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Taiwan leaders paint poll with
broad strokes
By Mac William
Bishop
TAIPEI - If the headlines are to be
believed, Taiwan's National Assembly elections on
Saturday were supposed to be a referendum on
"President Chen Shui-bian's China policies", as
well as on the recent visits to Beijing by two
Taiwanese opposition leaders. In reality, few
people in Taiwan appeared interested in the
elections, and others were completely oblivious to
the poll.
"There's an election tomorrow?"
was the response of a 26-year-old office worker in
Hsinchu City, Karyn Liu, when asked how she
intended to vote. "What's it for?"
When
informed about the purpose of the election - to
select representatives to the National Assembly -
she admitted she had no idea what that meant and
added that she had no intention of taking part.
"I voted in the presidential elections
last year. And I voted in the legislative
elections in December," said Lee Chien-hsin, a
42-year-old restaurant manager in Taipei. "I
usually vote green [for the ruling Democratic
Progressive Party of President Chen], but I don't
see why I should bother going back to Taiwan for
this." (In Taiwan, people must return to the city
or town in which they maintain a household
registration - generally their family's hometown -
in order to vote.)
Apparently, most of the
people in Taiwan shared Lee's point of view. The
election on Saturday had the lowest turnout of any
election in Taiwan's history - a mere 23.35% of
the electorate showed up to vote, according to the
figures supplied by Taiwan's Central Election
Commission (CEC). In comparison, the legislative
elections in December last year had a turnout of
59.16%, while the previous National Assembly
elections - in 1996 - drew 76.21% of the
electorate, according to the CEC.
Many
analysts said the low turnout marred an otherwise
solid victory for the independence-leaning
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), which walked
away with 42.52% of the vote, to earn 127 seats in
the 300-member National Assembly - the largest
share of any of Taiwan's four main political
parties.
Meanwhile, the pro-unification
Chinese Nationalist Party, also known as the
Kuomintang (KMT), won 38.92% of the votes to
garner 117 seats in the assembly - far less than
the 130 that it predicted it could gain.
Of the two main smaller parties, the
pro-independence Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) and
the pro-unification People First Party (PFP), the
TSU made a surprising gain, achieving third place
with 7.05% of the vote to earn 21 seats in the
National Assembly. The PFP won 18 seats with 6.11%
of the vote. Various independent candidates and
alliances won the remaining 5.38% of the available
ballots.
Pundits and editorialists were
quick to cast the election results as a reflection
of public opinion regarding the recent overtures
to China made by Taiwan's two main opposition
leaders, KMT chairman Lien Chan - the former vice
president who was twice defeated by President Chen
- and PFP chairman James Soong.
However,
the National Assembly election cannot be described
in simplistic "unification versus independence"
terms, and in fact had little to do with
cross-strait relations.
The National
Assembly's purpose is to approve or deny a package
of amendments to Taiwan's constitution that was
passed by the Legislative Yuan in August of last
year. When the amendments were passed, they had
the support of all four of Taiwan's main political
parties, but the TSU and the PFP later changed
their positions on the amendments. Taiwan's two
largest political parties - the DPP and the KMT -
continue to support the amendments, although they
are usually at odds over most other issues.
A perfunctory glance at the raft of
amendments quickly explains the breakdown in
support and opposition.
One of the key
issues is the reduction of the number of seats in
the Legislative Yuan from 225 to 113 - essentially
getting rid of half of the country's legislators -
beginning with the 2007 legislative elections. The
voting system will also be simplified from its
current multi-member district, single-vote system
into a single-member district, two-vote system.
These two changes will increase the
competitiveness of legislative elections, and
therefore, it is hoped, also improve the quality
of the nation's elected representatives. The
changes will also deal a severe blow to Taiwan's
smaller political parties, such as the TSU and the
PFP, which will find it more difficult to get a
meaningful number of legislators elected.
The newly elected National Assembly is
also expected to approve an amendment that will
abolish all future National Assemblies, which
according to the constitution are required to
approve constitutional amendments. In place of the
National Assembly, the people will be given the
right to decide on amendments through referendum,
after they have been passed by the Legislative
Yuan.
All of these amendments are now
expected to be approved, as the DPP and the KMT
together won 81.44% of the assembly vote.
Despite the rather prosaic and undramatic
issues at stake, Taiwanese political leaders were
quick to paint the election results with broad
strokes. "The election has been a victory for
democracy, for reform and for Taiwan," Chen
declared on Sunday.
Other DPP officials were
equally enthusiastic. "I am sure that China has
heard the voice of the people of Taiwan," Vice
President Annette Lu said.
The KMT,
however, backed away from equating the poll to a
referendum on its policies. "The support rating
for the KMT was not reflected in the election
results, especially since many of our supporters
avoided the polls due to bad weather," KMT
spokeswoman Cheng Li-wen told reporters. There
was, in fact, torrential rainfall throughout much
of Taiwan on the day of the election.
The
PFP took a different approach and said it intends
to challenge the legality of the poll through a
lawsuit. "We cannot allow the constitutional
reforms to be recklessly passed in a situation
where 23% of the people are confused," PFP
legislative caucus whip Lee Yung-ping told
reporters on Sunday.
Whether or not the
PFP succeeds in challenging the legitimacy of the
election results, there is still at least one
hurdle that the KMT and the DPP must overcome on
the road to government reform: hashing out a
consensus regarding the proposed statute governing
the National Assembly's exercise of power.
This bill, currently deadlocked in the
Legislative Yuan, is what would determine the
mechanics of how the National Assembly will
approve or deny constitutional amendments. The
sticking point now is whether it will take a
simple two-thirds or three-quarters majority in
the legislature in the future to approve
constitutional amendments, territorial changes or
impeachment of the president and vice president.
Considering the Byzantine political
minutiae that must be delved into to understand
what was at stake in Saturday's election, it
seemed clear to most people in Taiwan why the
turnout on Saturday was so low: "I wasn't sure
what I was voting for, so I just picked my party,"
said a college student and self-professed KMT
supporter, who asked not to be named.
Mac William Bishop is a
journalist based in Taipei. Comments or queries
may be sent to mwbtaiwan@hotmail.com
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