Senior advisers and national policy advisers to the president are products of past authoritarian rule, a way for a despotic leadership to create a class of nobility.
When the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government withdrew to Taiwan, it meant that all party and government leaders gathered here. The government’s efforts to recover the mainland relied heavily on them, which made it necessary to create these positions.
Taiwan no longer hopes to recover the Chinese mainland, and, in addition, is now a democracy. It is only natural to abolish this remnant of the authoritarian era.
Although the KMT used this system of senior and national policy advisers, it limited the appointments to those who had served as president of the Cabinet, the legislature, the Control Yuan, the Examination Yuan or the Judicial Yuan.
Only those who had served as vice presidents of one of the five yuan, minister, or minister without portfolio could serve as a national policy advisor.
By 2000, Taiwan had democratized, and when the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) came to power for the first time in that year, it lacked any former yuan presidents or vice presidents and ministers.
The party mainly appointed hired hands, financial supporters and grassroots political leaders to these positions, in practice using the state apparatus to further its own interests.
The same phenomenon occurred with the Presidential Office’s award of medals of honor, as many recipients included the same people.
Since the DPP lacked members who had served as yuan president or ministers, it should have used this as an opportunity to abolish the system but instead it perpetuated the KMT’s authoritarian system by appointing unqualified supporters as advisers, thus turning the positions into a resource for reward sharing.
In addition, the posts existed in form only and advisers had nothing to advise on, simply wasting substantial government resources.
In the past, the main function of these advisers was to serve as chairman or members on some senior politician’s funeral committee and standing in the front row to show off their titles at public funeral ceremonies.
Fortunately, former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) realized that there was no value in having these advisers, and so he made the wise decision to stop appointing senior and national policy advisers in June 2006
This not only saved national budget resources but also ended a relic of past authoritarian rule. This may have been a case of “delayed justice” but it was highly praised by the general public.
There have been reports that President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) is planning to resume the appointment of senior and national policy advisers, and the Presidential Office has allocated NT$90 million (US$2.7 million) to this purpose for next year.
It is disappointing to see that the Presidential Office is busy doling out spoils, and it shows that Ma stacks up badly compared to Chen in this regard.
It would be progress if Ma fully abolished the system Chen stopped using, but if he instead reinstates the system, he will be turning back the clock, and this will become part of his legacy.
Ma’s only political achievements after five months in power are to have proposed construction projects and appointing members to the Control Yuan and Examination Yuan to reward supporters.
Now, he is wasting public funds by turning the Presidential Office into a retirement home for advisers.
If he doesn’t understand that he must review his inability to start dealing with national policy, save the economy, alleviate the suffering of the poor, relieve disaster victims, prevent disasters from happening and try to understand why his approval ratings stand at 23 percent — even lower than Chen after eight years of rule tainted by money laundering accusations — and instead do what is right, he will be cast off.
An outstanding leader must put party and personal interests aside. He or she must have great vision, wisdom and the ability to rule. Approval ratings will shoot up if he or she runs the nation in accordance with the law and the system, and there is no need to make any ridiculous appointment outside the system.
Ma should pull back before it is too late, stop flirting with authoritarianism and abolish the positions of senior and national policy advisers that were created by an authoritarian regime 60 years ago.
Otherwise, this self-proclaimed thrifty president, who likes to eat lunchbox food and only spent NT$870,000 on decorating the presidential residence, is simply acting.
Legislators with a conscience from both the pan-blue and the pan-green camps should refuse to review the proposed budget for appointing advisers, and should abolish the authoritarian design stipulated in the Organic Law of the Presidential Office (總統府組織法) immediately, in order to meet democratic standards.
There is no room for political compensation in a democracy.
George Huang is a former chairman of the Central Election Commission.
TRANSLATED BY EDDY CHANG
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