Re-democratization in the Wake of the 1986 People Power Revolution: Errors and Dilemmas

Abstract

After the swift, dramatic and unexpected fall from power of Marcos, the people power-installed government of Aquino was confronted with four crucial issues: the foreign debt; agrarian reform; the crony properties; and human rights. The record of the Aquino administration on these issues in the ensuing years not only showed its essential conservatism but also reflected the dynamics of the power struggle that besieged the presidency. A reading of the democratization process following the EDSA Revolution yields six fundamental tension points that transitional democratic governments face upon the termination of a dictatorship. In the absence of a clear program pushed from below, the democratization process and the creation of a new ethos—a new political culture—was stymied by the aficionados of politics and the technocrats policy. Thus, in the revolutions aftermath came elite restoration.