Taiwan constitution in desperate
straits By Jamie Miyazaki
The
acrimonious and at times violent protests in Taipei over
President Chen Shui-bian's controversial re-election
does not bode well for a smooth ride for his next term
in office, assuming he wins a scheduled recount.
Fallujah it may not have been, but Florida 2000 it may
well come to be.
Despite being re-elected on the
most razor-thin of majorities, just 0.2 percent on an
electoral turnout of 80 percent, Chen is probably likely
to hold on to his office. For a start, Chen is unlikely
to have agreed to a recount so swiftly if he did not
feel it would confirm his victory. Even the opposition
pan-blue alliance appears tacitly to accept this outcome
by declaring it will hold another protest rally on May
19, the day before the presidential inauguration. $610
million on nanotechnology in 2002, and
When
George W Bush clinched the US presidency back in 2000
under similarly acrimonious circumstances, some pundits
were quick to point to his legacy of bipartisan
governance in Texas and that he would inevitably move to
rule from the center in view of his questionable
electoral mandate. Such predictions proved to be
somewhat premature as the Bush administration struck off
on its own distinctive policy path and the political
debate in the United States got more polarized and
nastier.
A second term for Chen Shui-bian, on
the other hand, has furnished no such illusions. His
appointment of Chen Tan-sun, a pro-independence
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) parliamentarian and
former head of an independence lobby group, as foreign
minister to replace the outgoing Eugene Chien shows Chen
is sticking firmly to his guns on his Taiwan-centric
policy agenda. Chen has been quick to stake a claim on a
new mandate - he can respectably claim to have captured
a further 11 percent of the vote since 2000, and as he
pointed out, even if you win by one vote you're still
the winner - although the pan-blue opposition is
unlikely to see it that way.
Political
reality vs obsolete cartography In recent
interviews Chen has reaffirmed his policy vision for the
island, which he believes rests on "an internal
consensus that insists on Taiwan being an independent,
sovereign country". A central policy plank of Chen's
second term will be the passing of a new constitution by
2006 and its enactment by 2008, to reflect more
accurately the island's political reality. He has also
outlined the strategy upon which he believes the DPP and
its allies will achieve his ambitious vision: by winning
an absolute majority in the December legislative
elections and leveraging off referendums to pass
constitutional amendments.
In a society that
even one cabinet minister admitted last year was deeply
divided, Chen's vision and tactics are not likely to
reduce tension within Taiwan or across the Strait.
Considering that pan-blue opposition alliance leader
Lien Chan and Chen are hardly on talking terms and,
after four years of gridlocked minority government,
neither Chen nor the defeated Kuomintang (KMT) look set
to be in the mood for bipartisan politics. (Lien is head
of the KMT; his running mate in the election was People
First Party (PFP) chairman James Soong.)
Constitutional revision is an emotive issue in
Taiwan. Its present constitution is certainly an odd
creature, dating back to 1947 when Chiang Kai-shek still
ruled mainland China, and it contains various
anachronistic references to this bygone era, such as
sovereignty over Tibet and Mongolia. Taiwan's
constitution, or rather the Republic of China's
constitution, is not the only one in history to contain
obsolete, anachronistic clauses, but few are so out of
step with cartographic reality.
Unfortunately,
updating cartographic unreality by deleting references
to China so as to correspond with the political reality
of Taiwan's de facto independence would ruffle more than
a few feathers in Beijing. China views the creation of
an entirely new constitution as the virtual creation of
a new independent state, and it has condemned these
moves with particular vigor. Its criticisms also contain
an implicit threat of force should Taiwan enact such a
constitution. Aside from the hardcore independence
faithful of Chen's DPP and the Taiwan Solidarity Union
(TSU), this makes many people in both Washington and
Taiwan nervous.
The current constitutional
architecture requires a three-quarters legislative
majority to pass a motion for constitutional change.
Chen's pan-green DPP-TSU alliance is a minority in the
legislature but is aiming for a majority in the next
parliamentary elections in December. However, a
mobilized pan-blue opposition (named after the color of
the KMT emblem), galvanized by what it feels to be a
stolen election, will put up a fierce fight, which is
likely mean the current inter-party vitriol is likely to
keep bubbling until at least December, with all the
ensuing political deadlock that entails.
Moreover, given the massive 80 percent turnout
for the presidential election and the near exact 50-50
split in the electorate, barring a major upset, it is
debatable that any side could command the three-quarters
electoral majority needed for a new constitution just
nine months from now, although either side might be able
to squeeze a small absolute majority. However, even
securing a small absolute majority will depend on each
side getting its core supporters out in force to vote in
the December elections, and this might well mean that
both sides have to play to their more extreme wings.
Given the probability of another vicious
election battle and the unlikelihood of the pan-greens
(named for the color of the DPP emblem) securing a 75
percent majority in the Legislative Yuan, or parliament,
Chen is likely to pursue alternative means to secure his
constitutional reform agenda. He has already made clear
his preferred approach: a referendum.
Prior to
last month's election, Chen had proposed halving the
number of seats in the legislature from 225 to 113, but
the measure was rejected by the Legislative Yuan. Chen
has now mulled having the issue settled by a referendum
as a back-door way of constitutional revision. Meanwhile
the KMT has seized the referendum law to push for a
"truth inquiry" into Chen's suspicious election-eve
shooting, and Chen in response has called for a
referendum over an inquiry into the KMT assets. These
moves seem to smack of "direct democracy" running amok
and being used to settle political scores and aggravate
simmering political tension - hardly an auspicious start
to the use of referendums in Taiwanese politics.
A further problem with the referendum path for a
new constitution is that Chen will need his proposals to
appeal beyond the core group of diehard independence
supporters to the wider public. Despite a growing sense
of Taiwanese national consciousness on the island, few
voters want to provoke a war with the mainland by
declaring de jure independence and would prefer to
maintain the ambiguous status quo. In order to appeal to
the broader public, Chen needs to water down his
independence aims and argue the rationale for a new
constitution on other grounds.
The
constitutional mess Here he is on more solid
ground. The current constitution has undergone six bouts
of amendments since the 1990s to reflect more accurately
Taiwan's transition to multi-party democracy, but from a
structural perspective the work is still something of a
mess. Well-executed, a new constitution would
consolidate democratic reforms and strengthen the
political system.
Taiwan has neither a solid
presidential nor parliamentary system of government.
This would create headaches for any minority government,
but in Taiwan's confrontational political landscape it
has led to near legislative deadlock.
The island
also needs to streamline its branches of government.
Instead of the usual three branches - legislative,
executive and judiciary - one finds in most democracies,
Taiwan has a rambling five to seven branches, depending
on how one classifies them.
Finally, the
electoral system needs some fine-tuning. On a very basic
level, elections are too frequent in Taiwan, there has
been a major election nearly every year for the last
decade, which can create voter apathy among the
electorate and also constrain innovative policymaking
among politicians.
However, all this begs the
question that the opposition has posed: Why not merely
amend the present mess to rectify these flaws rather
than go for an all-out overhaul? And once again the
issue boils down to the two very different visions of
Taiwan's future and the island's identity that each side
holds. On one side, the pan-greens' vision is of an
indigenous Taiwanese identity and a separate Taiwanese
state, and on the other, the pan-blues' vision is of at
least accommodating the mainland.
Chen has
promised that his new constitution would not deal with
the thorny issue of sovereignty. Yet this is a
disingenuous argument - it would be very difficult for a
new constitution not to deal with the formal name of
Taiwan, and there would be plenty of scope to codify
concepts that would accelerate a trend toward creeping
Taiwanese nationhood. In addition, any ratification of a
new constitution by referendum would represent a
sovereign act by the people of Taiwan, an effective
declaration of independence from the mainland.
The highly politicized and acrimonious nature of
the constitutional debate and the internal political
backdrop against which it is taking place is
unfortunate. Constitutional reforms or amendments are
necessary for the island if it wants to consolidate its
transition to a vibrant democracy fully and be capable
of making good political choices in the long run. The
most fundamental of these choices is in cross-Strait
relations, and a weak, messy structure will render it
hard to make effective choices. Increased paralysis and
instability clearly aren't conducive to helping create
the structure to make effective decisions,regardless of
whether one is pro-unification or pro-independence.
In short, the quality of Taiwan's democratic
architecture will affect cross-Strait relations whatever
the island ends up with, but however it gets there looks
set to be protracted and messy. Brace yourself for a
tough year in Taiwanese politics.
Jamie
Miyazaki is a freelance journalist and political
risk analyst specializing in North Asia.
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