President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) presidency can best be described as a “democratic dictatorship” in that he often refers to the votes he garnered during last year’s election when claiming public support for his presidency.
Although it’s been nearly a year since the election, Ma still uses this approach as an endorsement of his policies and an affirmation of his political credibility, ignoring the fact that the election of a president and support for his administration are two entirely different issues.
Ma interprets the ballots cast in the presidential election as a blank check to be used as he sees fit — and even as an excuse to suppress public opinion.
This is clear evidence that in his view of democracy, an actively participating citizenry should be replaced by a passive group of voters that can only express their view on voting day, and that he should act as their representative at all other times.
All expression of public opinion on issues such as political credibility, sunshine legislation or cross-strait relations are restricted because in Ma’s mind, the public consists of voters and not citizens, democracy only exists on election day and total vote numbers replace expressions of public opinion.
This also explains why Ma is so dismissive of referendum democracy and why calls for the abolition of the Assembly and Parade Act (集會遊行法) has been embroiled in dispute.
The idea of citizens expressing their views through street demonstrations or criticizing the government has become unacceptable in the president’s view. Democracy is reduced to the act of voting, while all other issues should be dealt with by the elite, and the president in particular.
The most obvious manipulation of the democratic process can be seen in the merging and elevated administrative status of Kaohsiung, Taichung and Taipei counties and cities, leading to suspicions that the local elections at the end of this year will be politically manipulated.
The greatest contribution of elections to democracy is the uncertainty about the popular choice, which implies that there will never be a perennial winner because the outcome is decided by a public that may change its mind at any time.
The biggest crisis facing Taiwan’s elections is this uncertainty may not be the result of the elite competing for public support, but instead a result of manipulation of the rules — be it by a single party or even just a single person.
If the rules of the game are not accepted by all participating parties, fair elections — the source of democratic legitimacy and consolidation — will deteriorate into manipulated elections, resulting in genuine democracy taking a step backward.
This all means that democratic elections are not necessarily a guarantee of freedom, something that is difficult to understand from the historically linear relationship between freedom and democracy which ignores the darker aspects of democratic elections.
Fareed Zakaria’s popular work — The Future of Freedom: Illiberal Democracy at Home and Abroad — which was published in 2004, discusses the universality of the view that freedom is guaranteed by democracy based on the view that there is a balance between democracy and freedom.
In doing so, it also explains how Ma’s government is establishing a democratic dictatorship in Taiwan.
Hsu Yung-ming is an assistant professor in the department of political science at Soochow University.
TRANSLATED BY PERRY SVENSSON
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