Sun, Mar 06, 2011 page8

• Combined elections are a bad idea

  • By Lin Cho-shui 林濁水
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  Academics in the fields of law and political science may be universally opposed to combining the presidential and legislative elections because they think it would violate the spirit of the Constitution, but the government of President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), who holds a doctorate in juridical science from Harvard Law School, still seems intent on ignoring these academics.

  The professed reason the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) wants to combine the elections is that it would cut expenditure on electoral services. The claim is not new: In 2005, the administration of former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) organized three-in-one elections by combining county commissioner and city mayor elections, county and city councilor elections and township chief elections, and in 2009, the KMT government combined the same elections.

  On both occasions, the cost-cutting argument was used, but most people understand that this is not the whole story. The real reason is that the government believes combining elections will be beneficial to its own election results. The KMT does not even deny it, saying it will have a positive effect on the party’s performance in the presidential and legislative elections.

  There is nothing wrong with a government adjusting the election date to improve its own prospects. In parliamentary systems this has even become the norm, as the government chooses the time to dissolve parliament in order to improve its chances of winning re-election.

  However, this system should not be adopted in direct election systems where election terms are fixed.

  If the presidential and legislative elections are combined, the election date must be set at least one week before the newly elected legislators take up their positions. This would put it four months ahead of the legally prescribed presidential inauguration on May 20.

  When the new president has been elected, the incumbent will be heading a caretaker government that cannot make any major policy decisions so as to avoid conflict with the new government. This creates a constitutional vacuum, and that period should of course be as short as possible.

  The vacuum that currently exists because of the dates chosen in the past, holding the presidential election on March 20 and the inauguration on May 20, is already too long. This does not meet the needs of a modern society and it should be changed. If the presidential and legislative elections were to be combined, that would further extend and deepen the vacuum.

  If the incumbent president cannot accept the fact that the lame duck period is so long and therefore implements policies unacceptable to the president-elect, we are in trouble.

  The KMT legislators’ solution to this awkward situation is to suggest amending the law to prohibit a caretaker government from undertaking major policy changes. This means that regardless of any major incidents or natural disasters that may occur, the government would be suspended for four months while everyone waits for the inauguration of the president-elect so that he or she can handle the situation. This is preposterous.

  It also raises the question of what “major policy” means. Finding an objective standard is no easy task. The presidency is a high position and presidential policies are often highly political and partisan and can lead to a high degree of conflict over values. Passing such legislation would only create more disputes and problems.

  The fact is that even the three month political vacuum between the election and inauguration of township mayors — whose decisions do not have much relevance to party politics — that resulted from the combination of elections at three different levels, has resulted in many malpractices. The same is true of the political vacuum that was created by the elevation of the new special municipalities between the announcement of their evaluation and their final establishment.

  In addition, the vice president only plays a secondary role in Taiwan, having no practical power to speak of, but the Constitution and the constitutional amendments also stipulate that when there is no vice president, a new one must be elected within three months. Following this line of reasoning, there is no reason to let the president be a lame duck for four months.

  Past experience shows that when the government changes the election date in violation of the spirit of the Constitution because it thinks it will help win an election, the result is the opposite.

  When the Chen administration in 2004 changed the date for the legislative elections to Dec. 11, the day before the anniversary of the Kaohsiung Incident, things did not go very well. When they combined the elections in 2005 in order to cut government expenditure and called it a “reform demand” in the hope that it would please voters and improve their election chances, they were routed in both the county commissioner and city mayor elections.

  The DPP’s losses after having combined the 2005 elections pleased the KMT, which thought they would stand to profit from doing the same thing. However, the DPP won in the combined county commissioner and mayoral elections in 2009 and the special municipality mayoral elections last year.

  Not only that. By combining the elections, the KMT brought increased voter turnout in borough elections from the traditional 30 percent to 70 percent, suffering severe losses in the process.

  They really shot themselves in the foot that time. With his doctorate in law, Ma really should accept the generally agreed academic view and make it his first priority to follow the Constitution instead of manipulating election dates for party political gain.

  Lin Cho-shui is a former Democratic Progressive Party legislator.

  TRANSLATED BY PERRY SVENSSON
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