
Our Asian neighbours have mostly done well to get so far so fast in developing prosperous, stable societies. But as their countries continue to grow economically, they need to broaden and deepen too the gene pools of their political elites or risk falling back into corruption and self-reference.
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