“If no one agrees to the rules, it’s hard to play the game.” Veteran journalist in Asia A. Lin Neumann said in Rappler’s “Though Leaders” that it is “most acutely seen now in Thailand, but the dynamic is evident in Malaysia, Cambodia and even Indonesia.” Neumann said that in Thailand “Thaksin represents a fundamental threat to the Democrats not because he is corrupt but because he shifted power from the Bangkok status quo to his machine.” He says Thailand’s crisis of legitimacy risks doing permanent harm to the country’s future. In Malaysia, Neumann said the ruling Barisan Nasional coalition is using dangerous racial politics to make the Chinese and Indian minorities feel like strangers in their own country. In Indonesia, he said the “emergence of Jakarta Gov. Joko “Jokowi” Widodo as the country’s most popular politician is a challenge to the legitimacy of veteran leaders.”
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