Voters across Taiwan are to elect mayors, county commissioners, councilors and village and borough wardens in local government elections on Nov. 26. Hopefully they will vote for the best and most capable candidates. If not, at least they can prevent collusion between elected officials and illicit interest groups. Political parties should be especially careful about vetting party primary candidates.
International studies on government integrity show that organized crime groups often target local elections, where they give their backing to candidates who are easily manipulated and have relatively poor academic backgrounds, and then use a carrot-and-stick approach to confuse voters into supporting them.
After their preferred candidates are elected, and they have interfered with government personnel appointments, they pervert the distribution of public resources for waste disposal management, and engineering and construction projects to line the pockets of organized crime groups in return for political donations. Such kickbacks might be strategically expedient, but the impression of unfairness would eventually be borne by the governing party.
The ever-rising cost of standing in elections gives organized criminals an opportunity to use money to enter the political arena by using politically ambitious young people.
When political parties field candidates with criminal backgrounds, it has nothing to do with giving opportunities to reformed offenders. It only reveals the extreme shortage of talent in the party and causes honest people to shy away.
There are many things rehabilitated convicts could do for society besides entering politics.
Prosecutors, anti-corruption departments and investigators deserve credit for their crackdown on corruption in local governments, as do the courts for imposing sentences on elected officials who fraudulently claim assistant fees.
Tsao Yao-chun is a researcher with the Chinese Association of Public Affairs Management and an expert in evaluating international government integrity.
Translated by Julian Clegg
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