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Editorial: Election reform is long overdue

The proposal made by Premier Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) on Wednesday to combine three local elections -- the county commissioner and mayoral elections, county councilor elections, and township mayoral elections -- is definitely a step toward long overdue reform. Of course, to avoid turning another much-needed and well-intended reform into a disastrous failure, all the required supplemental measures must be well thought out and put into place before the proposal is implemented. However, the sole remaining issues ought to be how and when -- rather than whether -- ?the reform measure should take place.

The people of Taiwan are fed up with the amazingly high frequency of elections. Having finished the presidential election a little more than a year ago and the Legislative Yuan elections at the end of last year, there are four more elections coming up within the next 12 months: the National Assembly elections in May, the county commissioner and mayoral elections in December, the county councilor elections in December and the township mayoral elections in February next year.

No wonder the poll results released by government Development and Evaluation Commission on Wednesday suggested overwhelming support for combining the elections. As much as 58 percent of respondents supported combining the three local elections. Even more -- 66 percent -- supported combining all existing elections to have one poll at the local level and another at the central government level.

Even more importantly, each time an election is held, Taiwan -- more so than other democratic societies -- ? becomes highly polarized and divided. The issues of unification versus independence, the cross-strait relationship and national identity are manipulated by politicians as a matter of standard practice with the simple objective of getting more votes.

People are especially sensitive when it comes to these issues, resulting in enormous rifts and confrontations between families, friends, co-workers, classmates, and so on. Just when one thinks it is time to patch things up after the last election, the next election season comes along. Things have gotten to the point where one cannot help but wonder whether the broken relationships will ever get the chance to be genuinely mended again.

The same is true with the relationship between political parties. Everyone concedes that the public is sick and tired of the bickering between the political parties. It is always the hope of the people that some level of inter-party cooperation can be achieved. However, with elections coming up every couple of months and the political parties at each other's throats all the time, it is hard to imagine any cooperation coming into play.

The enormous costs incurred by the government -- not to mention the political parties, candidates and society as a whole -- as a result of these elections can most certainly be reduced by Hsieh's proposed reform. The only real downside is that when elections are combined, people have so many decisions to make at the same time that they will require the time to fully grasp the issues being debated and the candidates' platforms. It can also be anticipated that voters will more than likely base their decisions on a candidate's political affiliation, rather than on the merits of individual candidates.

The other downside suggested by opponents of the proposal, that vote-buying may become even more prevalent, can be avoided if enough planning and resources are invested in cracking down on this criminal act. In fact, on Wednesday, Minister of Justice Morley Shih (施茂林) indicated his support for the proposal, saying that it would prevent law-enforcement personnel being worn out by all the vote-buying crackdowns. Under the circumstances, the government should listen to the voice of the people and follow through with Hsieh's proposal.
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