The DPP recently established a task force for promoting Constitutional reforms and proposed a timetable for Constitutional amendments aimed at reforming the legislature. The party hopes the Constitutional amendment proposals will be passed within one year and implemented in the 2004 legislative elections. The legislative reforms advocated by the DPP includes:
-- extending the terms of legislators to four years;
-- reducing the number of legislative seats to 150, of which 84 will be constituency-based seats, 60 will be at-large (proportional representation) seats, and six will be Aboriginal seats;
-- adopting a Japanese-style parallel double-ballot system with single-member districts;
-- maintaining the current "closed list" system and 5 percent threshold for legislator at-large seats (ie, a political party will have to win at least 5 percent of all votes cast in order to gain at-large seats);
-- having the government run the party primaries;
-- a 25 percent quota guarantee for women;
-- allowing candidates to run for constituency-based seats and legislator at-large seats at the same time;
-- a provision that the legislators' terms do not have to coincide with the president's term.
The KMT, the biggest opposition party, favors an absolute majority system, even though it generally supports the parallel double-ballot system and single-member districts proposed by the ruling party. The KMT has also raised doubts about election considerations behind the proposal and about the urgency of the reforms. The PFP and the TSU tend to support either a mixed-member double-ballot system with single-member districts or a double-ballot system with medium-sized districts, which is an improved version of the current system.
Apart from a unanimous position taken by the major political parties, the legislators' calculations of personal political interests and the local political milieu will also be key factors determining whether or not the ruling party's legislative reform proposal can be passed by a 75 percent majority at the Legislative Yuan before the end of this year. Setting aside the tricky, changing political factors, it is still worthwhile to discuss a few points in the ruling party's reform proposal from a systemic perspective.
First of all, if we look at Japan's experience of having twice implemented a parallel double-ballot system with single-member districts, we can see that legislator at-large seats in such a system may not necessarily compensate small parties appropriately for the votes they have "wasted" in single-member districts. In other words, a parallel system is no match for the mixed-member ballot system adopted in Germany and New Zealand when it comes to correcting the "proportional error" faced by small parties. In fact, the problem may become even worse in a parallel system than in Taiwan's current system. Unless the proportion of legislator at-large seats can be raised further, the gap between the proportion of votes won by a small party and the proportion of seats it gains may become wider than in the current system. On the other hand, a parallel system may give a better bonus to large parties. For example, in the 1996 election of Japan's House of Representatives, the Liberal Democratic Party won 38.6 percent of the vote in the single-member constituencies, but garnered 56.3 percent of constituency-based seats. In total, the LDP won 47.8 percent of all seats. In contrast, the Japanese Communist Party won 12.6 percent of the vote, but only 0.7 percent of constituency-based seats. In total, the JCP won only 5.2 percent of all seats.
However, viewed from another perspective, the parallel ballot system is more conducive to "political stability" because it is easier for large parties to win a majority. Perhaps this is the main reason why both the KMT and the DPP support a parallel system.
Next, more debate is needed on having the government run the party primaries. If we cannot stop the various irregularities such as vote-buying, violence, "ghost populations" (people mobilized to move their household registration into an area for the purpose of voting for a particular candidate) in the elections for government positions -- and these elections are currently run by the government -- then how can we expect to resolve similar problems in party primaries by having the government run them? Also, whether constitutional amendments are required to have the government run party primaries is open to question.
Next, Japan, Germany and New Zealand also have adopted electoral systems that allow candidates to run in constituencies and be included in the proportional representation lists of their parties (ie, vie for legislator at-large seats) at the same time. This has a definite effect in ensuring that the elite of various political parties (especially smaller parties) can smoothly enter the legislature. However, some kind of proportional limit is still appropriate. In the 1996 election of Japan's House of Representatives, the LDP nominated 288 candidates for constituency races, while at the same time putting 261 out of these 288 candidates on the party's proportional representation list. The Democratic Party nominated 143 candidates, of which 141 were included in the party list. This was ridiculed by the media as an opportunistic "double insurance" practice of politicians and prompted widespread public resentment. Apart from this, a "double nomination" system may create some problems in actual implementation if it is carried out alongside the two-round absolute majority system proposed by the KMT.
Finally, the 25 percent quota guarantee for women is gradually losing its significance in the current political environment. Also, it is impossible to guarantee the proportion of women elected in single-member constituencies. It may be better to aggressively encourage political parties to adopt a minimum quota for women in their nominations, both for constituency and at-large seats (one-third, for example). This may better help increase the opportunities for women to participate in politics.
Electoral reforms involve the substantial political interests of parties and individual politicians alike. It is no easy political engineering task in any country. How to rebuild positive communication channels between the ruling and opposition parties and how to awaken public attention should be the main preconditions for the successful completion of constitutional amendments for electoral reforms.
Wang Yeh-lih is professor of political science at Tunghai University.
Translated by Francis Huang
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