The New Power Party’s (NPP) legislative caucus and Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Lai Jui-lung (賴瑞隆) have each proposed amending election laws to ban elected officials from simultaneously running as a candidate for another election.
They aim to prevent elected officeholders from breaking their promises to voters, and the proposals have been submitted to legislative committees for review, they said.
The NPP’s proposed amendment targets all elected officials, while Lai’s is aimed only at elected government heads.
The NPP bill would amend the Civil Servants Election and Recall Act (公職人員選舉罷免法) and the Presidential and Vice Presidential Election and Recall Act (總統副總統選舉罷免法) to include a resign-to-run requirement.
It said that the proposal would prohibit elected officeholders from running for other posts without finishing their current term, as an election campaign might distract them from their duties, and it could avoid issues with candidates returning to their posts if their election bid failed.
NPP Chairman Hsu Yung-ming (徐永明) yesterday said that elected officeholders running for other posts is common, which is a problem in responsible politics, and Kaohsiung Mayor Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) running for president was a typical case.
Han’s case irritated Kaohsiung voters, and the high number of votes in favor of recalling him on Saturday showed that they really cared about it, Hsu said.
Lai’s amendment proposal only targets government heads, which leaves people wondering if there is political manipulation behind it, Hsu said.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislators said that Lai’s version was aimed at “blocking” New Taipei City Mayor Hou You-yi (侯友宜) of the KMT from running in elections during his mayoral term.
Lai said that although there are many other elected officials in a constituency, the consensus is to only ask for government heads to resign to run for another office, but if everyone agrees that it should apply to all elected officials, he would support it.
Amendment proposals must be practical, because they would be hard to pass if the standards are set too high, he said.
Government heads have significant administrative power, so they should have more responsibility, he added.
Han announced his bid for president just three months after taking office as Kaohsiung mayor, and his taking leave to run in the presidential election and the long process leading to the recall election greatly affected Kaohsiung’s administrative performance in the past one to two years, Lai said.
Han, as the head of the city government leading many officials, should not have pursued another position without settling into his mayoral post, so when morality cannot stop such behavior, the law should, Lai said.
Lai said that the resign-to-run proposal is not aimed at any particular person, and officeholders would be qualified to run in an election if they resign from an already-held post.
The recall election results showed that voters have high expectations, so the law must keep up with their demands and face the problem practically to avoid wasting resources, he added.
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