Taipei City's recent borough-warden elections, the fiercest elections of their type ever held in Taiwan, finally came to an end yesterday.
However, the elections not only drew markedly-less attention from the young and those with a higher level of education, but the wardens themselves are increasingly being viewed as mere "vote-captains" whose loyalties lie only with those further up the political chain.
Borough wardens, the lowest level of officials elected, work to help the community, with duties such as applying for national health insurance cards and maintaining the environment.
But the role of borough warden can be lucrative, observers said, because their standing as "vote-captains," whose job it is to strengthen and solicit support for candidates in higher-level elections, often sees them moonlighting as brokers in vote-buying deals.
Editor-in-chief of Contemporary Magazine Chin Heng-wei (金恆偉) yesterday told the Taipei Times, "The borough-warden elections should be abolished. They hold virtually no function for society."
"The reason so many candidates compete for the post is because the job is so lucrative."
"The borough wardens remit is extremely small ? the work they do could be easily replaced by other public agencies such as the police department or the district administrative office," Chin said.
"These elections are basically a waste of social funds," Chin remarked.
A total of 1,384 candidates participated in the elections, competing for 499 posts.
According to the law governing subsidies for borough wardens, they are given a monthly allowance of NT$45,000 to pay for stationary, postal, electric and water bills. They are also given an annual NT$200,000 subsidy for local construction expenditures.
Apart from these official subsides, borough wardens also receive a great deal of contributions or compensation returns, ranging from NT$30,000 to tens of millions of NT dollars, from local construction works or public facilities that might drag down the living quality of the nearby communities such as incinerators or landfill sites.
One benefit that has just been canceled by the city government is the yearly NT$45,000 holiday bonus for the Lunar New Year, the Dragon Boat Festival and the Mid-Autumn Festival.
Borough wardens are also allowed to hold other jobs as the post is not considered full-time.
A recent poll has shown that young people and well-educated groups know the least about the function of wardens.
The poll, conducted by the Association of Observing Borough Wardens last Thursday, showed that more than 57 percent of Taipei residents do not know what the duties of borough wardens are and nearly 59 percent would not be able to give the contact information of their respective wardens.
The poll also revealed that of the 42.6 percent of the interviewees who what borough wardens do, 10 percent thought they are simply responsible for holding recreation fairs and excursions for communities, while 6.78 percent thought they mainly worked to maintain the environment.
The survey had a total of 1,077 respondents with a three percent margin of error.
The poll also showed that 5 percent of the interviewees with an elementary school level of education and 7 percent of respondents with secondary school education said they would not go to vote. However, about 82 percent of those polled with a graduate school-level education said they would not vote.
The ability of the warden candidates has also been questioned.
Another poll that investigated borough-warden candidates capable of using the Internet revealed that nearly 50 percent of the candidates could not.
The poll also found that less than 80 current borough wardens among the 366 seeking re-election had updated the official Web sites for their designated communities.
Lee Shih-hsun (
"Taipei City is highly advanced in terms of Internet availability, and many of the city's policies are related to promoting Taipei as a cyber-based city. But the rank-and-file public officials were lacking the necessary computing skills, and that could be a great setback," Lee said.
"How are they going to provide a better and more efficient service if many of them don't use the Internet?" Lee asked.
It's not only young residents that are unclear about the duties of their wardens, senior citizens are also unsure about what exactly the the officials have contributed to their communities
"I don't know, [what they have done for us] ... I have lived in this borough for more than 10 years, but I have never received any service from the borough warden," said an elderly lady who runs a small breakfast stall at the Min-chao Borough, in Da-an district.
"The current warden doesn't even live in this borough, he just has his office here," she added, referring to Chang Lung-yan (張隆彥), who was recently branded by a competitor a "phantom borough warden" as he is registered as having a residence in the ward, but does not actually live there.
Taipei City Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (
Ma said at a press briefing last Friday that "many of these ward wardens are very old, so it is to be expected that they are not good at using the Internet."
"But actually some of the boroughs I visited before had set up very comprehensive Web sites to enhance their service network, and compared with boroughs outside the city, Taipei's situation is better than the rest of the country," Ma said.
In response to the poll results that nearly 40 percent of the residents do not know whom their wardens are, Ma said, "It is good enough that 60 percent of them know."
Regarding the low level of understanding among young people about what borough wardens do, Ma said, "It is the young people who should be held accountable for the result."
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