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Topic Discussion I
Politics of Hard Choices
Political Transition and Economic Restructuring
Room 1
(7 of 20 pages)
Speaker: Thank you, Madam Chairperson, thank you. Madam, I think that we
are discussing the issue of politics of hard choices within the theme of managing the twin transitions of economic
and political reforms and, Madam, I have had some experience I want to share with you because we have started a
reforms in the economic [inaudible] and we have been guinea pigs so to speak, we have been victims, because there
were no guidelines where new were not properly trained. Now, we are going to start another reform in the political
arena and I don't think that we should repeat the mistakes that came out when we were doing the reforms. Madam,
when one wants to make choices, one has to determine whether one would like to, you know, really take on the market
economy or that is choosed between that one or the existing command and control economy before the reform. Now,
one would like to see whether one should adapt the gradualist approach of using the private sector as the engine
of growth or let the state continue to participate in business. One has to determine whether one must accommodate,
no people, no partners, in the democratic and economic process or to confront them. In the area of politics, one
has to talk about the succession, whether it's by fair and free elections or if it's by force or by some kind of
through electoral frauds. One also has to talk about whether one still wants to decentralize or one has to centralize.
One has to still centralize or to decentralize to support the democratic process and then one has to know exactly
how to unify the efforts of all the players within the politics together rather than each one in a negative competition
against each other. We can go on and on and whether one has to adopt a close kind of -- an open kind of approach
or a closed type of approach. With all these challenges, the challenges that undermine the way the reform moves,
the very balancing act of economic realm, the balancing of the political realm, and the balancing of the economic
and the political realms together.
Now, what are some of the problems? For example issues for balancing. We know for example the issue of needs, we
are generally very poor people, they imagine democracies are very poor people, and the needs are there to be satisfied
now. So that is a very important one that we have to look at.
Then the second one, once you begin to talk about reforms and probably expose people to the CNN and other, you
know, communication then you heighten expectation, expectations are heightened, and particularly so if the opposition
comes into the picture. They are quick [inaudible], you know, what you call expeditions on the part of the public
[inaudible], so that in actual fact you have a situation where countries at a certain stage of development have
to, you know, if you like compare themselves with those that are developed. In other words, if you don't get the
right comparison level you are likely to make a mistake, but these are interesting points in balancing.
Then there is also the [inaudible] that arises as a result of the implementation of reforms and generally people
are not patient, they want to gratify their needs now, they don't want to wait until five years or ten years, they
want to gratify their needs now.
And then there is the resistance to change, people want to resist the change just because it is new, just because
they don't like any change at all, it is more predictable to behave the way they used to behave and these confront
each one of us.
And then there is of course also the problem of the lack of -- the attitudes, the values, the belief systems, the
principles and practices of democracy that you have at the same time to try to nurture and then of course, in the
morning talked about the absorptive capacity of the countries, which my colleague from Nepal had tried to indicate.
How prepared are the bureaucrats? How prepared are the technocrats? How prepared are the politicians themselves
to give leadership? These are the points that you have to look at. And then the role of the donnas themselves in
behaving impartially, in putting their interest aside, and coordinating [inaudible]. These are all challenges that
one needs to look at in balancing the economic reform, balancing the political reform, and balancing both the economic
reform and the political reform because if they are out of tune with each other, there is likely to be a problem.
There is likely to be a problem because an economic situation cannot support the nature of reforms that is being
proposed. Meanwhile when the political reforms are behind then it can't push the economy. So there is a fine dividing
line that we have to look at and I think that we can share experiences here to see exactly how we go about this.
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