The legislative recall campaign launched by the Constitution 133 Alliance was preceded by waves of popular protest that took place over the summer, including the send-off for army corporal Hung Chung-chiu (洪仲丘) after he died from heat exhaustion, and a mass demonstration against forced demolitions with the theme: “Demolish the government.”
These protests signify a public awakening. They have been moderate in form, but formidable in substance.
The Constitution 133 Alliance is raising the banner of constitutional civil rights and it is determined to hold accountable legislators who only care about what President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) wants while neglecting the public. The significance of this movement is by no means limited to deterring Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislators from further degenerating into a voting machine for Ma, or to disbanding Ma’s “praetorian guard” in the legislature and weakening its ability to turn back the political clock.
The movement launched by the Constitution 133 Alliance is also about inspiring the public to stand up and put right a representative democracy that has been distorted. It aims to use civil politics to impose checks and balances on the games that political parties are playing. Its ultimate purpose is to win back the country for its citizens, who are the rightful owners.
It is easy to see how the policymakers have been operating so that the nation’s democratic crisis was created — though the crisis is hidden behind the Ma administration’s incompetence, collapsing credibility and rapidly waning legitimacy.
This crisis has two aspects: The dilution of citizens’ sovereignty and the hollowing out of political accountability.
Article 2 of the Constitution of the Republic of China states: “The sovereignty of the Republic of China shall reside in the whole body of citizens.”
However, so many restrictions have been imposed on this principle that it has been narrowed down to little more than the right to cast a vote every four years. The most serious restriction is one that has a deep impact on the public’s livelihood — the limited access to information on interactions across the Taiwan Strait.
A small clique of rich and powerful people has been sitting in a dark corner and dividing the benefits of cross-strait travel and trade among themselves. The legislature hardly plays any role in cross-strait relations, while the public has even less chance to take part in any substantial way.
What is even harder to accept is that KMT legislators, faced with a situation in which their role has been marginalized so much that they can no longer faithfully carry out their duties, are anxious not to offend Ma. They are still only concerned about nominations and funding for the next election, they have completely forgotten that the true basis for their power comes from their constituencies.
As a result, even though an overwhelming majority of opinion is against continued construction of Taiwan’s fourth nuclear power plant in Gongliao District (貢寮), New Taipei City (新北市), these legislators go on voting as directed by their party whip, playing along with the party’s political tactics and killing off any legislative initiative that offers a chance of halting construction.
Even if some people can accept our legislators spending public money at girly bars, surely they cannot tolerate the betrayal of democracy as lawmakers enact disgraceful amendments to the Accounting Act (會計法) late at night and behind closed doors. Even though there are resounding calls to enact laws that prevent media monopolies, lawmakers’ promises to complete the legislative process can be dropped after they receive a telephone call from a media tycoon.
Considering the shambles in the legislature, every citizen is entitled to ask who among our lawmakers has truly borne his or her responsibilities. However, voters should at the same time ask themselves whether tolerance and forgetfulness of improper behavior has been the hotbed that has fostered this gang of out-of-control lawmakers. Is the public more concerned about whether legislators have given away presents, organized raffles and proposed Mid-Autumn Festival toasts, or whether their work in the legislature has served to safeguard the nation?
Tolerance and forgetfulness is the catalyst for the rampant delinquency of political hacks. It is what has prevented Taiwan’s democracy from becoming properly established. Only when citizens stop being so tolerant will they be able to force politicians to change their behavior. Only when the public stops being so forgetful will these public servants be held accountable to society’s collective memory.
The Constitution 133 Alliance’s recall campaign offers a chance to cure this chronic political malady. It offers a ray of hope for democracy, which needs deepening. For politicians to place the public above their party, Taiwanese must first identify themselves as citizens, not as pawns of the pan-blue or pan-green political camps.
They must invest time in the future for the generations to come. They should unite to do battle in a political war. They must take action to be able to one day write a history of real democracy and constitutional government in Taiwan.
Huang Kuo-chang is a research professor at Academia Sinica’s Institutum Iurisprudentiae.
Translated by Julian Clegg
Taiwan stands at the epicenter of a seismic shift that will determine the Indo-Pacific’s future security architecture. Whether deterrence prevails or collapses will reverberate far beyond the Taiwan Strait, fundamentally reshaping global power dynamics. The stakes could not be higher. Today, Taipei confronts an unprecedented convergence of threats from an increasingly muscular China that has intensified its multidimensional pressure campaign. Beijing’s strategy is comprehensive: military intimidation, diplomatic isolation, economic coercion, and sophisticated influence operations designed to fracture Taiwan’s democratic society from within. This challenge is magnified by Taiwan’s internal political divisions, which extend to fundamental questions about the island’s identity and future
The narrative surrounding Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s attendance at last week’s Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit — where he held hands with Russian President Vladimir Putin and chatted amiably with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) — was widely framed as a signal of Modi distancing himself from the US and edging closer to regional autocrats. It was depicted as Modi reacting to the levying of high US tariffs, burying the hatchet over border disputes with China, and heralding less engagement with the Quadrilateral Security dialogue (Quad) composed of the US, India, Japan and Australia. With Modi in China for the
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) has postponed its chairperson candidate registration for two weeks, and so far, nine people have announced their intention to run for chairperson, the most on record, with more expected to announce their campaign in the final days. On the evening of Aug. 23, shortly after seven KMT lawmakers survived recall votes, KMT Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) announced he would step down and urged Taichung Mayor Lu Shiow-yen (盧秀燕) to step in and lead the party back to power. Lu immediately ruled herself out the following day, leaving the subject in question. In the days that followed, several
The Jamestown Foundation last week published an article exposing Beijing’s oil rigs and other potential dual-use platforms in waters near Pratas Island (Dongsha Island, 東沙島). China’s activities there resembled what they did in the East China Sea, inside the exclusive economic zones of Japan and South Korea, as well as with other South China Sea claimants. However, the most surprising element of the report was that the authors’ government contacts and Jamestown’s own evinced little awareness of China’s activities. That Beijing’s testing of Taiwanese (and its allies) situational awareness seemingly went unnoticed strongly suggests the need for more intelligence. Taiwan’s naval
RSS