32 Asia The Economist February 12th 2022
cos’snameonthem. The Philippines, like
America, holds elections for several levels
of government on a single day. Various ver
sions of the machinereadable form must
serve the purposes of congressional and
local elections as well as the presidential
election. That makes them so long and
complicated that they must be printed
months in advance, before the matter of Mr
Marcos’s eligibility can be resolved. If he is
disqualified before election day, voters
may choose to mark their ballots in his fa
vour anyway. And if Mr Marcos wins any
thing like the number of votes suggested
by opinion surveys, as seems plausible,
none would count.
The laws are not clear, but in such cir
cumstances the presidency probably
would not go to the candidate with the
nexthighest number of votes. Instead, the
newly elected vicepresident, who runs in
dependently of the president, is likely to be
first in line. Sara Duterte—another presi
dential progeny—is widely expected to win
that election. Mr Marcos has said he would
accept her as his substitute. Such an out
come would also be acceptable to Ms Du
terte’s father, who at the outset wanted her
to run for the highest office. (Mr Duterte,
who is limited to a single term by the con
stitution and has declared himself neutral
in the election, appointed all the sitting
members of the election commission.)
The constitution and many laws were
drafted with the specific intention of pre
venting the emergence of another regime
as widely loathed as the elder Marcos’s.
Paradoxically, their workings now seem
geared to frustrating popular sentiment by
preventing his son from following in his
footsteps as a democratically elected presi
dent. If the Supreme Court doesdisqualify
him, another of the country’s periodic
bouts of instability is in the offing.nFans, FerdinandSouthKoreanexportsExplosive growth
M
oon jae-inbegan his fiveyear tenure
as South Korea’s president in 2017
with a pledge to act as his country’s chief
peacemaker, repairing relations with
North Korea and ending the decadeslong
state of war on the Korean peninsula. Hav
ing failed to achieve that objective, Mr
Moon looks likely to end his tenure—elec
tions are due next month—with a reputa
tion as his country’s chief arms dealer.
Last month Mr Moon returned from a
trip to the Middle East with a $3.5bn con
tract to sell a homegrown missile system
to the United Arab Emirates (uae), the big
gest deal in the history of South Korea’s de
fence industry. As a belated outcome of the
same trip a $1.7bn agreement to sell an ar
tillery system to Egypt was completed ear
lier this month, after a decade of negotia
tions. Mr Moon also signed a deal worth
$700m to sell the same guns (pictured) to
Australia when he visited Canberra, its
capital, in December.
The flurry of dealmaking is proof of
South Korea’s ambition to join the ranks of
the world’s big arms exporters. The coun
try has long sought to capitalise on its sub
stantial domestic spending on arms devel
opment by finding foreign customers for
its weapons. The strategy has paid divi
dends. South Korea’s arms exports have in
creased more than sixfold since 2005; in
2021 they exceeded imports for the first
time. The government sees the defence industry as a big source of future growth.
South Korea’s potential as an arms ex
porter results from its enduring confronta
tion with its northern neighbour. The need
to keep up its guard against North Korea
has meant that, despite its middling size,
South Korea has long been one of the
world’s biggest spenders on troops and ar
maments. In 2020 it ranked 10th in the
world for military spending, according to
the Stockholm International Peace Re
search Institute, a thinktank. That year de
fence accounted for 12.4% of the annual
government budget and 2.8% of gdp, more
than in Britain (at 2.2%) and about the
same as in India (2.9%).
The growing discord between America
and China and uncertainties about Ameri
ca’s commitment to its global alliances
have only confirmed the importance of
greater selfsufficiency in matters of secu
rity. Under Mr Moon South Korea has
boosted spending on acquiring and devel
oping new weapons systems in an effort to
modernise the armed forces, while reduc
ing the proportion of the defence budget
spent on salaries and maintenance. In De
cember Mr Moon said South Korea should
be “proud” of its military prowess and
growing defence exports.
As homegrown military technology
has improved, exporting it has become
both more plausible and more lucrative,
says Sheen Seongho of Seoul NationalS EOUL
The country wants to join the ranks of the world’s biggest arms-dealersComing soon to a theatre of war near you