Blue camp's games show they are not democratic

`These pan-blue camp arguments ... are sophistry aimed at seizing power.'

In December 2004, when President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) met with visiting Duke University Professor Donald Horowitz at the Presidential Office, he criticized then Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chairman Lien Chan (連戰), saying his suggestion that the party with a legislative majority form the Cabinet was ridiculous.

Giving an example, Horowitz said that although former US President Bill Clinton of the Democratic Party faced a Congress with a Republican majority, this did not turn the US's presidential system into a Cabinet system. Chen did not support the idea that the majority party form the Cabinet then, so how can there be reports that he is considering doing so now?

KMT Chairman Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) said that the concept of a majority-formed Cabinet was in accordance with the spirit of the Constitution, and Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) echoed Ma's view by emphasizing that a majority-formed Cabinet has always been the Constitution's intent. These pan-blue camp arguments, however, are sophistry aimed at seizing power.

A nation with a Cabinet system has a majority-formed Cabinet, where the majority leader is premier and the other members are legislators. Several amendments to Taiwan's Constitution established the direct election of the president. The president then appoints the premier without requiring the legislature's approval, and Cabinet members do not have to be legislators. Taiwan thus tilts toward a presidential system and the formation of the Cabinet is unrelated to the legislature. So how can Ma and Wang say that a majority-formed Cabinet is the intent or spirit of the Constitution?

If the Cabinet is formed by the majority party, the president will not have the power to appoint his best candidate to take up the post as premier. Thus, the president's authority will be undermined by the opposition party, making the president only a figurehead, and practically ignoring the result of a direct presidential election.

The direct presidential election is the most important symbol of Taiwan's national independence and sovereignty, and a major democratic achievement earned by several decades of efforts by activists who often risked their lives. If the legislative majority resulting from what in effect are local elections forms the Cabinet, Taiwan would become a local government claimed by China, making it very difficult for the nation to sustain claims in the international community that it is an independent and sovereign country.

Back in 1996, China conducted missile tests near Taiwan in response to Taiwan's first direct presidential election. It is surprising to see that after only a few elections, Ma and others who were fiercely opposed to the introduction of such elections now call for a majority-formed Cabinet as a pretext for doing away with direct presidential elections. This is only further proof that the pan-blue camp is and has always been opposed to democracy and to Taiwan.

Kuo Cheng-deng is a director of the Taiwan Heart Association.

Translated by Lin Ya-ti