The latest developments in the vote-buying scandal surrounding the Kaohsiung City Council speaker and deputy speaker elections are that quite a few city councilors from various parties have admitted to accepting bribes and are negotiating with prosecutors to become prosecutorial witnesses in an attempt at receiving suspended indictments or less severe sentences.
But the implicated councilors do not appear to hear the public calls for them to resign from their posts. Add to this the race between the political parties to be the first to expel its implicated members. We will almost certainly see an unprecedented majority of independents in the Kaohsiung City Council.
It is very difficult to predict what kind of politics we will we see in a Kaohsiung City Council with an absolute majority of independents.
The history of democratic politics or party politics tells us that a city council with an absolute majority of independents will mean a negative regression from democracy to "pre-democracy" and from modernity to "pre-modernity." A Kaohsiung City Council with an independent majority also implies the disappearance of the political party as a concept, the non-existence of party control and a setback for party power.
Think about it: without the mediation and coordination provided by the party apparatuses, how would a legislature fulfill its functions of policy communication and integration? Without the ideals and platforms of party charters, how will it be possible to distinguish public responsibility from political advocacy? If things seem to be badly planned while party discipline is still strong, then surely things will take a turn for the worse once party discipline loses its power to exercise control, with people exchanging power for money and working for private gain.
The most important question is how a city council with so many councilors suspected of criminal behavior can enjoy any political legitimacy. How can it maintain its position as the city's highest legislative authority and publicly elected mechanism and continue to be the political representative body for Kaohsiung? This is a matter of democratic principles, and a serious discrepancy between form and substance.
Put another way, a pre-democratic, pre-modern, traditional aristocracy-ruled city council and political representation will return to Kaohsiung, a city that claims to want to link up with the international community. Isn't this ironic?
It seems we have to find a fundamental solution -- a new election or by-elections -- to recreate the city council.
For Kaohsiung residents, this is the right moment to show that they are the true masters of the City Council. Since city councilors are political representatives mandated through a show of trust by the residents, the residents of course have the right at any time to withdraw their trust and their mandate. City residents should join forces and loudly demonstrate that they are ashamed of their councilors and solemnly request that the implicated councilors resign of their own accord.
This is the last chance for the implicated councilors to set an example of political accountability. Since they have returned bribes and admitted their guilt they are no longer qualified to serve as the political representatives of the city's residents. Given a choice between depravity and model behavior, why shouldn't they take the brave choice and resign of their own will? Otherwise, they will experience the greatest tragedy to befall a politician when the people strike back and demand their resignation.
Wu Eing-ming is director of the department of political economics at National Sun Yat-sen University.
Translated by Perry Svensson
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