At a time when all sides are calling for constitutional reform to improve the functions of the legislature and local city and county councils, Tainan City Council Speaker Lee Chuan-chiao (李全教) has been detained on allegations of vote-buying. If vote-buying cannot be eliminated from local councils, calling for a Cabinet system or reinstating the legislature’s right to approve the president’s nomination for premier is just asking for more trouble.
Local councils should change the speaker election system from a secret ballot to an open ballot. Using party discipline to guarantee a collective party vote would increase the cost of vote-buying. This is not optional if the nation wants to root out vote-buying at local council level.
Some might think that the fact that local councils have been dominated by local factions for so long should not be used as a reference when deciding whether the central government should move toward a parliamentary system and accountability. Vote-buying is not unique to Taiwan. Reformers often make the Cabinet system under the German single-district, mixed-member proportional representation the goal for constitutional reform, but it is common knowledge that before German reunification, vote-buying by East German intelligence agents was involved in a no-confidence vote against then-German chancellor Willy Brandt in 1972.
At the time, Brandt was trying to promote reconciliation with East Germany by pushing for a “go east” policy, which later led to a no-confidence vote proposed by then-Christian Democratic Union chairman Rainer Barzel. In protest against the secret ballot, the Social Democratic Party’s parliamentary members remained in their seats and refused to vote, to avoid any doubt about vote-buying.
In the end, the motion failed. Following unification, documents from East Germany’s intelligence agency showed that two parliamentary members of Barzel’s party had been given 50,000 Deutschmark each to vote for Brandt. A furious Barzel said that Brandt was able to continue his rule with the help of East Germany.
On the contrary, the parliamentary rules of the German Bundestag do not state the voting method of a confidence vote proposed by the chancellor himself. In 1982, with the help of an open ballot and party discipline, then-German chancellor Helmut Kohl proposed a confidence vote. As expected, the motion failed to pass and he seized the chance to dissolve parliament, eventually winning the election.
The speaker of the Legislative Yuan and local council speakers should be produced through interparty negotiations, like in the British parliament. Voting by secret ballot is merely a procedure to ensure the neutrality of voting. After being elected, the speaker should withdraw from party activities and host meetings objectively and neutrally.
Unfortunately, the Legislative Yuan has been unable to match the quality of the British parliament, while many of Taiwan’s local council speakers have been found guilty of irregularities. Since it is difficult for legislative and local council speakers to avoid being drawn into politics, they should at least learn from the German example or the US House of Representatives’ speaker election and elect the speaker in an open vote.
The vote-buying allegations against the Tainan speaker will be decided by the courts. As for the Legislative Yuan, it should promptly strike the regulation that “a speaker shall be elected or recalled by secret ballot by the councilors” from Article 44 of the Local Government Act (地方制度法). Constitutional reform should begin with council self-discipline and voting by open ballot.
Chen In-chin is a professor at National Central University’s Graduate Institute of Law and Government.
Translated by Eddy Chang
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