Publications | ||||||||
Arms Show Reports | ||||||||
Articles | ||||||||
Book Reviews | ||||||||
Looking Forward | ||||||||
Papers & Studies | ||||||||
Reports | ||||||||
Testimony | ||||||||
Transcripts | ||||||||
Issues | ||||||||
| ||||||||
Browse by: | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ||||||||
Iran in Latin America: Threat or Axis of Annoyance?
Senior Fellow Douglas Farah's analysis of the debate over the level of threat posed by Iran's expanding diplomatic, trade and military presence in Latin America, and its stated ambition to continue to broaden these ties.
Chinese Naval Modernization: Altering the Balance of Power
Richard Fisher details China's naval modernization program and the potential impacts on U.S. interests in the Western Pacific.
Major Overhaul of Taiwan’s Electoral System Coming Up
Email this article
Print this article
Who has not seen film-clips of fist fights in Taiwan’s legislature or heard pundits complain about the immaturity and irresponsibility of the island’s democracy? Now a major change is about to take place in how elections to the legislature are carried out. The number of legislators is to be halved for the next contests, before January 28, 2008 (although the exact election date has not been announced). Single-member districts will replace current multi-member districts in many places. The intent is to create a more functional and representative legislature, but the effects of these changes remain to be seen.
In the years since the dictatorship ended in the late 1980s and democracy was introduced, Taiwan’s electoral assemblies have been steadily reformed. The largely symbolic National Assembly (which formerly exercised the supreme political power, electing and recalling the president and the vice president, and amending the constitution) was abolished in June, 2005, and the Legislative Yuan became in effect Taiwan’s sole popular assembly. A nonpartisan Central Electoral Commission (CEC) was created in 1980 to supervise.
On August 23, 2004, during the provisional session of the Legislature in Taiwan, a constitutional amendment concerning reform of the legislative electoral system was passed. Under this amendment, the number of legislators will be reduced from 225 to 113, and terms will be extended from three to four years beginning with the seventh legislative session. The current "single non-transferable vote with multi-member district system" will be replaced by a single-member district system, and accompanied by an electoral district reapportionment. Starting with the next legislative election, each voter will cast two votes, one for a regional or local candidate, the other for a political party. The candidate who wins the most votes in a single district will be elected as regional legislator. Each party will provide a list of its 34 nominees for non regional party candidates, The percentage each party gets of the total party votes cast will determine how many of its party candidates will enter the legislature. A five percent threshold of the vote is required for any party to send a representative to the legislature.
This change will make relatively little difference in small cities and counties, but current big electoral districts in populous cities will be divided into smaller districts, and each district will only elect one legislator. Take Taipei City and Taipei County (the largest city and the largest county in Taiwan) as examples, These currently have two and three electoral districts respectively, with ten, ten, eight, eleven and nine legislators respectively in each district. Under the new rule, Taipei City will have eight districts and Taipei County will have twelve, with each district will choosing only one legislator.
Nomination strategies of political parties, ways of competition with other candidates, disciplines of political parties, cooperation and alliance between parties will all be deeply affected.
The Legislature in Taiwan has been accused of receiving dirty money, lacking expertise and involvement in partisan dogfights. To save the image of the Legislature, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislator Chang Hsueh-shun came up with the idea of halving the number of legislators. The idea was further combined with revising the electoral system. Under the new electoral rules, among the 113 legislators, 73 will be regional legislators elected by the "single-member district system", 34 will be elected according to the proportion of the votes each party gains nationwide, and six will be reserved for aborigines. In theory, the "single-member district system" can help to strengthen the dual-party system, weaken the power of local factions in elections and encourage candidates to take a rational pathway. Does the theory apply to the new Legislature in Taiwan?
In today’s Legislature, number of the DPP and the KMT legislators is tied. With the pan-blue alliance, legislators of the KMT, the People First Party (PFP), and the New Party (NP) have already blocked many bills proposed by the DPP’s administration. In the future, after the reduction in the number of the legislators, it may be almost impossible for the DPP to gain a majority of seats in the Legislature. Many DPP legislators pessimistically foresee a Legislature in which the KMT takes over more than half of the seats, and the DPP will be consigned to permanent minority status never able to form an effective balance against the KMT.
Small parties will certainly be hurt. Under the new "single-member district system", small parties such as the Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU), the PFP, and the NP will lose their competitiveness. But even if the DPP takes over the TSU’s seats, it will still be hard for the DPP to win half of the seats. The reason is that as currently drawn, some single member districts are much larger than others, meaning that votes cast are not of equal weight in determining the distribution of regional legislators.
That every vote has equal value is a basic democratic principle. However, it does not seem to apply to the new legislative electoral system. The CEC stated that 29 current electoral districts will be converted into 73 small electoral districts, and each district will have one seat. The number of seats of each city or county should depend upon its population. However, it is also provided that each city or county will have at least one seat, no matter how small the number of its the inhabitants. According to the Public Official Election and Recall Law and current demography (and subtracting the number of aborigines), average population in each new electoral district should be about 304,000.
Yet if we look at the figures for new district populations, we find great anomalies. The cut in total number of regionally elected legislators is from 168 to 73, or about 60%. The legislators being eliminated are mostly in the home island: For example, seats in Yilan have been reduced by two-thirds, with each seat in Yilan now being elected by 460,000 people. Compare this to the island of Matsu (Lienchang County) having a total population of 8,000 but which will also return one legislature. This population discrepancy is sixty fold.
Supporters of the new system argue that saving quotas for small cities or counties protects the weak. But how is "weak" defined? Judging by economic performance, Taoyuan County is highly capable. Average tax paid per person per year in Taoyuan is five times more than that in Yilan. Yet in Taoyuan every 290,000 people elect a legislator, while in Yilan the number is one legislator for every 460,000 inhabitants.In that sense, Yilan is a weak county and should therefore be protected by a quota in the Legislature. Offshore islands such as Kinmen and Matsu also are protected by quotas, but are they weak? Not economically. On average they pay a tax per person twice that paid in Yilan.
Another controversial issue is reapportionment. Apportionment is not an easy task. The CEC is seeking a way to ensure that each electoral district has a similar population and to avoid gerrymandering. The electoral apportionment in previous elections—the National Assembly Election in 1996, City and County Council elections in 2000- -offers logical and widely accepted references for reapportionment. But for those cities or counties that have more than one legislative seat, the number of electoral districts in the new system must be different from that in previous elections and these districts therefore become the most controversial ones.
The CEC submitted a reapportionment draft to the Legislature last June, but even after haggling for six months, the Legislature has not come up a final decision. Reapportionment is a crucial factor for the electoral result, and legislators in every party are disputing every detail. As of mid December, there were still ten cities and counties at dispute. Taoyuan County, Miaoli County, Changhwa County and Pingdong County are the areas with the most diverse opinions among legislators, and the Central Electoral Commission is asked to create a new set of electoral districts in them. Taipei County, Taipei City, Taichung County, Taichung City, Tainan County and Kaohsiung City are crucial areas since each currently has three legislative seats or more, and a consensus between different parties for these areas has not yet been reached. According to the Public Official Election and Recall Law, if the Legislature can not finalize the reapportionment by the end of December, the authority of decision will be handed over to the Premier and the Legislative Speaker.
The "single-member district system" will lead legislators to adopt new campaign strategies. Legislators now tend to spend more time in their electoral precincts than they do in committees studying bills up for votes. They believe that building up a close relationship with their constituents is their priority. Indeed, under the new system, the winner takes all, and there will only be one legislator elected in a district. Therefore it will be harder than ever for new faces (and those on the extremes of the political spectrum) to success. Good reputation alone will not guarantee election. Instead, the key will be building closer interest tie with constituents.
Whether a constituency favors a pro-localization green camp candidate or a pro-unification blue camp candidate will also determine success or failure. If an incumbent, veteran legislator’s district is reapportioned in a way that favors the other camp, it is very likely for that legislator to fail. Take the DPP legislative caucus convener Ker Chien-ming as an example, Ker is elected in Hsinchu City, in which the blue force surpasses the green force by 15%. Under the new system, Hsinchu City will have only one legislator. Although Ker is a five-time elected senior legislator, it is still hard to say whether he will still be reelected after reappointment. Another current Taipei City legislator Lin Chung-mo (DPP) also feels the pressure of standing in Taipei under the new system, and is considering running the next election in his hometown Changhwa County.
Thus it appears that the new arrangements may not help create a two party system, but rather favor the Kuomintang (KMT). The total number of seatsis being halved, but those electoral districts that will each have one seat-Keelung City, Yilan County, Hsinchu County, Hsinchu City, Chiayi City, Taidong County, Hualien County, Penghu County, Kinmen County and Lienchiang County- are mostly strongholds of the KMT, and many of them already have one seat even under the original system. Although the DPP currently has seats in Keelung City, Hsinchu City, Hsinchu County and Hualien County, downsizing to one seat in those places may mean giving them up to the KMT. That is to say, the new system does not actually reduced the KMT’s legislative representation in those areas, but the DPP almost automatically lose ten seats. As for the six reserved seats for aborigines, aboriginal legislators have long belonged to the KMT. Furthermore, the proportion of aboriginal seats to the toal size of the legislature has been increased. Compare six reserved seats out of 113 total legislators to the current eight out of 225.
Reducing total seats and reappointment also put pressure on the uneasy alliance between the large Kuomintang (KMT) party and its much smaller associate the People First Party (PFP) in the "pan-blue" alliance. Several KMT legislators are fighting in the same electoral district, and seem unlikely to resolve their conflict by negotiation. So a cut throat primary in the KMT is expected. Even if a KMT candidate wins the primary, he or she will still need to face a fierce battle with the PFP candidates. The PFP legislators are actively promoting a KMT-PFP alliance in order to having more PFP legislators elected. But the seats are limited and the KMT itself is already having trouble dividing them among themselves. This is not to mention sharing them with the PFP. In Taichung City, Taichung County, Taipei County and Kaohsiung City, there are electoral districts in which the KMT and the PFP votes overlap substantially. If the two parties cannot work out a solution, the pan-blue votes might be split, which would favor the green candidates.
The way the new Taiwan’s legislative electoral system lessens total legislative seats thus appears against the interest of the DPP. Most of the KMT strongholds keep the same number of legislators while the numbers in the DPP bastions are reduced. Some DPP observers fear relegation to permanent minority status as a consequence of these reforms. That would be a lamentable step away from the desired two party system.
The "single-member district system" reform is proving to be a challenge for all parties. Small parties are struggling to remain in the Legislature, while big parties are trying to squeeze in more party members as legislators. No matter how much the legislators work on reappointment and no matter how good their strategies, at least half of them will lose their jobs in the next legislative election. A life or death battle is inevitable--and it will start with the party primaries early next year.
