Political watchers are predicting a historically low turnout for Saturday's elections and warned yesterday that alienated voters absent at the polls may be a long-term trend.
In addition, a higher number of voters opting out of the elections would be detrimental to public discourse and the future of vital issues such as cross-strait relations, some said. Public participation is necessary to ensure a healthy democracy.
"I don't think any party has represented itself well in the past 18 months, frankly, and I think it's turning off the electorate," said Larry Diamond, senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.
"There has been too much bickering, too much negativity, too much short-term maneuvering for technical advantage. I think it is one reason we are likely to see a historically low turnout for this legislative election."
Diamond made the remarks before joining a group of foreign scholars for a closed-door, off-the-record meeting with Minister of Foreign Affairs Tien Hung-mao (田弘茂) yesterday afternoon.
While voter apathy could turn out to be a long-term trend, Diamond said, politicians could prevent that outcome by changing their behavior.
"One hopes that it will be temporary, and the politicians will learn from their mistakes, will govern more responsibly in a more cooperative fashion, and public confidence in politicians will return and the turnout will rise next time," he said.
Still, the possibility of long-term political alienation remains a threat and could weaken Taiwan's international standing, Diamond said.
"Political alienation is never a good thing in a democracy, and that is particularly dangerous in a country like Taiwan that is vulnerable, so vulnerable that if it doesn't have the active support and commitment of its own citizens to its democracy, I think it's weaker internationally," he said.
Diamond said that if Beijing perceives that voters are apathetic, it may be encouraged to be more bold in its dealings with Taiwan.
"I think if the PRC believes that there is a rising level of political alienation in Taiwan ... it could increase the scope for China to be intransigent and make mischief," he said.
But in a press briefing yesterday morning on Saturday's elections, other scholars interpreted the expected historically low turnout differently.
Citing a recent survey that found 81 percent of voters are dissatisfied with the campaign process, Emile Sheng (盛治仁), a political scientist at Soochow University, said the public was too worried about the economy to be bothered with the elections.
"The main focus is on who should take the blame for the [nation's] political instability and weak economic performance," Sheng said. "We might be expecting the lowest turnout rate in recent Taiwanese voting history."
Sheng also argued that many voters saw the drive for Taiwan's democratization as largely being achieved by last year's presidential election, which saw the nation's first ever transfer of power.
But Sheng also said that some apathy was "healthy," as in the past some Taiwanese "have cared too much about elections," with some couples even divorcing because they supported different candidates.
The key development that deserves close observation, scholars agreed, is whether President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) manages to stitch together an alliance after Saturday.
The idea of "a cross-party alliance for national stabilization" put forward by Chen is to "at least to prevent a no-confidence vote from being passed in the legislature," argued Lin Jih-wen (
Joseph Wu (吳釗燮), deputy director of the Institute of International Relations at National Chengchi University, urged the KMT to join the alliance to restore the party's waning influence.
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