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Proposals for reform contradictory

The ongoing argument on amending the Constitution or writing a new constitution has ushered in the presidential election campaign. President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) and his Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) counterpart Lien Chan (連戰) have both agreed on a public debate on constitutional reform. If such a debate materializes, we may witness a brilliant and historic dialogue.

On the critical issue of the central government system, the pan-blue and pan-green camps have both made four central commitments -- single-member constituencies, a double-ballot system (with one of the votes going to generate legislators in the national constituency), a quota for women and a pure presidential system or a system close to a presidential system.

However, in light of political science theory and the experience of other countries, I find serious contradictions among the four criteria. The four ideals in fact cannot exist at the same time to form a reasonable and workable system.

The four commitments may appear simple and comprehensible. But further investigation is needed into the feasibility of their simultaneous implementation. First, the design of a system reserving legislature seats for women cannot be carried out under the single-member constituency system. Women's seats may be protected via nomination for the national constituency but the rigid partisan nature of the national proportional representation system is not compatible with a presidential system. Therefore, the logic behind the four commitments is contradictory. I'd like to prove their mutual incompatibility, focusing on the issue of women's seats in the legislature.

Based on the UN's Human Development Report 2003, I have examined the 30 countries where women hold the most seats in lower or single-house parliaments, and 20 countries from the report's gender empowerment measure (GEM). Because some of these countries overlap, we end up with 37 countries.

Among the 37 countries, 11 use a presidential system. Only one of the 11 countries, the US, is an Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) country.

Among the remaining 10 are two Latin American countries and eight African countries. Actually, among the 19 OECD countries included on the list, 16 use a parliamentary system, and two use a semi-presidential system. Among the 10, the US is the only one with a presidential system.

Focusing on the countries that use a presidential system, seven of the 11 countries have multi-member constituencies. Only four have single-member districts. Among these four, only one country also uses a national proportional representation system. That country is the Seychelles.

Among the seven countries that use both a presidential system and multi-member constituencies, five depend on their Constitutions, laws, or political parties' clauses to guarantee women's seats in the legislature.

As to the other four that use single-member district systems, Uganda and Tanzania rely on their Constitutions and laws to reserve seats for women. But Uganda designates 50 constituencies outside its single-member districts to generate 50 female legislators. Women lawmakers in Tanzania are nominated by the president. Neither of the countries' systems follows the norms of democracy, while the other two countries that adopt single-member constituencies, the US and the Seychelles, do not have a legally guaranteed quota of seats for women.

Therefore, the commitments made by the ruling and opposition parties -- single-member districts, two votes to choose legislators in the national constituency, a quota for women, and a presidential system or a system close to a presidential system -- not only contradict one another, but can hardly be found in other countries. The Seychelles is the only country that comes close to satisfying even three of the criteria.

Perhaps you're not familiar with the Seychelles. Allow me to introduce this country to you. The Seychelles is composed of dozens of islands and is situated east of Africa. It claimed independence from the UK in 1976. With a total population of 80,000, the country has 34 seats in its legislature, with 25 generated from single-member districts and nine allocated according to proportional representation.

But women's representation in the legislature is not guaranteed by the country's constitution, laws or party clauses.

I think the reason that women in the Seychelles occupy almost 30 percent of the seats in the legislature may be related to the country's unique geography, organization of constituencies and social climate.

The example of the Seychelles might well be a unique case, and not a universal norm that Taiwan's constitutional reform should attempt to mirror.

Therefore, the four commitments cannot be realized either in theory or in practice.

In order to cater to voters, political parties in Taiwan seem to have rashly and close-mindedly promised a utopian system that does not exist in the real world.

If the parties' promises are carried out, we cannot but worry what the political system will be like.

Shen Fu-hsiung is a Democratic Progressive Party legislator.

Translated by Jennie Shih
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