Plan to cut number of legislative seats riles independents

The alliance of independent lawmakers said yesterday it would try to delay a review on Friday of the constitutional amendment to halve the number of legislative seats and send the amendment back for cross-party negotiation.

The legislature is slated to pass the amendment to halve the number of seats and to create a single-member district, two-vote system on Friday. Although the alliance signed the agreement to pass the amendment, it voiced its opposition yesterday.

Alliance leader Tsai Hao (蔡豪) said that if other constitutional amendments are not passed at the same time as the seat-reduction plan, regional political factions will end up splitting up the seats.

"Not only would it be difficult for minority groups to send representatives to the legislature, it would be possible the new legislature would allow some legislators to occupy the seats forever," Tsai said.

The alliance showed opposition to the plan for "legislators-at-large" and overseas legislators, preferring the current multi-member district, one-vote system.

"We are not a country following a parliamentary system, and if we continue to allow the parties to choose legislators-at-large and overseas legislators, then the party's will would override that of the people," Tsai said.

Under the proposed "single-member district, two-vote system" both direct elections and parties would choose lawmakers. The lawmakers chosen by parties, the so-called legislators-at-large, would obtain seats according to the number of votes won by each party.

But the alliance's opposition to the single-member system is seen as stemming from its fear that the new system could diminish its chances, as independent candidates would lack a powerful party to back them.

Besides the alliance's resistance to the amendment, legislators such the KMT's Apollo Chen (陳學聖) and the People First Party's Sheu Yuan-kuo (許淵國) were petitioning to delay passing the change.

Meanwhile, former Democratic Progressive Party chairman Lin I-hsiung (林義雄) urged the public yesterday to pressure legislators to pass the amendment on Friday.

"The legislature must pass the amendment by March 20. Some people are saying that it's too rushed to pass the amendment by March 20, but actually the amendment has been discussed for three-and-a-half years. There has been a very careful process, and the public has formed consensus on the issue," Lin said.