Legislators get the 'thumbs-down'

Journalists gave legislators poor marks in a poll to assess their performance that was released yesterday.

In the Taipei Association (澄社) survey 43 experienced political reporters were asked to give each legislator a satisfactory or unsatisfactory rating.

The PFP's Diane Lee (李慶安) garnered the highest number of "satsifactory" votes, the NP's Lai Shyh-bao (賴士葆), the KMT's Chu Li-luan (朱立倫) and the DPP's Lin Cho-shui (林濁水) were given top ratings.

Lo Fu-chu (羅福助), Tsai Hao (蔡豪) and the KMT's Kuo Ting-tsai (郭廷才) were ranked the worst-performing legislators.

"Expertise, a clean image and hard-working characteristics are signs of a legislator whose performance is considered satisfactory, while poor participation and being controversial are characteristics that are associated with legislators whose performance is poor," Taipei Association chief Chiu Hei-yuan (瞿海源) said yesterday at a press conference.

Academia Sinica associate research fellow Lin Jih-wen (林繼文) said that despite their poor performance, legislators like Lo and Tsai were likely to be elected again. "That's because the main battlefield for them is not in the legislative. Voters care more about whether these people can represent voters' interests in their constituencies."

On a scale of one to five, the survey found that the overall performance of legislators, as perceived by the journalists, averaged below three.

"It means that most reporters are dissatisfied with the performance of legislators, particularly in terms of their ability to review the government's budget (預算審查), morality (品德操守) and connections with `black gold' (金權現象)," professor of politics at Tunghai University (東海大學) and poll deviser Wang Yeh-lih (王業立) said.

According to the survey, the three major parties' legislative caucus performed poorly as well.

When evaluated by their ability to coordinate (溝通協調) and integrate (整合運作), their familiarity with legislative operations (議事嫻熟), the ruling DPP scored lower than the KMT and NP in all three respects.

Wang said the DPP caucus' perceived performance had declined substantially, compared to its members' performances when it was an opposition party.

"The decline has something to do with the constitutional system. DPP legislators are now confused with their changed role, yet they are still a minority in the legislature," researcher Lin said, adding people had higher expectations of the DPP after it took power.

Lin said the NP and PFP performed comparatively well because of their stances as opposition parties.

Around 49 percent of the respondents said legislative speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) was not neutral in moderating legislative sessions, though 53 percent believed he was familiar with the rules of the legislative operation. Some 63 percent of respondents also said vice speaker Yao Eng-chi (饒穎奇) had the same problem as his boss.

"We hope that legislators will not react to this [report] too emotionally. Our main purpose is to pave the way for progress in the development of party politics," professor of sociology at National Chengchi University (政治大學) Ku Chung-hwa (顧忠華) said.

The poll was conducted from June to August, with 79 questionnaires released to what the association called experienced journalists, with just 43 returned, or a 54 percent return-rate.