Growth and democracy are dual tasks of ASEAN   
   

The political tsunami in Singapore in recent weeks serves as a sounding board for the future political landscape in Southeast Asia. The evolution from a tightly controlled society with the region's highest income per capita to a more open one — less government's surveillance and widen democratic space — is going to be an inevitable trend. Changes, albeit small and at a snail pace, as it may be in the island republic, sends a strong signal to similar kinds of governments in Asean that they either take up reform or soon be challenged by their own people. (The Brunei Times)

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