After winning Saturday’s uncontested election, New Taipei City Mayor Eric Chu (朱立倫) is to succeed President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) as the next chairman of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT).
Shouldering the heavy burden of reforming the party after its humiliating electoral defeat in last year’s local elections, Chu has called for amending the constitution to adopt a parliamentary system. He also proposed lowering the voting age to 18, reducing the electoral threshold for parties to 3 percent, introducing absentee voting and re-examining the current mixed-member system used to elect the legislature.
In a submission published by the Chinese-language Apple Daily in May last year, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) also expressed support for constitutional reform. Her ideas include increasing the number of seats in the Legislative Yuan, giving minority parties more political space and lowering the referendum threshold to promote greater pluralism in Taiwan’s democracy.
As legislators cohere consensus on the direction for constitutional amendment across partisan lines, whether Taiwan should do away with the current semi-presidential system in favor of a parliamentary one demands our further consideration of the underlying ramifications.
Clearly, the separation of powers characterized by a mechanism of checks and balances is a core feature of modern democracy. A parliamentary system, however, focuses on the integration of powers in which a prime minister is of the majority party or coalition in government. In history, the framers of the US constitution rejected the parliamentary system out of the fear that excessive executive and legislative power would reside within a single body. The diffusion of power in the nation’s current system promotes mutual accountability across different entities and prevents any single individual or party from dominating the political system. A government of divided powers is more democratic because it allocates different legal and political functions to separate and independent branches.
Second, the direct election of the president, an opportunity conferred by the present system, has become a proud symbol of Taiwan’s democratic development. To implement a parliamentary system would mean that the head of state, whether directly elected in the future or not, would have to serve as a symbolic figurehead.
Under such a model, the selection of the prime minister would be indirect and merely an internal matter for the party in power. The lack of strong representative leadership might have a negative impact on Taiwan’s sovereignty and further undermine the government’s legitimacy when engaging in issues concerning national defense, foreign policy and cross-strait relations.
A parliamentary system in Taiwan would also be more vulnerable to gridlock and corruption. Because Taiwanese politics is becoming increasingly bipartisan, more frequent bickering might arise due to fragmented and opposed interests and neither party possessing a clear majority.
While both illegal and unethical, the bribery of voters remains a considerable factor in Taiwan’s elections. One can imagine how the influence of big money, lobby groups, and corporate interests would proliferate even more extensively within a parliamentary model. Finally, the quality and approval rating of the current crop of Legislative Yuan lawmakers invites speculation as to what level of professionalism and expertise can be expected if such members were to serve concurrent Cabinet posts.
Finally, the complaint of “power without accountability” in the current constitutional system is fundamentally unfounded. Dual executive structure can be found in Chinese history — where the emperor would be assisted by a chancellor or prime minister — or in contemporary corporate governance where the chairman of the board coexists with a general manager.
As mapped out by Republic of China founding father Sun Yat-sen (孫逸仙), the five-power Constitution emphasizes balance and oversight by supplementing the three branches of Western governments. More concretely, the Executive Yuan answers to the Legislative Yuan; the Judicial Yuan implements the rule of law and protects human rights; the Control Yuan redresses mistakes and censures misconduct by government officials; and the Examination Yuan ensures the soundness of civil service.
Article 2 of the Additional Articles of the Constitution provides for the recall of the president through passage by two-thirds of Legislative Yuan members and a majority of the electorate, while Article 3 requires the premier to tender his resignation if the majority of Legislative Yuan members approve a no-confidence vote. Under the spirit of constitutional democracy, the executive branch is checked by the legislature, and a government that fails to withstand the test of popular scrutiny can be removed through democratic processes.
The real advantage of the semi-presidential system lies in its flexibility: A president from the majority party can exercise latitude in appointing a premier who can fully execute his political agenda, whereas a minority president must select a head of government able to receive majority support in the legislature.
One way to reform the current system would be to provide the legislature with the right to consent to the nomination of the premier and Cabinet ministers. However, this would require a robust political culture in which legislators do not interfere excessively with the president’s authority to make administrative appointments.
Other options might be lowering the voting age to 18, increasing the number of seats in the Legislative Yuan to 169 — midway between the current 113 and previous 225 — with a proportional 51 legislators-at-large, and decreasing the referendum threshold to 40 percent. Parties should consider fielding younger and more progressive candidates for the legislature as preparation for government service down the road.
Alfred Tsai is studying economics and political science at Columbia University.
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