The Economist Asia - February 10, 2018

26 Asia The EconomistFebruary 10th 2018

1

2 ing programmes, which offer instruction in

everything from baking to welding, in an

effort to improve livelihoods and so reduce

the allure of jihadists’ cash.

Mr Duterte, for decades the mayor of

Mindanao’s biggest city, Davao, made

bringing peace to the island a centrepiece

of his election campaign. He is currently

pushing for changes to the constitution to

allow greater autonomy for Muslim areas,

in keeping with a peace deal a previous

government signed with the Moro Islamic

Liberation Front (MILF), an insurgency

which has fought for independence for

Mindanao since the 1980s. This matters be-

cause any resumption of hostilities with

MILF, which has thousands of fighters,

could lead to even greater destruction than

the rag-tag rebels in Marawi managed.

The Philippines’ allies also want peace

in the region. After the eruption of vio-

lence in Marawi, Indonesia, Malaysia and

Singapore all offered militaryassistance.

America and Australia provided techno-

logical support. And international anti-pi-

racy patrols stepped up a gear. The emer-

gence of IS in South-East Asia—first

signalled in January 2016 by a bombing in

Jakarta—has scared leaders already wres-

tling with home-grown terrorism. Jihadists

seem to have converged on Marawi from

Indonesia and Malaysia as well as Chech-

nya and Saudi Arabia, testifying to the

strength and reach ofIS’s propaganda. Se-

curing, supporting and restoring Marawi

could provide a more lasting victory over

such extremism in the Philippines. But it

may prove even harder to achieve than the

military advance. 7

Digital spin in Asia

#TechSavvyPols

W

HEN he is not lifting minuscule

weights or catering to the whims of

his cats, Najib Razaksomehow finds time

to be Malaysia’sprime minister—or so his

feed on Instagram, a photo-sharing app,

implies. Hun Sen, Cambodia’s strong-

man, apparently dedicates most of his

time to posing for selfies with adoring

young Cambodians, if his Facebookpage

is to be believed. And then there is Na-

rendra Modi, India’s prime minister, who

assures his followerson Instagram: “Ev-

ery moment of my life is devoted to the

welfare of India.” That cannot be quite

true, as quite a lot of it is devoted to social

media, most notably Twitter. He has

tweeted more than five times a day, on

average, since joining the microblogging

service in 2009. He has more than 40m

followers, just 7.5m behind Donald

Trump, and over 33m more than the

combined following of Emmanuel Mac-

ron, France’s president, and Justin Tru-

deau, Canada’sprime minister.

Like Mr Trump, Asian leaders have

discovered thatsocial-media platforms

are very useful for communicating with

voters and seizing the attention of the

press. As smartphones proliferate, so

does the potential audience. Thailand,

with a population of 69m, has 47m Face-

book users. Malaysia, with 31m people,

has 22m.

Different platforms suit different

purposes. Facebook is the top choice for

pushing policies, says Terrence Ngu of

StarNgage, a Singaporean company

which runs social-media campaigns;

Instagram is now the main way “to pro-

mote personalities”. Singapore’s prime

minister, Lee Hsien Loong, shares dreamy

panoramic photos from his holidays on

Instagram. His government recently got

locals with lots of followers, such as

emcees and bloggers, to hype #SGBudget

in a desperate bid to spark youthful

excitement about its fiscal plans.

Joko Widodo, the president of In-

donesia, is deft across many platforms,

but his true love is YouTube. His selfie-

style “vlogging”, tagged #JKWVLOG,

delights hundreds of thousands. At a

recent summit in Germany, he got both

Mr Trudeau and Mr Macron to record a

quick hello to the people of Indonesia, an

arm draped over his shoulder.

It is hard to beat Mr Modi for innova-

tion, however. He has created an app that

bundles all his social-media offerings. It

can be downloaded in 12 Indian lan-

guages and offerssnazzy infographics on

government policy as well as titillating

articles on the prime minister’s fashion

choices (“When simplicity becomes

style: the story behind the Modi Kurta”).

Of course, all this sharing can backfire.

Hun Sen, who has run Cambodia for

more than 30 years, was mocked in 2016

when it became obvious he was buying

“likes” for his Facebookpage. And not all

those who peruse Mr Najib’s Instagram

account are converted. “StupidestPM

yet,” declares one commentator. “Fuck

you fatty,” says another.

Singapore

Asian leaders are in the vanguard of social media

Mr Najib lets the cat out of the bag

K

HALEDA ZIA has been in and out of the

courts for over a decade. She has been

charged in 37 different cases, most concern-

ing corruption orabuse of power during

her two stints as prime minister, in 1991-96

and 2001-06. But the verdict reached on

February 8th was momentous.

It was Mrs Zia’s first conviction, for

stealing cash in 1991 from a trust for or-

phans founded in memory of herlate hus-

band, Ziaur Rahman, a coup leader who

became president before being killed in a

coup himself. Mrs Zia, who leads the Ban-

gladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), currently

in opposition, was sentenced to five years

in jail. Although she may yet be freed

pending appeals to the High Court and the

Supreme Court, her fate appears sealed.

The verdict formalises the collapse of

Bangladesh’stwo-party system and the

demise of the Zia dynasty. The BNPand the

Awami League (AL), the party currently in

power, used to alternate in government.

Mrs Zia and Sheikh Hasina Wajed, the

prime minister and leader of the AL, were

known as the two begums—the two pow-

erful women who towered over Bangla-

deshi politics. But Mrs Zia’s power has

been waning for the past decade, as first an

army-backed government and then two

ALones bombarded her with lawsuits. The

BNP’s boycott of the most recent election,

in 2014, in protest at the AL’s alteration of

the constitution to avoid handing power to

a politically neutral caretaker government

during the vote, left it without a single MP.

The BNP’s slogan used to run, “Khaleda

Zia is our leader. Ziaur Rahman is our phi-

losophy. Tarique Rahman is our future.”

But Mrs Zia is 72, is in ill health and, as a re-

sult of the verdict, may not be able to con-

test future elections. And Tarique Rahman,

her son and political heir, is in exile. He,

too, faces multiple criminal charges related

Politics in Bangladesh

In the dock and on

the ropes

A former prime minister is convicted,

further hobbling the opposition