As COVID-19 advances around the world, political opportunism is not far behind. This is to be expected. The pandemic, like all crises, presents a combination of circumstances that is ripe for exploitation. As fear escalates, people look for leaders to bring calm and maintain order. And with publics constrained by social distancing, authoritarians in particular are in a position to exploit the crisis.
They are even using the pandemic itself to legitimize power grabs. Hungary’s Viktor Orbán gained the extraordinary right to rule indefinitely by decree, dutifully granted him by the country’s legislature. New restrictions on journalism that the government (Read more…) harmful to the coronavirus response have made it harder to report on the scale and his handling of the pandemic. Vladimir Putin, in the midst of revising the constitution to in effect let him rule Russia indefinitely, has used COVID-19 as a reason why there needs to be stability at the head of government. His government has also increased its surveillance capabilities using the rationale of enforcing a quarantine. Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte trotted out his infamous answer to the drug problem, threatening that those opposing coronavirus directives could be “shot dead.”
Various illiberal populists exploit the pandemic even though some initially dismissed its seriousness, even calling it “fake news.” Indian author Arundhati Roy observes “One of the greatest crises that’s faced any of us, certainly in the modern Western world, comes at a time where the most toxic, low-IQ, totalitarian men are in power.” She specifically referenced Donald Trump, Narendra Modi and Viktor Orbán. Fake news or not, some authoritarians have come to realize its political possibilities.
Democracy, however, has not been entirely missed out on the rewards. Wednesday’s national assembly election in South Korea had the highest turnout of any parliamentary election since 1992. Millions of Koreans, wearing masks and standing at least one metre apart, moved slowly into polling stations to vote in the first national election to be held since the pandemic began.
Prime Minister President Moon Jae-in’s left-leaning government had been down in the polls prior to COVID with the PM’s approval rating falling to a low of 30 percent. However, South Korea has been one of the most successful countries in tackling the pandemic, and the electorate showed their appreciation for the government’s efforts by giving Moon’s party and its smaller affiliate the biggest majority since the country transitioned to democracy in 1987. That tens of millions of citizens would brave the bug to exercise their rights is a testament to the strength of democracy in the face of crisis.
Support for the Moon government was due is no small part to its transparency during the crisis and its responsiveness to the people. South Korea drew on its strengths as a liberal democracy to deal with the pandemic, a powerful comparison to early days in China which were characterized by evasion and cover-up.
Here at home, democracy is holding its own. When the Liberals first proposed Bill C-13, the COVID-19 emergency legislation, certain sections, such as that giving the finance minister at least 19 months of extraordinary legislative powers, were referred to by opposition parties as a “power grab.” They dug in their heels and the bill was dramatically pared back. Furthermore, all 13 premiers firmly rejected implementing the federal Emergencies Act when queried by the prime minister. Such is the behaviour of a mature democracy, or perhaps the behaviour of a democracy with a minority government. In any case, despite ominous developments in too many places, democracy is by no means folding in the face of the bug.