The Alliance of Congress Revolution, an organization consisting of social-action groups, appealed to the legislature to implement the two-vote electoral system and speed up amendments to the Constitution.
Ku Chung-hwa (顧忠華), convener of the alliance and a political professor at National Chengchi University (NCU), said the primary goal of the three-year old alliance is to reform the legislature.
"Election reform is our particular focus," Ku stressed.
Representatives from a handful of social action groups joined Ku in a press conference at the Taipei NGO House to voice support for the alliance' stance.
The alliance first wants the Legislative Yuan to amend the Election and Recall Law (
The legislature currently has 225 seats. While the nation's voters cast ballots for the 184 directly elected seats, their ballots are automatically distributed to the 41 seats for legislators at large, according to the proportion of votes that each party gains.
Yang Wan-ying (
The two-vote system, however, could greatly enhance the opportunities for minority-party candidates to be elected, Yang said.
Under the two-vote system, Yang said, voters would cast two ballots in the legislative election -- one for the candidate and the other for the party.
One advantage of the two-vote system, Yang added, is that while voters choose their favored candidates, they are also allowed to express support for the party that proposes policies of which they approve.
Therefore, even though minor parties cannot set up nationwide election networks as the major parties do, they still stand a good chance to win seats-at-large if their campaign proposals are popular among voters, Yang said.
The alliance's second appeal was for an amendment to the Election and Recall Law that would lower the guarantee fees that presidential candidates must put up if they want to run for office.
In addition, the government should pump more public funding into elections, the alliance said.
Chien Hsi-chieh, a DPP lawmaker and executive director of the Peacetime Foundation of Taiwan, said that the hefty guarantee money candidates have to pay hampers many people's aspirations of running in elections.
Chien cited a recent survey that revealed the average cost a legislative candidate has to spend during a single election amounts to NT$42 million.
"A legislator's pay during his or her four-year term totals, at most, to NT$20 million, Chien said.
"If candidates have to spend that much in a single election, wouldn't they strive to make as much as they could during their terms in office?" Chien asked.
Chien said it is hard to believe that candidates spending that much during an election could be free from corruption once they were elected.
Chien also urged the government to provide equal opportunities for all candidates to explain their policies by funding public debates or publishing election booklets that introduce all candidates and their proposals.
The alliance's third appeal is for the legislature to form a committee to amend the Constitution during its next session.
The legislature is widely believed to have too many seats, Ku said. To make the legislature more efficient, it is necessary to downsize the legislature, he said.
For that, the Constitution needs to be changed: "Constitutional amendment is essential for the downsizing of the legislature," Ku said.
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