After being shelved for years, a plan to abolish elections at township and county municipality levels is set to become an issue for debate in the political arena again.
The KMT caucus in the Legislative Yuan yesterday said it was against abolishing the elections unless there was a thorough package to back up the reform.
Tseng Yung-chuan (曾永權), legislator and director of the KMT's department of party-government coordination in the Legislative Yuan, said that the elections should not be abolished, especially before a law on the demarcation of administrative regions was even available.
"It is like putting the cart before the horse, to abolish the elections when we're not even sure how many administrative regions we're going to have," Tseng said.
For decades, the mayors of 309 rural and urban townships and county municipalities in Taiwan have been elected by popular polls. Representatives from different political parties first reached a consensus to change the mayoral positions into appointed ones at the National Development Conference in 1996, as part of a plan to downsize the government structures.
However, the plan gathered dust while the KMT was in power.
A bill to revise the Local Systems Law to abolish the elections was finally completed by the Ministry of the Interior on Monday -- three months after the DPP government was formed.
Under the bill, the mayors of townships and county municipalities would be appointed by county governments after the terms of incumbent mayors expire on Aug. 1, 2002. Township and county municipal councils would be abolished altogether.
The bill is expected to be submitted to the legislature for review in October after it is approved by the Cabinet.
Perng Shaw-jiin (彭紹瑾), chief executive of the DPP caucus in the legislature, said that the KMT was hesitant about abolishing township and county municipality elections because it would lose one of its major political resources.
"It would have great impact on the KMT, because it would lose local stumps that have been known to serve the purpose of mobilizing support for the party during major elections," Perng said.
Currently, around 90 percent of the township and county municipal mayors are from the KMT, most of whom are heads of local factions who help the party gain support during election campaigns. Local elections, meanwhile, have also been criticized for encouraging rampant vote-buying at the grassroots level.
Chen Shin-min (
However, Chen said only qualified civil servants should be appointed township and county municipal mayors in the future.
"Otherwise, the appointments will very likely be made based on the personal preferences of the county commissioners," Chen said.
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