The new government has only been in power for a month, and already things have begun to heat up in the opposition. Flagrantly betraying its previous stance, the KMT passed an even more radical proposal for reduced working hours. It then forced the Execu-tive Yuan to replace stipends for the elderly with the National Pension Program, making it impossible for the government to make good on its election promises to institute a stipends program. The KMT passed a resolution not to participate in the cross-party task force on cross-straight relations to be led by Academia Sinica president Lee Yuan-tseh
The numerous difficulties plaguing the new government reflect how it has overestimated the powers bestowed on the president by the Constitution. After all, the constitutional power enjoyed by the president of Taiwan doesn't even come close to that enjoyed by, say, the US or French presidents in their respective "presidential" and "co-habitational" systems.
Taiwan's president can neither dissolve the legislature, nor put disputes between the cabinet and legislature to a public referen-dum. Thus he has no final bargaining chip to keep the legislature in check and no means of bringing public opinion into play in conflicts with the legislature.
Further, unlike his US counterpart, the Taiwanese president cannot directly lead administrative agencies, exercising executive power only through the premier and the ministers of the Executive Yuan. Add to that the fact that the votes of only half of all legislators are required to override a presidential veto -- considerably less than the two-thirds majority required in both houses of Congress under the US system -- and the Taiwanese president's powerlessness in the face of a legislative majority is all the more apparent.
Unfortunately, despite facing hostile KMT, PFP and New Party caucuses in the Legislative Yuan, the new government has failed adequately to prepare itself for battle.
The Executive Yuan still needs to improve its internal integra-tion. Lapses in communication between the president and the Executive Yuan, and between it and Legislative Yuan have allowed the opposition to step in and make the legislature the leader in policy direction. Even more serious is the fact that the government has overestimated the political usefulness of President Chen Shui-bian's
In Taiwan's political system, presidential power rests mainly in the political influence that the president is able to exert beyond the scope of the Constitution. When the Cabinet and Legislative Yuan are controlled by opposing majorities, if the president is unable to obtain the support of the legislature, not only will it be impossible to implement policy, but even a budget will run up against serious opposition.
In fact, faced with the predicament of opposing majorities in the cabinet and legislature, both the US and French presidents must face squarely the realities of party politics and fine tune the dynamics of interaction between executive and legislature before they are to achieve any success in implementing their programs.
In the US system, the president often appeals directly to public and media opinion in order to build pressure against a congressional majority, then uses this leverage to reach a consensus. Under France's semi-presidential system, the president has the means to dissolve parliament to form a legislative landscape more favorable to his administration. If the results of elections fail to meet expectations, there is no choice but to accept some form of coalition rule. The smooth operation of government depends on it.
Thus, the new government clearly hasn't faced up to the political reality of opposing majorities in the Cabinet and legislature. It thinks it can bypass brokering by political parties and run the government based on direct appeals to popular sentiment. But this kind of governance is too far removed from the political reality and so it has met stubborn resistance from the opposition.
The result, that the new government has virtually walled itself in, is hardly surprising.
Julian Kuo is an associate professor of political science at the Soochow University. Translated by Scudder Smith
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