The Central Election Commission on Tuesday decided to merge the next presidential election and the legislative elections.
Because legislative elections must by law be held before the next legislative session begins on Feb. 1, Tuesday’s decision means the next presidential election, which was supposed to be held in March next year, will take place in January, meaning there will be an unprecedented four-month gap between the presidential election and the swearing in of the president-elect on May 20.
Saying the simultaneous elections would save NT$500 million (US$17.24 million) in taxpayers’ money and reduce the impact of social and political mobilization, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) hailed the decision as one that meets public expectations.
The public supports saving public resources and reducing the frequency of the nation’s elections, which, being held almost every year, have long been criticized as a time-consuming waste of resources. In terms of shaping a more cost-effective administrative system, holding combined elections surely comes across as a positive decision.
However, the KMT government’s haste to implement combined elections — especially for the two national votes that pertain to the country’s administrative and constitutional stability — appears dubious.
If the government is truly concerned about cutting costs and reducing the social impact of elections on the public, why didn’t it tackle the matter shortly after President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) assumed office in 2008? Why did the Ma administration wait three years to rush through the merging of two important elections before existing laws governing them could be amended?
It is no surprise, therefore, that commentators have speculated there was a political motive behind Ma’s rush to merge the elections. This is not the first time accusations have surfaced that the KMT changed the rules of the game to reduce the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) odds of winning an election. For example, the KMT decided in 2009 to postpone an election for Taipei County commissioner to upgrade the county to a special municipality. This move was perceived by many as an attempt to prevent former premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) of the DPP — who was seen as having a better chance of beating then-Taipei county commissioner Chou Hsi-wei (周錫瑋) of the KMT — from winning the election.
With next presidential election to take place in January, about 50,000 first-time voters will miss out on their right to vote. Moreover, a so-called “constitutional lapse” is cause to worry despite government officials’ repeated dismissal of these concerns.
While officials have repeatedly said Taiwan’s democracy is mature enough to oversee a smooth transfer of power despite a four-month gap, that the governing party is willing to force through merged presidential and legislative elections despite the possibility of a constitutional crisis is dumbfounding.
Ma often preaches that all matters should be dealt with according to the law. Which makes it all the more hypocritical for the KMT, led by Ma, to change the rules for its own partisan interest.
Concerns that the US might abandon Taiwan are often overstated. While US President Donald Trump’s handling of Ukraine raised unease in Taiwan, it is crucial to recognize that Taiwan is not Ukraine. Under Trump, the US views Ukraine largely as a European problem, whereas the Indo-Pacific region remains its primary geopolitical focus. Taipei holds immense strategic value for Washington and is unlikely to be treated as a bargaining chip in US-China relations. Trump’s vision of “making America great again” would be directly undermined by any move to abandon Taiwan. Despite the rhetoric of “America First,” the Trump administration understands the necessity of
US President Donald Trump’s challenge to domestic American economic-political priorities, and abroad to the global balance of power, are not a threat to the security of Taiwan. Trump’s success can go far to contain the real threat — the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) surge to hegemony — while offering expanded defensive opportunities for Taiwan. In a stunning affirmation of the CCP policy of “forceful reunification,” an obscene euphemism for the invasion of Taiwan and the destruction of its democracy, on March 13, 2024, the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) used Chinese social media platforms to show the first-time linkage of three new
If you had a vision of the future where China did not dominate the global car industry, you can kiss those dreams goodbye. That is because US President Donald Trump’s promised 25 percent tariff on auto imports takes an ax to the only bits of the emerging electric vehicle (EV) supply chain that are not already dominated by Beijing. The biggest losers when the levies take effect this week would be Japan and South Korea. They account for one-third of the cars imported into the US, and as much as two-thirds of those imported from outside North America. (Mexico and Canada, while
The military is conducting its annual Han Kuang exercises in phases. The minister of national defense recently said that this year’s scenarios would simulate defending the nation against possible actions the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) might take in an invasion of Taiwan, making the threat of a speculated Chinese invasion in 2027 a heated agenda item again. That year, also referred to as the “Davidson window,” is named after then-US Indo-Pacific Command Admiral Philip Davidson, who in 2021 warned that Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) had instructed the PLA to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027. Xi in 2017