The Taiwan High Court last Tuesday upheld a lower court ruling annulling the election of Liao Cheng-ching (廖正井), a Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislator for Taoyuan County.
Together with Chiang Lien-fu (江連福), Chang Sho-wen (張碩文) and Lee E-tin (李乙廷), four KMT legislators have now had their elections annulled for vote buying — Diane Lee’s (李慶安) election was annulled because she held dual citizenship.
Those convicted of vote-buying or who have had their election annulled for other reasons should return the public funds and salary they have received during their term up until the annulment.
Subsidies received — NT$30 per vote — also constitute illegal income.
It would only be right for the verdict to include an order to immediately return the funds to the state coffers — and maybe even add a fine.
Citizen Congress Watch and six other nongovernmental organizations recently estimated that each legislator that must be replaced costs the public more than NT$11 million (US$338 million) in election subsidies.
To that should be added the cost of the by-elections, taken from tax payers’ hard earned money.
It would only be fair and just to amend the law so that the return of these subsidies is pursued.
In addition, when legislators representing geographical constituencies are elected in by-elections, a generally neglected issue is that the number of legislators-at-large should also be adjusted in accordance with the by-election results.
The Public Officials Election and Recall Act (公職人員選罷法) stipulates that any party that receives more than 5 percent of the vote should be given legislator-at-large seats.
In the latest legislative elections, the KMT received more than 5 million votes and was allotted 20 legislator-at-large seats, while the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), with its more than 3.6 million votes, was allotted 14 legislator-at-large seats.
A rough estimate shows that one seat is therefore worth about 250,000 votes.
In other words, once a legislator representing a geographical constituency has had their election annulled, those votes should be deducted from the party’s total vote and the party’s number of legislator-at-large seats should be reduced in accordance to the adjusted number of votes, as a punishment.
That would be the right way to handle the issue.
The total number of votes for the five KMT legislators who have had their elections annulled exceeds 380,000. That means the KMT’s vote falls to about 4.62 million and they should lose a legislator-at-large seat.
The saying that “there is no master of elections, all that’s needed is money” explains how the KMT has long been able to use its massive party assets to entertain and control local factions and create a murky network of local vote captains.
Every election involves vote-buying and even coercion, which has infused the political scene with black gold and had a serious impact on social values.
As the philosopher Mencius once said, merely the law in itself is not enough to assure implementation.
Voter awareness is also required and voters must cooperate with the judiciary to be able to remove the vote-buying “tumor” and improve election ethics.
Otherwise, we voters, the country’s masters, will end up on the losing side.
Lu I-ming is the former publisher and president of Taiwan Shin Sheng Daily News.
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