An additional legislative session is being held this week to review a constitutional amendment bill. This is not only a time for lawmakers to prove themselves, but also a test of the commitments made by political parties. Although all of the parties have promised to support the bill, while weighing their interests differently, they also have created barriers to its passage. Despite the high expectations from the public, the chance that the constitutional amendment bill will be passed is quite slim.
Constitutional amendments require a three-quarters majority vote. That means that if only 55 of the current 220 legislators do not attend, the bill cannot be passed. That is why the bill requires the support of the entire Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and People First Party (PFP) if constitutional reform is to happen.
The main item in this amendment bill is to halve the number of the legislative seats and to introduce single-member districts and a two-vote system. This agenda won about 70 to 80 percent approval in public opinion polls. As long ago as the 2000 presidential election, then-presidential candidates Chen Shui-bian (
Constitutional amendment and reform of the legislature have won a high level of public support and the political parties cannot, now that the election is over, abandon it because it interferes with their current political calculations.
It's fine to shout political slogans, but now that it is time for these promises to be fulfilled, the small parties realize that they will not benefit from these reforms and that they may even disappear altogether as a result. For this reason, the PFP and the Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) have changed their tunes and are finding ways of putting off constitutional reform. Although the TSU formerly supported the bill to amend the Constitution, now that it is clear that single-member districts will put it at a disadvantage, it has made an about-face. The PFP used the excuse that constitutional reform was being "rushed" as an excuse to criticize deliberations on constitutional reform, as such reform would hurt its long-term prospects, but the public support for the move has forced the PFP to appear, at least, to support it.
Delivering a child only takes a few hours, but nobody says that the birth is rushed, because prior to the actual delivery there has already been the nine-month-long process of gestation. Legislative reform has already been deliberated for 10 years and Lien and Soong have claimed to support it for the last five years at least. After such a long gestation, surely they cannot say the process has been rushed.
One day of the special legislative session has been reserved for discussion of the constitutional reform bill. This is nothing more than a token gesture aimed at the public, and the whole reform bill may prove to be a stillbirth. If the leaders of the various political parties were sincere in their desire for constitutional reform, they should have called for inter-party negotiations prior to the session to discuss various articles and related measures.
The parties should keep a close eye on attendance and voting by their members, for the biggest problem with constitutional reform is that many politicians are simply not sincere in their desire for such reform. The future of the nation's political system depends on the performance of legislators in the special legislative session.
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