The members of the National Assembly have now been elected. Although the 23.36 percent voter turnout last Saturday was a historic low, the vote must be seen as a decisive victory for the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), both of whom support constitutional reforms. Neither the direction nor the momentum of political reforms will be diminished. This indicates that while democracy in this country may still have its ups and downs, its foundations are solid.
The assembly has the task of ratifying the legislature's constitutional amendments. Because 83 percent of the vote was in favor of the DPP and the KMT, regardless of whether a simple, two-thirds or three-quarters majority is used as the standard for the assembly vote, the amendment bill will be ratified.
Long-term political goals, such as halving the number of legislative seats, adopting a "single-member district, two-vote" legislative electoral system, writing referendums into the Constitution, eliminating the National Assembly and others, will now be realized. As a result, this nation will have a better quality of legislator and elections will become better ordered affairs. Demagogues will gradually lose ground and the quality of the country's democracy will improve. With these elections, Taiwan's democracy has passed another milestone.
This election has also changed the political environment. With the introduction of a "single-member district, two-vote" system, the existence of small parties such as the Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) and the People First Party (PFP) are now under threat. So even though both signed agreements to support legislative reform last August, they now oppose it. This inconsistency is behind their poor performance in Saturday's elections.
Yesterday, the PFP legislative caucus slammed the door shut on cooperation with the government. This is no more than the party's death throes. The incessant changes in the PFP's political stance simply goes to show it turns whichever way the wind blows.
Now the legislature must pass a statute governing the assembly's exercise of power (
Nevertheless, the elections showed that regardless of which majority is used, the constitutional amendments will go ahead. In careful consideration of the legitimacy and appropriateness of future proposed constitutional amendments, a two-thirds majority is probably the more reasonable choice.
It is a matter of regret that the legitimacy of the amendments, regardless of what voting rules are adopted, will always be less than absolute because of the tiny turnout for the election. But this does not affect the legality of the elections, for not voting is also an expression of opinion and must be respected. The only reason that the PFP has called for a constitutional interpretation on this issue is because it performed so badly. Voters will have little sympathy for such thoughtless behavior.
This will be the final session of the National Assembly before it vanishes into history. Its agenda is very simple. It is required to ratify a bill to amend the Constitution, but cannot alter the substance of the amendments. How the members will vote has been largely decided by the parties and the voters. Therefore, this meeting of the assembly should be simple and efficient. The instigation of new political conflicts must be avoided. If things are kept simple, the whole assembly could be concluded within the week.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus whip Fu Kun-chi (傅?萁) has caused havoc with his attempts to overturn the democratic and constitutional order in the legislature. If we look at this devolution from the context of a transition to democracy from authoritarianism in a culturally Chinese sense — that of zhonghua (中華) — then we are playing witness to a servile spirit from a millennia-old form of totalitarianism that is intent on damaging the nation’s hard-won democracy. This servile spirit is ingrained in Chinese culture. About a century ago, Chinese satirist and author Lu Xun (魯迅) saw through the servile nature of
In their New York Times bestseller How Democracies Die, Harvard political scientists Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt said that democracies today “may die at the hands not of generals but of elected leaders. Many government efforts to subvert democracy are ‘legal,’ in the sense that they are approved by the legislature or accepted by the courts. They may even be portrayed as efforts to improve democracy — making the judiciary more efficient, combating corruption, or cleaning up the electoral process.” Moreover, the two authors observe that those who denounce such legal threats to democracy are often “dismissed as exaggerating or
Monday was the 37th anniversary of former president Chiang Ching-kuo’s (蔣經國) death. Chiang — a son of former president Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石), who had implemented party-state rule and martial law in Taiwan — has a complicated legacy. Whether one looks at his time in power in a positive or negative light depends very much on who they are, and what their relationship with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) is. Although toward the end of his life Chiang Ching-kuo lifted martial law and steered Taiwan onto the path of democratization, these changes were forced upon him by internal and external pressures,
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus in the Legislative Yuan has made an internal decision to freeze NT$1.8 billion (US$54.7 million) of the indigenous submarine project’s NT$2 billion budget. This means that up to 90 percent of the budget cannot be utilized. It would only be accessible if the legislature agrees to lift the freeze sometime in the future. However, for Taiwan to construct its own submarines, it must rely on foreign support for several key pieces of equipment and technology. These foreign supporters would also be forced to endure significant pressure, infiltration and influence from Beijing. In other words,
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