I used to believe that Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislators proposed pork barrel bills (“money-pit bills” 錢坑法案) before elections just to attract votes, but that they would change, especially after coming to power.
Now I have to admit that I was wrong.
The legislative elections are long past and the KMT is in power again, but some KMT lawmakers are still pushing for salary increases for key local government officials and dual retirement pensions for workers at state-run companies by categorizing them as civil servants.
Today, Taiwan’s economy is shaken by global inflation and the US subprime mortgage crisis. With all these threats to the economy, people argue whether the middle and lower classes should be given tax cuts or whether the government should go ahead with proposed plans to expand domestic demand.
People argue about these proposals because any such plan requires money. In the face of Taiwan’s financial difficulties, the KMT lawmakers’ proposals can only aggravate the situation.
This shows that the KMT has been incapable of integrating its policy suggestions across party, Cabinet and legislative caucus lines since coming to power. This is certainly related to President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) strategy of taking the back seat to the premier and his attempts to separate party and government.
If the president — who is directly authorized by the public — is stepping back, then the question is: Who has more power? When there’s no clear answer, the result is that everyone does what he thinks is best.
Given that legislators are not acting as part of the government and that the party has problems controlling its legislators, the legislators’ priority is simply to consolidate their own power base and support.
If the party gets involved, its responsibility for winning elections means that it is not clear on whether it should back the government or the lawmakers.
Moreover, the lack of policy integration is a result of not only Ma’s leadership, but also the nation’s chaotic constitutional system.
The predicament caused by the problematic constitutional and party systems in fact began during former president Chen Shui-bian’s (陳水扁) government and remains unresolved. Over the past eight years, Chen attempted to integrate party and government policy in various ways. But he completely failed because of the restrictions of the constitutional system.
Today, Ma says that obeying the Constitution of the Republic of China is more important than amending it. However, as he continues to insist on obeying a problematic Constitution like this, he will surely face even greater difficulties.
Apart from the constitutional system, another reason behind the KMT lawmakers’ actions may be the nature of the party itself.
Recently, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Chairwoman Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) requested DPP members to remain rational and not sing the demise of the new government, so that we could overcome all difficulties together. Clearly, she is trying to lay a new path in the confrontation between the ruling and opposition camps.
The problem is that although this new path must be developed in the long term if democracy in Taiwan is to further develop, KMT lawmakers only think of their individual power base and support and do not care about the government’s difficulties. No matter how much goodwill the DPP is sending out, it will be unable to save the KMT.
Lin Cho-shui is a former Democratic Progressive Party legislator.
Translated by Eddy Chang
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