The ruling and opposition parties' interpretations of what is meant by a "coalition govern-ment" are mostly questionable, due to their lack of understanding and experience. President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), for example, believes that the DPP will become the biggest party after the year-end elections and will therefore take the lead in forming a coalition. Meanwhile, People First Party (PFP) Chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜) criticized a possible DPP-KMT alliance as a form of "political booty-sharing" (政治分贓).
In regard to Chen's view, the DPP will not necessarily become the largest party or establish a majority in the legislature. As for Soong, he fails to realize that there are at least three possibilities for a coalition and it is too early to broach any of them at this moment. This being so, it is better for us to examine the appropriateness and necessity of a coalition from two other perspectives.
First, Chen's recent comments on a coalition prove that his understanding of the semi-presidential system has improved. It is indeed necessary to win support from a majority in the legislature in order for the government to operate effectively. The majority should ideally be a stable majority, as a government with a slim majority will still be constantly threatened by the possibility of a no-confidence vote -- as shown by the experiences of many Western European countries.
There is another prerequisite for a coalition government: it can only exist when none of the parties occupies more than half of the legislature. From this point of view, Chen's comments that a coalition will be formed regardless of the outcome of the elections violate the principle of democracy. It will be impossible and in any case unnecessary to form a coalition if one party wins more than half of the seats.
Just like most local politicians, Chen believes that no party will be able to win such a majority and that it will consequently be necessary for the DPP to form a coalition. On the basis of that logic, however, Chen will encounter two difficulties in the future:
One, since a coalition is an inter-party matter, how each party makes its decisions on Cabinet personnel and national policies will determine how the ruling majority is formed. Any two of three leading parties -- the DPP, KMT and PFP -- will likely have the opportunity to form a coalition after the elections. There are therefore three possibilities for the coalition, unless the three agree to form a grand coalition. If the DPP fails to forge an alliance with another party, it may very possibly be excluded from the coalition and be forced to become an opposition party.
Two, even if the DPP can nudge its way into a majority alliance, it may not necessarily have enough seats to take control of the coalition. Cabinet appointments and divergent opinions on major policies could therefore lead to a reshuffle of the coalition.
Take government personnel matters for example. Following the communists' success in the 1981 French parliamentary elections, the ruling Socialist Party eventually agreed to concessions and named four communists as ministers, under pressure from the Communist Party. The Socialist-Communist coalition then began to govern without difficulty.
Next, in terms of policy
matters, after the German Social Democratic Party refused to support the market economy reforms proposed by its coalition ally, the Free Democratic Party in 1982, the FDP immediately ended the coalition by crossing over to form a new coalition with the Christian Democrats. Based on their fears of a similar scenario being enacted in Taiwan, some DPP members have recently called for the party charter to be amended in order to prevent the DPP from becoming an outsider in the event of a future coalition.
A coalition might be the only option by which our government can secure a stable majority. Where government personnel and matters of national policy are concerned, it appears necessary for the DPP to compromise on certain issues. Such a compromise would not amount to political booty-sharing. If both of the parties that form the coalition share responsibility and govern effectively, I believe that a coalition would win widespread support.
Hu Tsu-ching is an associate professor of political science at Tunghai University.
Translated by Eddy Chang
US President Donald Trump last week told reporters that he had signed about 12 letters to US trading partners, which were set to be sent out yesterday, levying unilateral tariff rates of up to 70 percent from Aug. 1. However, Trump did not say which countries the letters would be sent to, nor did he discuss the specific tariff rates, reports said. The news of the tariff letters came as Washington and Hanoi reached a trade deal earlier last week to cut tariffs on Vietnamese exports to the US to 20 percent from 46 percent, making it the first Asian country
Life as we know it will probably not come to an end in Japan this weekend, but what if it does? That is the question consuming a disaster-prone country ahead of a widely spread prediction of disaster that one comic book suggests would occur tomorrow. The Future I Saw, a manga by Ryo Tatsuki about her purported ability to see the future in dreams, was first published in 1999. It would have faded into obscurity, but for the mention of a tsunami and the cover that read “Major disaster in March 2011.” Years later, when the most powerful earthquake ever
As things heated up in the Middle East in early June, some in the Pentagon resisted American involvement in the Israel-Iran war because it would divert American attention and resources from the real challenge: China. This was exactly wrong. Rather, bombing Iran was the best thing that could have happened for America’s Asia policy. When it came to dealing with the Iranian nuclear program, “all options are on the table” had become an American mantra over the past two decades. But the more often US administration officials insisted that military force was in the cards, the less anyone believed it. After
During an impromptu Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) rally on Tuesday last week to protest what the party called the unfairness of the judicial system, a young TPP supporter said that if Taiwan goes to war, he would “surrender to the [Chinese] People’s Liberation Army [PLA] with unyielding determination.” The rally was held after former Taipei deputy mayor Pong Cheng-sheng’s (彭振聲) wife took her life prior to Pong’s appearance in court to testify in the Core Pacific corruption case involving former Taipei mayor and TPP chairman Ko Wen-je (柯文哲). The TPP supporter said President William Lai (賴清德) was leading them to die on
RSS