The Alliance of Congress Revolution, an organization consisting of social-action groups, appealed to the legislature to implement the two-vote electoral system and speed up amendments to the Constitution.
Ku Chung-hwa (顧忠華), convener of the alliance and a political professor at National Chengchi University (NCU), said the primary goal of the three-year old alliance is to reform the legislature.
"Election reform is our particular focus," Ku stressed.
Representatives from a handful of social action groups joined Ku in a press conference at the Taipei NGO House to voice support for the alliance' stance.
The alliance first wants the Legislative Yuan to amend the Election and Recall Law (
The legislature currently has 225 seats. While the nation's voters cast ballots for the 184 directly elected seats, their ballots are automatically distributed to the 41 seats for legislators at large, according to the proportion of votes that each party gains.
Yang Wan-ying (
The two-vote system, however, could greatly enhance the opportunities for minority-party candidates to be elected, Yang said.
Under the two-vote system, Yang said, voters would cast two ballots in the legislative election -- one for the candidate and the other for the party.
One advantage of the two-vote system, Yang added, is that while voters choose their favored candidates, they are also allowed to express support for the party that proposes policies of which they approve.
Therefore, even though minor parties cannot set up nationwide election networks as the major parties do, they still stand a good chance to win seats-at-large if their campaign proposals are popular among voters, Yang said.
The alliance's second appeal was for an amendment to the Election and Recall Law that would lower the guarantee fees that presidential candidates must put up if they want to run for office.
In addition, the government should pump more public funding into elections, the alliance said.
Chien Hsi-chieh, a DPP lawmaker and executive director of the Peacetime Foundation of Taiwan, said that the hefty guarantee money candidates have to pay hampers many people's aspirations of running in elections.
Chien cited a recent survey that revealed the average cost a legislative candidate has to spend during a single election amounts to NT$42 million.
"A legislator's pay during his or her four-year term totals, at most, to NT$20 million, Chien said.
"If candidates have to spend that much in a single election, wouldn't they strive to make as much as they could during their terms in office?" Chien asked.
Chien said it is hard to believe that candidates spending that much during an election could be free from corruption once they were elected.
Chien also urged the government to provide equal opportunities for all candidates to explain their policies by funding public debates or publishing election booklets that introduce all candidates and their proposals.
The alliance's third appeal is for the legislature to form a committee to amend the Constitution during its next session.
The legislature is widely believed to have too many seats, Ku said. To make the legislature more efficient, it is necessary to downsize the legislature, he said.
For that, the Constitution needs to be changed: "Constitutional amendment is essential for the downsizing of the legislature," Ku said.
TRAGEDY: An expert said that the incident was uncommon as the chance of a ground crew member being sucked into an IDF engine was ‘minuscule’ A master sergeant yesterday morning died after she was sucked into an engine during a routine inspection of a fighter jet at an air base in Taichung, the Air Force Command Headquarters said. The officer, surnamed Hu (胡), was conducting final landing checks at Ching Chuan Kang (清泉崗) Air Base when she was pulled into the jet’s engine for unknown reasons, the air force said in a news release. She was transported to a hospital for emergency treatment, but could not be revived, it said. The air force expressed its deepest sympathies over the incident, and vowed to work with authorities as they
A tourist who was struck and injured by a train in a scenic area of New Taipei City’s Pingsi District (平溪) on Monday might be fined for trespassing on the tracks, the Railway Police Bureau said yesterday. The New Taipei City Fire Department said it received a call at 4:37pm on Monday about an incident in Shifen (十分), a tourist destination on the Pingsi Railway Line. After arriving on the scene, paramedics treated a woman in her 30s for a 3cm to 5cm laceration on her head, the department said. She was taken to a hospital in Keelung, it said. Surveillance footage from a
BITTERLY COLD: The inauguration ceremony for US president-elect Donald Trump has been moved indoors due to cold weather, with the new venue lacking capacity A delegation of cross-party lawmakers from Taiwan, led by Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜), for the inauguration of US president-elect Donald Trump, would not be able to attend the ceremony, as it is being moved indoors due to forecasts of intense cold weather in Washington tomorrow. The inauguration ceremony for Trump and US vice president-elect JD Vance is to be held inside the Capitol Rotunda, which has a capacity of about 2,000 people. A person familiar with the issue yesterday said although the outdoor inauguration ceremony has been relocated, Taiwan’s legislative delegation has decided to head off to Washington as scheduled. The delegation
Another wave of cold air would affect Taiwan starting from Friday and could evolve into a continental cold mass, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Temperatures could drop below 10°C across Taiwan on Monday and Tuesday next week, CWA forecaster Chang Chun-yao (張竣堯) said. Seasonal northeasterly winds could bring rain, he said. Meanwhile, due to the continental cold mass and radiative cooling, it would be cold in northern and northeastern Taiwan today and tomorrow, according to the CWA. From last night to this morning, temperatures could drop below 10°C in northern Taiwan, it said. A thin coat of snow
RSS