Ma Ying-jeou Quotes

We have to implant democracies where there are now dictatorships.

It has been well over half a century and I'm glad to say we have taken the right path from authoritarianism to democracy and this is a road of no return.

The peaceful path out of totalitarianism has never been tested.

We had a revolution 2 years ago, and we see a people moving from a completely authoritarian system into a democracy. They don’t know how democracy works. They don’t know the ingredients of a democracy.

Establishing a stable democracy is a two stage process. First you get rid of the old regime, then you build a durable democratic replacement. Because the first stage is dramatic, many people think the game is over when the dictator is gone. But the second stage is more difficult. There are many examples of broad coalitions coming together to oust dictators but relatively few of them stayed together and agreed on what a new regime should look like.

The transition from dictatorship to democracy is always very difficult, and if you read a history of any country that went through this, it wasn't easy. And, you know, you don't end dictatorship one day and next day you have fully fledged democracy.

Getting rid of the dictator is only a first step in establishing a free society. The dictatorship must also be disassembled.

During the late 1970s and early 1980s, Latin America moved decisively away from military rule and toward civilian democracy.

You don't get the fox to be in charge of the chicken coop. You don't give the outgoing regime - which has been practicing dictatorship, is an authoritarian system, it's a bunch of military people - the task of changing Egypt into a second republic, a new Egypt with democracy, freedom, rights, etc.

Almost every country in Africa has now instituted multi-party democracy.

The free world should not wait for dictatorial regimes to consent to reform.

Iran is not ready for Western-style democracy.

The problem in Burma is the problem in Egypt, the problem you refer to in Yemen, and the problem in a lot of these countries in the world: that you can get stuck in the process of transition, in what’s been called a competitive authoritarian… a pseudo democratic regime.

You cannot apply your high standards to a country [Egypt] burdened with decades of autocratic rule. Our democracy is still in its infancy.

Democratic openings that come about in that way - the overthrow of a totalitarian government by external powers - it makes it really hard to make those first steps toward democracy.

The Germans should be the first to sympathize with us [Egyptians]. They know how difficult it is to build a democracy following a dictatorship, and they were the first to be critical of Morsi's anti-democratic policies.

We got rid of a terrible dictator. We gave the Iraqi people an opportunity for a new life under a representative form of government.

Taiwan's democracy has grown very fast and we enjoy a certain degree of freedom, as other developed democracies like the United States.

Therefore, the question is not whether such democratization is possible, but instead how to meet the yearning of the masses in the Middle East for democracy; in other words, how to achieve democratization in the Middle East.

The list of non-democratic regimes that have seen significant reforms since 2001 is long and significant.

Deep in my heart, I still believe that the democratization of Russia and the democratization of Ukraine will proceed.

And so I have studied, I have to tell you, revolutions and uprisings for a long time. They are all slightly different, but what they all look for is some kind of a mechanism to go from an authoritarian system to an open, democratic system.

I'm very disappointed by the mature-democracy countries. I was ousted by a coup d'etat.

What we call a democratic society might be defined for certain purposes as one in which the majority is always prepared to put down a revolutionary minority.

We're a democratic society. Shutting down the government should not be on the agenda.