AS THE DEMOCRATIC Progressive Party (DPP) regroups after its dismal performance in the Jan. 6 legislative elections, there are several things that its members should realize.
First its loss was amplified by an inadequate electoral system. This does not excuse the DPP of its faults and poor strategies, but it does give a more appropriate perspective. No election system is perfect and this is the first time that the new system for the Legislative Yuan was used. However, it also quickly proved in need of restructuring if Taiwanese are to have proper representation.
Examine the voting results. The DPP received almost 37 percent of the party vote, but only got 24 percent of the seats in the legislature. This represents a disproportionate loss of 13 points. The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), on the other hand, received a little more than 51 percent of the party vote, but it got 72 percent of the legislative seats, which translates into a disproportionate gain of 21 points. If you match the DPP's disproportionate loss with the KMT's disproportionate gain, it shows that the disproportion created by the system is 34 percent of the seats in the legislature.
The DPP was not the only one that suffered from the new system. Independent parties combined garnered more than 11 percent of the party vote, but they got only two seats in the legislature. The Non-Partisan Solidarity Union, in contrast, scored the biggest gain. It did not even garner 1 percent of the party vote, yet it got three seats in the legislature.
Translate this into numbers and it is more easily grasped. Taiwan has approximately 17.3 million eligible voters and 73 districts. If all districts were equally proportioned (which of course they were not), there would be one representative legislator for every 237,000 voters. The contest for the 73 district seats was decided by a winner-takes-all vote. To balance this, another 34 seats for legislators-at-large were proportionately selected from the total votes cast for a particular party (separate ballot). The importance of the legislator-at-large ballot is underscored by the unusual fact that the DPP received more legislator-at-large seats (14) than it did from elected district legislators (13). Six of the remaining seats are designated for Aboriginal legislators.
This is how it would ideally break down.
* 73 Elected Districts (73 seats/17,300,000 votes): One seat for every 237,000 voters.
* Full Legislature (113 seats/17,300,000 votes): One seat for every 153,097 voters.
However, when there is a low voter turnout, the representation of seats per voters changes and is further adjusted.
A total of 9,797,573 votes were cast, resulting in the following:
* Low Voter Turnout (113 seats/9,797,573 votes): One seat for 86,704 voters.
Now look at the down and dirty view of the actual way the results came out and the disparities of representation become clearer.
* Non-Partisan Solidarity Union: (3 seats/88,527 votes): One seat for every 29,509 voters.
* KMT (81 seats/5,010,801 votes): One seat for every 61,861 voters.
* DPP (27 seats/3,610,106 votes): One seat for every 133,707 voters.
* All other parties (2 seats/1,091,139 votes): One seat for every 545,569 voters.
The six Aboriginal seats are represented in the above parties, but there is also a disproportionate factor here.
* Aborigines (6 seats/114,212 votes): One seat for every 19,035 voters.
The inequality is also seen in districts that are disproportionately small, as follows:
* Lienchiang County, one seat for 2,182 voters.
* Kinmen County, one seat for 9,912 voters.
* Penghu County, one seat for 19,584 voters.
* Taitung County, one seat for 34,794 voters.
In the best of all worlds, the ideal proportion should be one seat for every 86,704 voters.
Aborigines came out far and above all others. They would do well to form an Aboriginal party or at least an Aboriginal caucus to ensure that their current guaranteed seats would benefit them and not some other party.
Next the Non-Partisan Solidarity Union ran off with three seats.
As for the KMT, it received a disproportionately high share, gaining a powerful two-thirds majority in the legislature -- and the control and responsibility for progress.
The DPP suffered most as a major party; with approximately 37 percent of the vote, it should have at least had enough seats to prevent the KMT from gaining more than a two-thirds majority.
The independents also suffered (one seat for every 545,569 voters), ending up with little or no representation. With one-ninth of the votes cast, they should roughly have 12 seats instead of two. Obviously, a legislative election cannot accommodate every splinter group, but with more than 1 million combined votes, these disparate groups should find a common ground of unification to give them better representation.
No system is perfect, and all systems will give some disproportionate advantage in seats to one party or another. The goal is to minimize this. Since all parties agreed to the current system (whether hastily or not), they have no one to blame but themselves. One does wonder, however, why no one did the math when the system was drawn up.
The only saving grace is that this is a democracy and not a dictatorship. Although it was a winner-take-all contest for each district, it was not a winner-take-all for the country. The winners do not have the right to silence opposition as happens in other countries like the People's Republic of China.
What should be learned?
First, each party must understand the new system and see the importance of each district. New systems demand new tactics and new strategies.
Second, a grassroots neighborhood by neighborhood representation is needed. The new legislators will now be beholden to those who put them there.
Finally, the system already shows a need of revamping. In its victory announcement, the KMT vowed not to abuse its power after winning a two-thirds majority. Whether that promise was fake and for show or not, a quick test of the sincerity of the KMT's promise to forgo abuse would be a sincere effort to make the system more representative and so correct the imbalance and lack of proportionate representation. Any bets? Any takers out there?
Jerome Keating is a Taiwan-based writer.
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