The Presidential Office wants to convene a National Affairs Conference to ease the political impasse caused by the opposition's bid to recall the president. While the Constitution does have problems, we believe it also has the means to resolve disputes. We should not try to amend the Constitution before we have exhausted these means.
Amending the Constitution has got to be one of Taiwan's favorite political activities. Over the past 10 years, it has been amended six times. To be fair, the Constitution was initially written for China and was completely out of place in Taiwan. But repeated tampering has ruined its authority. Whenever those in power run into political dead-ends, they invariably try to tinker with the Constitution. This was as true of Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) as it is with Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁).
Lee inherited a mainland Chinese regime. In the process of localization, amending the Constitution was necessary to establish legitimacy. But in the face of strong challenges within his own party, Lee convened a National Affairs Conference and National Development Conference to rally the opposition DPP and social forces against his enemies within the KMT. Lee compromised to get the amendments he wanted, which paved the way for major political reforms such as comprehensive legislative elections, direct presidential elections, the downsizing of the provincial government and the abolishment of the National Assembly.
With Lee firmly in power, Taiwan's government shifted from a Cabinet-like system toward a presidential system. However, the people who amended the Constitution adopted the French semi-presidential system in order to avoid reducing the president's power too much and to prevent the president from having to answer directly to the legislature. Such actions sowed the seeds for the difficulties we are witnessing today.
However, the defects of the semi-presidential system were evident during Lee's tenure. As premier, both Lien Chan (連戰) and Vincent Siew (蕭萬長) were little more than the president's chief secretaries. They shouldered most of the responsibilities but had no real power. They also interacted poorly with the legislature, but because the KMT controlled both the executive and legislative branches, the system posed no serious practical problems.
Now Chen only has a minority mandate and is backed only by a minority party. He ignored these political realities and went ahead first with a "government for all the people" and then a minority government despite opposition boycotts. Tang Fei
Part of the current crisis can be attributed to Taiwan's lack of experience in democratic politics and the complexity of a semi-presidential system. But a much more pressing crisis has come from the way political maneuvers are handled. If we can restore mutual trust and communication between political parties as well as respect for public mandate, then the Constitution should provide enough resources to solve the problems we are facing.
Calling for a National Affairs Conference is impractical. The opposition parties will not even talk to the ruling party, much less attend such a conference. If, on the other hand, the ruling party can get the opposition to sit down and talk, then the crisis may ease even without trying to alter the the Constitution.
No constitution is ever perfect. The relatively better ones did not mutate overnight into what they are now, but evolved on the basis of consensus built over long periods of time. The history of our Constitution has already proved this. Chen should not repeat the same old mistakes.
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