There are few things as gratifying as watching people live up to the stereotypes that apply to them. This is especially the case with politicians, many of whom are described with words like "liar," "hypocrite" and "egomaniac," as well as with more colorful appellations, such as "spineless guttersnipe," "opportunistic parasite" or just plain "self-serving slime-ball."
Taiwan's politicians are no different from their peers elsewhere in the world -- regardless of their political inclinations -- and a number of legislators yesterday proved that sometimes you can judge a book by its cover.
The issue that these legislators used as a vehicle to demonstrate their vapid self-absorption was a cross-party coalition proposal to once again amend the Constitution and increase the number of legislative seats to 168.
It is important to remember that this proposal is being made only two years after the legislature approved an amendment to slash the number of seats from 225 to 113. This change would take effect after the next legislative election late next year.
What is going on here?
Do these legislators think that this appears to be anything other than pure self-interest? Doubtless the lawmakers backing the new amendment have been doing some quiet number-crunching on their own, and don't like the picture that the results of their calculations paint.
The legislators who have got cold feet about legislative reform probably believe that they stand to lose their jobs, their cushy livelihood earning payoffs from corrupt businesspeople and bureaucrats and -- perhaps just as importantly in a few cases -- their immunity from prosecution.
The voting public already has a very low opinion of legislators. An oft-repeated joke is: "Which is more corrupt, a Chinese Nationalist Party [KMT] legislator or a Democratic Progressive Party legislator? They're equally bad, but it's easier to slip bribes to the KMT legislator because he has more practice."
Now, it is ridiculous to assume that cutting the number of seats in the legislature would automatically guarantee that only principled, incorruptible men and women get elected.
But at the very least, it would ensure that no matter how bad our elected representatives are, we can rest secure in the knowledge that at least there are fewer of them than before, making it easier to keep tabs on all of them. It is like having cockroaches in your house: Once they're inside, the best you can do is keep their numbers down for sanitation's sake.
The most fantastic aspect of this is that these legislators seem to think that this flip-flop will have no impact on their public standing. But what voter would want to back a candidate who has admitted to being a loser?
It is easy to be dismissive of the lawmakers that have backed this new amendment, because it is difficult to see how any of the arguments that were made in favor of halving the legislature have changed. Taiwan hasn't become any bigger. Its population didn't suddenly increase a substantial amount in the past few months.
So why suddenly change tack on this issue?
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