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Why the timing of elections matters

I see from the newspapers that the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) has proposed adjusting the timing of the next presidential and legislative elections so that they both occur on the same day.

There is no getting away from the fact that this proposal will be interpreted by others as a way for the KMT to improve its chances during the elections, allowing its own legislators to ride on the popularity of party Chairman Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) in what is known as the "coattail effect."

However, President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) had already proposed this idea during his trip to Panama in 2004, listing it as an important part of constitutional reform, so the ruling party will not necessarily raise too many objections.

Academia is also taking a careful look at the impact of reform which would lead to the adoption of the "two-in-one election" model.

It is actually extremely rare to see both presidential and parliamentary elections happening on the same day in other countries which have semi-presidential or mixed systems similar to that of Taiwan.

These two types of elections are quite different in nature, so there is no particular reason to arrange it so that their timing corresponds.

As a result, very few countries with semi-presidential systems have specific clauses in their constitutions regarding the exact timing of elections.

Even if there are specific regulations, the existence of a confidence mechanism and the president's right to dissolve parliament means that elections can be called at any time, and pretty comprehensive arrangements are needed if a specific, rigid schedule is to be maintained.

As the saying goes, the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry.

Many countries including South Korea, Poland, Finland, Portugal, Lithuania, Austria, Ukraine and Bulgaria, operate a system of mixed election cycles.

In South Korea, for example, presidential elections are held once every five years, and parliamentary ones once every four.

As a result, parliamentary elections are sometimes mid-term elections, but at other times they fall during the president's honeymoon period. In this way, the relative timing between polls changes from election to election.

In Finland, the president's tenure is six years, whereas parliamentary elections are held every four years. In some years parliamentary elections don't come until three years after the presidential election, but in others, they come just over a year after the president is voted in.

These, then, could be considered mid-term elections in the wider sense, although this is not always the case, since they sometimes could be considered to fall during the honeymoon period.

Taiwan has always conducted elections in mixed cycles, although the actual timing has evolved in such a way that we hold the legislative elections first, followed by the presidential election in what have been called "counter honeymoon elections."

The legislative term in Taiwan has now been changed to four years, bringing it into line with the length of the presidential term, and beginning with the seventh legislature, legislative elections will be held about three months prior to the presidential election.

Unless a vote of no confidence in the government is passed leading to the dissolution of the legislature, this could well become a set routine.

This is what happens in Mongolia and Russia, which both have four-year terms for both the president and legislature.

Russia has had two counter honeymoon elections since 1999. The first time this happened, in 1999 and 2000, the parliamentary elections were like presidential preliminaries for the two competing ruling groups. The second time, in 2003 and 2004, the pro-President Vladimir Putin United Russian Party won the highest number of seats, followed by the Communist Party. However, the aggregate number of votes for these parties was still only 50.2 percent, so the fact that the elections were held in the counter honeymoon period gave the other political parties some room to maneuver.

The opposite situation is true in France. They have honeymoon elections, with the presidential election preceding the parliamentary elections. Because the presidential term was seven years and the parliamentary term five years prior to 2002, France's system then was a system of mixed election cycles.

Now there is a new system and the presidential term has been brought in line with the parliamentary five-year-term, forming a fixed election schedule. In the most recent presidential poll in 2002, the first election round was held on April 21, and the second round on May 5, while the parliamentary elections were held on June 9.

Honeymoon elections may occur in other countries from time to time, but these countries do not have a fixed system like France.

Why has France designed this kind of fixed election schedule? France wants to let the public decide whether or not they want a cohabitation government, where the president and the majority party come from different parts of the political spectrum.

Honeymoon elections allow for a stronger coattail effect in favor of the newly elected president so that his or her own party can also win a parliamentary majority.

The 2002 elections did indeed give the parliamentary majority to French President Jacques Chirac's party.

If the reasons for adjusting Taiwan's election cycles are based primarily on demands to reduce social costs and to give a legislative majority to the president's party, then there is a foundation on which to argue for planning a move toward simultaneous elections.

The general public indeed feel that elections are too frequent, that the national and social cost and resources spent are excessive, and that this increases the risk of party, ethnic and public conflict. The French experience shows, however, that we can take a more comprehensive view of cost concerns.

At the same time, we must also conduct more detailed evaluations, since simultaneous elections under Taiwan's new single member district, two-ballot electoral system will not necessarily lead to a situation where the president's party also gains the legislative majority.

Furthermore, with simultaneous elections, the legislative elections will be overshadowed by the presidential election campaign. This is certain to leave less room for discussing legislative issues and holding policy debates between legislative candidates, which may be drowned out altogether.

It is important that more studies are undertaken into the question of whether this would facilitate a healthy legislature.

Finally, the date for holding simultaneous elections must be set prior to Feb. 1, when legislators enter a new legislative session.

If early or mid-January is chosen, the newly elected president will remain president-elect for at least four months until assuming office on May 20.

This is by no means unfeasible, but it cannot be denied that it will have an impact on the prestige of the incumbent government, an issue that also requires careful evaluation.

The question of how the timing of elections should be planned should be considered together with the design of the central government system and other factors in order to set up a system that lasts.

Chen Hongming is an assistant professor in the Center for General Education at Chung Yuan Christian University.

Translated by Paul Cooper and Perry Svensson
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