Without free and fair elections, Taiwan cannot consider itself a genuine democracy. A recent concern has emerged over the Civil Servants Election and Recall Act (公職人員選舉罷免法) which includes an article some deem discriminatory against candidates who do not hail from the main political parties.
Article 59 of the Civil Servants Election and Recall Act stipulates that only candidates nominated by political parties that have garnered 5 percent of the votes cast in the most recent elections can dispatch monitors to polling stations.
In other words, taking the year-end Taipei mayoral election as an example, only the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) and People First Party (PFP) qualified to send monitors to polling stations.
However, since the DPP, TSU and PFP did not field any candidates for the election, it means only KMT mayoral candidate Sean Lien’s (連勝文) camp can send monitors to polling stations, whereas independent mayoral hopefuls Ko Wen-je (柯文哲), Neil Peng (馮光遠) and Shen Fu-hsiung (沈富雄) cannot — even though Ko maintains a significant lead in public opinion polls.
While some may be quick to argue that everyone should abide by the law and not seek to change the rules of the game, so to speak, those who make the argument are reminded that law is not sacred in the sense that it cannot be amended. If a law incurs legitimate concern, it should be open to debate for amendment.
Factoring in Taiwan’s historical milieu and its authoritarian past, the problems of dirty tricks and misuse of government power have been concerns.
A look at past incidents prove the concerns. One may recall the notorious case of the 1992 legislative election in Hualien. Despite a positive electoral outlook ahead of the election, then-DPP legislative candidate Huang Hsin-chieh (黃信介) was defeated by 62 votes amid rumors of electoral irregularities. It turned out foul play was involved, with an extra 300 ballots cast for a district that had only about 500 eligible voters.
One may also recall other tactics in past incidents such as a bag of ballots in favor of a specific candidate discovered long after votes were counted, electrical blackouts during vote-counting at polling stations, and the like.
Granted, the nation’s democratization has made significant progress over the past three decades, with cases of foul play during vote-counting becoming less prominent, but there is no harm in making the vote-counting process more transparent to dispel any chance of skepticism.
By registering their candidacies, Ko, Peng, Shen and others meet their eligibility and campaign obligations and paid their campaign deposits with the Central Election Commission just as Lien did, but the Civil Servants Election and Recall Act should not take away their rights to send vote-counting monitors to polling stations just because they lack the backing of prominent political parties.
The Nov. 29 elections are expected to be more fierce than ever, given that nearly 20,000 candidates nationwide have registered for directly elected local government positions such as mayors and councilors of the special municipalities, county commissioners and councilors, city mayors and councilors, township mayors and councilors, and borough and village wardens.
The presence of vote monitors by the candidates is important in assuring fairness of the election; it could also help pre-empt any unnecessary post-election disputes.
In short, anyone who takes pride in being Taiwanese and values the nation’s transformation into a genuine democracy should endorse the call to amend the Civil Servants Election and Recall Act to better ensure free and fair elections, to which every candidate is entitled.
Two sets of economic data released last week by the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) have drawn mixed reactions from the public: One on the nation’s economic performance in the first quarter of the year and the other on Taiwan’s household wealth distribution in 2021. GDP growth for the first quarter was faster than expected, at 6.51 percent year-on-year, an acceleration from the previous quarter’s 4.93 percent and higher than the agency’s February estimate of 5.92 percent. It was also the highest growth since the second quarter of 2021, when the economy expanded 8.07 percent, DGBAS data showed. The growth
In the intricate ballet of geopolitics, names signify more than mere identification: They embody history, culture and sovereignty. The recent decision by China to refer to Arunachal Pradesh as “Tsang Nan” or South Tibet, and to rename Tibet as “Xizang,” is a strategic move that extends beyond cartography into the realm of diplomatic signaling. This op-ed explores the implications of these actions and India’s potential response. Names are potent symbols in international relations, encapsulating the essence of a nation’s stance on territorial disputes. China’s choice to rename regions within Indian territory is not merely a linguistic exercise, but a symbolic assertion
More than seven months into the armed conflict in Gaza, the International Court of Justice ordered Israel to take “immediate and effective measures” to protect Palestinians in Gaza from the risk of genocide following a case brought by South Africa regarding Israel’s breaches of the 1948 Genocide Convention. The international community, including Amnesty International, called for an immediate ceasefire by all parties to prevent further loss of civilian lives and to ensure access to life-saving aid. Several protests have been organized around the world, including at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) and many other universities in the US.
Every day since Oct. 7 last year, the world has watched an unprecedented wave of violence rain down on Israel and the occupied Palestinian Territories — more than 200 days of constant suffering and death in Gaza with just a seven-day pause. Many of us in the American expatriate community in Taiwan have been watching this tragedy unfold in horror. We know we are implicated with every US-made “dumb” bomb dropped on a civilian target and by the diplomatic cover our government gives to the Israeli government, which has only gotten more extreme with such impunity. Meantime, multicultural coalitions of US