All sports associations must adopt a limited voting system when they elect members of the board, rather a block voting system, the Sports Administration said yesterday.
The change was made following a resolution approved by all four party caucuses in the Legislative Yuan on Wednesday, which bans sports associations from adopting a block voting system, amid suspicions that sports associations used nominal members to manipulate board elections, agency Director-General Lin Te-fu (林德福) said.
After consulting with legal experts at the Ministry of Education yesterday, the agency decided to change this particular clause in the enforcement rules, Lin said.
The policy marked a drastic change from the agency’s position on Wednesday, when it sports reform advocates demanded a response.
The agency on Wednesday said that the Enforcement Rules of the National Sports Act (國民體育法施行細則), which is to be made public next week, can only encourage sports associations to adopt the limited voting system, rather than demand it, because the agency “lacks legal authorization from the National Sports Act (國民體育法).”
The agency has faced heavy criticism over sports reform that it launched in September last year after the amendment of the National Sports Act cleared the legislative floor.
One of the crucial items on the reform agenda is to change the way membership applications and board elections are handled.
However, sports reform activists have identified abnormalities at several sports associations, such as the Chinese Taipei Swimming Association and the Chinese Taipei Volleyball Association.
They said that the management of these associations have tried to use nominal members to manipulate board elections to solidify their power.
The block voting system allows each member to cast as many votes as the number of seats available on the board, Lin said.
The downside of the voting system is that it would allow a relatively more powerful group within an association to take all the seats, Lin said.
“The limited voting system, by contrast, would limit the votes each member can cast to less than 50 percent of the available seats, which would ensure minority groups within an association can still survive,” he said.
Data from the Sports Administration showed that it has approved the organizational guidelines of 51 associations, of which 19 adopted the block voting system.
These associations would have to revise their guidelines to adopt the limited voting system, Lin said.
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