Mon, Aug 27, 2001 page8

• Let party chairman lead caucases

  • By Lee Ching-hsiung 李慶雄
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  Since 1991, a certain number of seats have been reserved for a national constituency and the overseas Chinese communities in the National Assembly and Legislative Yuan elections. These seats are allocated by proportional representation.

  Prior to the election, each party submits two lists of candidates, one for the national constituency and the other for overseas Chinese communities. However, Taiwan voters do not vote directly for candidates on the party lists. Instead, they vote in their respective single nontransferable vote districts where several representatives are elected from a single constituent district, which is based on existing administrative boundaries. Each voter casts only one vote, and several leading candidates in each district are elected.

  Also the votes obtained by all candidates are totaled according to party affiliation. The seats for the national constituency and overseas Chinese communities are then distributed proportionally among the parties that capture at least 5 percent of total valid votes nationwide. Thirty percent of the seats in the National Assembly election of 1996 and 22 percent of those in the Legislative Yuan election of 1998 were filled this way.

  At a symposium some time ago, scholars from the KMT's think tank proposed that the leaders of opposition parties should be listed as legislators-at-large on the national constituency list. The "leaders of opposition parties" implied were of course Lien Chan (連戰) and James Soong (宋楚瑜).

  In countries with parliamentary systems, leaders of political parties [with parliamentary representation] are of course members of parliament, but in Taiwanese political culture, special attention is given to "the philosophy of status" (身段哲學): for former vice president and premier Lien and former provincial governor Soong to "condescend" to become mere legislators would be a face-losing move.

  Members of the DPP have long suggested listing the party leader on its national constituency list. Then, on the second meeting of the DPP's sixth national congress, some legislators proposed amending the procedures for nomination to public office (公職提名辦法), saying that the party chairman should be the first name on the national constituency list, and the chairman should also nominate the names for positions two to seven on the list.

  The goal for this was nothing more than the unification of the central party leadership with the legislative caucus, and to turn the DPP into an internally created political party. An internally created party has its roots in a grouping of parliamentarians who share the same views. The group develops into a political party when it begins to work together in parliament and organize election campaigns. Policy-making power lies largely with the parliamentarians and the party headquarters cannot control the party caucus in parliament. In this situation, the legislative caucus is the party's highest policy making authority.

  Simultaneously listing the party chairman and other political heavyweights on the national constituency list would create a shadow Cabinet in preparation for political power. The DPP at the time lacked people with foresight and had no way of predicting that Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) would be elected president five years later, and so little importance was attached to the amendment. When Chen was elected president last year and was looking for people to choose for his Cabinet, there were a limited number of legislators to pick from the national constituency list. He could only choose from legislators elected by a constituency, and as a result, the addition of a legislator to the Cabinet meant a loss of a legislator in the legislature. In a situation where almost the whole elite in each party takes part in the fight over constituency-dependent seats, the DPP does not need to look far for an example. The KMT's nomination of the party chairman to the national constituency list and establishing a shadow Cabinet -- either in preparation for regaining political power or for a coalition government -- is just a matter of foresight.

  Since the first complete election of the Legislative Yuan (in 1992), the legislature has become a base for influencing national policies. Since the DPP government came to power without a legislative majority, the total dominance of the executive branch or one single political party has become a thing of the past. Therefore, in a future political situation where none of the major parties in the legislature holds a majority, important national policies must be set through negotiations between parties before legislation is completed by the legislature.

  With the reorganization of the KMT's current Central Committee where legislators now hold a majority, and with legislators also being a majority of the PFP nucleus, their central party leaderships now coincide with their legislative caucuses, something that probably portends the future development of political parties.

  The DPP is currently advocating amendments to the Constitution -- "halve the number of seats in the legislature, and legislative chaos will disappear;" but whether or not there are too many seats in the legislature is a matter of opinion.

  The current chaos in the Legislative Yuan does not come from the number of seats, but rather from political parties' lack of restraint and the emphasis on personal achievement.

  Looking at parliaments in Europe and the US, there are parliaments with numbers in excess of 400 or 500 parliamentarians, but their parliamentary meetings are orderly, having both systems and ethics. If, therefore, the party chairman leads his legislative troops, his authority will naturally supersede that of the current party whip. Only then will future negotiations between ruling and opposition parties be authoritative.

  If the party chairmen are nominated to the national constituency list and take personal command of the Legislative Yuan, all that will be necessary is to amend the agenda regulations accordingly, and the chaos in the Legislative Yuan will disappear of itself.

  After the year-end legislative elections, it is a near certainty that none of the three [major] parties will obtain a majority. Regardless of whether it will be the DPP leading the establishment of a coalition government or a ruling alliance, or whether it will be the KMT and the PFP cooperating to create a Cabinet, it will be necessary to obtain a majority in the legislature. If a bipolar model with central party leadership and legislative caucus is used for party-to-party negotiations, the legislative caucus will be cold-shouldered, which may create many detrimental uncertainties.

  Due to past developments, the DPP's elite are all part of the legislative caucus, and the caucus thus is authoritative. The KMT, however, still lingers in the past power model with politics being led by the party. The decision-making model in the PFP, being a branch of the KMT, still is that whatever James Soong says is what counts.

  After the year-end elections, therefore, with battles for political power being held in the legislature in the absence of political leaders, it looks likely that orders from the leadership will not be passed down, which may lead to legislators leaving (their parties) due to discontent.

  When they are listed on the national constituency list, party leaders will also become the leaders of the legislature and negotiations between opposition and ruling parties will in future become political party summit meetings. Then, even highly difficult negotiations like constitutional matters could be solved in a single meeting, with no need to call additional meetings to solve matters of national importance. Making the legislature the center of national policy decision-making will be helpful to the development of party politics. Under the supervision of an ethical media, it would be difficult for the legislature to create chaos even if they would want to.

  Lee Ching-hsiung is a legislator for the Taiwan Independence Party.

  Translated by Perry Svensson
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