During the next few days, the Government Reform Committee (
But this bill is ridiculous and its reasoning incomprehensible. Legislators often complain that their tenure is too short, but members of the US House of Representatives are elected for two-year terms. If official posts in democratic countries were not elected frequently, it would violate the most fundamental principle of power residing with the people. Four-year tenures are common for officials in democratic countries, but for US and Japanese senators it is six years, while the French presidential term is seven years. It therefore seems reasonable for Taiwan's legislators to have four-year terms.
However, the design of such systems cannot disregard national differences. When I was studying abroad, I heard that some countries allowed their citizens to vote by mail, which impressed me. But then I immediately thought of Kuo Yu-hsin (
I also recalled a joke Lenin made about Germany, where he said one had to wait in line to get into the railway station even when trying to start a revolution. But Chinese men and women, young and old alike, seem to use their kungfu skills, jumping through windows and the like, when scrambling for train seats. Can people with such different qualities be treated the same way?
With so many legislators starring in scandals, how unruly and unscrupulous will they be if we give them a four-year term? Does the idea of such a term length make you feel at ease?
Another rationale for extending the legislative term is so that legislators can be elected at the same time as the president, thereby avoiding a discrepancy between "older" and "newer" public opinion. This, however, is a case of not seeing the forest for the trees.
Imagine if legislators and the president are elected at the same time but the Constitution remained otherwise unchanged. If one party wins the presidency but does badly in the legislative elections, how should that situation be dealt with? Should the public opinion reflected in the legislative elections be given preference, with the majority party or coalition forming the government while the president goes off fishing or mountain climbing? This would be greatly disappointing to the president's supporters. In such a scenario, the country might as well change over to a parliamentary system, since there is no real need for the president to be elected directly by the people.
Or should we let the party that wins the presidency walk away with the whole prize, leaving an angry legislative majority attacking the government through boycotts? This would be very destabilizing for the country, as can be seen from the past 18 months. Absurdity and stalemate would continue.
The alternative is to amend the Constitution to take into account such an electoral outcome, where the president and the majority party or coalition in the legislature each hold half the power. Currently, if the legislature
proposes a vote of no confidence, and the premier and the president respond by dissolving the legislature, fresh legislative elections would have to be held. This would mean that the legislature once again would be elected at a different time from the president.
Unless we decide whether we want a parliamentary, presidential or semi-presidential system, we can't even begin to discuss the simultaneous election of legislators and president and extending legislative terms. The Government Reform Committee has said nothing about these issues. Even so, none of these systems necessitates the simultaneous election of legislators and president.
It is true that elections costs money. However, extending the legislative term in order to decrease the number of elections is a big undertaking for a small return and would prove in the end to be an even greater drain on national resources.
Ladies and gentlemen of the legislature, if you want to extend your tenure, then let's discuss it once you have earned the respect of the people of Taiwan.
Lin Li is a an associate professor at the Graduate Institute of European Studies, Tamkang University.
Translated by Perry Svensson
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