Both Philippines and Thailand have known many military regimes before, which had been guilty of several bloody onslaught on their own people. They are now striving hard to practice their own versions of Parliamentary democracy, with all its shortcomings. In Malaysia, since 1955, two years before she attained independence, general elections have been held regularly, almost five years once. This is consistent with her claim of practicing parliamentary democracy. There is also a tendency for the executive to dominate over the legislature, judiciary and the media.
Authoritarianism is on the rise.
The NDL leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, is still under house detention. Many, including women and children, have been driven into forced labour in certain government-sponsored projects. As for Vietnam and Loas, they had not in the past shown much respect for civil and political rights, because under their communist regimes, their countries were closed and their people controlled. It should be noted, however, that more often than not these elections are neither clean nor fair. The ruling parties often blatantly take advantage of their control over government machinery.