On Tuesday, the Central Election Commission (CEC) decided to combine the presidential and legislative elections next year. This violates the Constitution by depriving small political parties of their right to run for the presidency. It also increases tensions between the two main parties, while not really producing any cost savings.
Recklessly deciding the nation’s mid to long-term power distribution based on ill-considered responses to opinion poll results instead of rational communication and persuasion seriously hurts democracy. As the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) compete for the presidency, these two giant elephants are trampling on small parties, hampering the development of pluralist democracy.
In the previous legislative elections, in January 2008, none of the nation’s small parties passed the 5 percent threshold stipulated in Article 22 of the Presidential and Vice Presidential Election and Recall Act (總統副總統選舉罷免法). This article stipulates that presidential and vice presidential candidates may register by way of political party nomination. However, to be allowed to nominate a presidential or vice presidential candidate, the party’s candidates must have received at least 5 percent of the vote in the latest legislative or presidential election. By combining the two elections, only the presidential candidates of the two major parties will remain, effectively blocking smaller parties from advancing a candidate.
As a result, a third-party ticket can only be registered based on the regulations in Article 23 of the same act, which requires the signatures of 1.5 percent of the total number of voters in the latest legislative election.
If the presidential and legislative elections are held separately, there would most likely be a two-month period between the elections, using the presidential and legislative elections in 2008 as an example. According to Article 34 of the recall act, public notice for registration of presidential and vice presidential candidates must be issued 50 days before the polling day. That means that small parties that garner 5 percent of the vote in the legislative election are eligible to nominate a presidential and a vice presidential candidate. If small parties pass the threshold in the legislative election, but are deprived of their right to recommend a presidential and a vice presidential candidate because the two elections are combined, they may file a lawsuit to demand a new election, causing greater political and social costs.
Owing to a change in the electoral system four years ago, we now use a single-member district, two ballot system, where the winner takes all. This has forced small parties out of local elections. Although small parties are eligible for -legislator-at-large seats by winning a certain percentage of the second ballot, a party must nominate 10 legislative candidates in order to have their party votes counted. This is outrageous discrimination against small parties.
Looking back at the combined elections, the polarized opposition between the KMT and the DPP will force small parties to chose sides, in effect becoming “political wallflowers,” lest they become further marginalized and lose all support. Our political culture, which used to shine with the colorful political landscape of a rising democracy, will then be forced into the two-party mold. That will only further intensify the blame game between the two big parties.
The main reason for combining the two elections is that it might save NT$500 million (US$17.3 million). That money, however, will be saved at the risk of creating a constitutional crisis by, among other things, extending the “lame duck” period between presidential elections and the transfer of power.
Democracy can not be measured in money. If saving money is the only concern, why don’t we draw lots to decide who will be president? Despite much effort to synchronize the length of the presidential and -legislative terms, we will have to start all over again if the executive branch one day dissolves the legislature under to the additional articles of the Constitution.
What hurts the public most is not really the cost of yet another election. Instead, what the public dislikes the most is elections driven by money, which leads to environmental and political pollution. By combining the elections, the campaign will become even more intense, and pollution and campaign expenditures are both likely to rise.
Expenditure of tens or even hundreds of millions of New Taiwan dollars by far exceed a legislator’s salary during a single term. Once elected, they may profit from corruption or by selling government posts, making secret deals under the table in exchange for political donations from conglomerates or other voter “services” — such as canceling traffic tickets and lobbying for illegal construction.
On the surface, the merger of elections will save taxpayers a small amount of money, but it may in practice cost them much more. If Taiwan really hopes to reduce campaign expenditures, it should learn from the practices common in other countries of legally fixing a strict ceiling for campaign expenditures. That is the way to remove the ultimate cause of the trouble.
Pan Han-shen is spokesman of the Green Party Taiwan.
TRANSLATED BY EDDY CHANG
Former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) in recent days was the focus of the media due to his role in arranging a Chinese “student” group to visit Taiwan. While his team defends the visit as friendly, civilized and apolitical, the general impression is that it was a political stunt orchestrated as part of Chinese Communist Party (CCP) propaganda, as its members were mainly young communists or university graduates who speak of a future of a unified country. While Ma lived in Taiwan almost his entire life — except during his early childhood in Hong Kong and student years in the US —
Prior to marrying a Taiwanese and moving to Taiwan, a Chinese woman, surnamed Zhang (張), used her elder sister’s identity to deceive Chinese officials and obtain a resident identity card in China. After marrying a Taiwanese, surnamed Chen (陳) and applying to move to Taiwan, Zhang continued to impersonate her sister to obtain a Republic of China ID card. She used the false identity in Taiwan for 18 years. However, a judge ruled that her case does not constitute forgery and acquitted her. Does this mean that — as long as a sibling agrees — people can impersonate others to alter, forge
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers on Monday unilaterally passed a preliminary review of proposed amendments to the Public Officers Election and Recall Act (公職人員選罷法) in just one minute, while Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislators, government officials and the media were locked out. The hasty and discourteous move — the doors of the Internal Administration Committee chamber were locked and sealed with plastic wrap before the preliminary review meeting began — was a great setback for Taiwan’s democracy. Without any legislative discussion or public witnesses, KMT Legislator Hsu Hsin-ying (徐欣瑩), the committee’s convener, began the meeting at 9am and announced passage of the
In response to a failure to understand the “good intentions” behind the use of the term “motherland,” a professor from China’s Fudan University recklessly claimed that Taiwan used to be a colony, so all it needs is a “good beating.” Such logic is risible. The Central Plains people in China were once colonized by the Mongolians, the Manchus and other foreign peoples — does that mean they also deserve a “good beating?” According to the professor, having been ruled by the Cheng Dynasty — named after its founder, Ming-loyalist Cheng Cheng-kung (鄭成功, also known as Koxinga) — as the Kingdom of Tungning,
RSS