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‘DISCONNECT’`︰Tsai said that ensuring the
legislature better reflects public opinion was more important than changing
the presidential system, but some disagreed By
Chris Wang / Staff reporter Tue,
May 27, 2014 - Page 1 The
moment for constitutional refrom in Taiwan has
arrived, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) chairperson-elect Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) said yesterday as she called for reform of the
Legislative Yuan structure before changing the constitutional system, with better
representation across the country that would benefit smaller political
parties. Tsai,
who was elected DPP chairperson on Sunday, made public her views on
constitutional reform in an articles published yesterday by the
Chinese-language Apple Daily — the first time she has made clear her position
on the issue. “While
many constitutional issues are awaiting solutions, the most important issue,
in my view, is finding a solution to resolve the disconnect
between the Legislative Yuan and public opinion,” Tsai wrote. Taiwan
is currently in a democratic crisis where the ruling party that controls the
legislative majority stands on the opposite side of the people and voters are
unable to change the “status quo” with any constitutional mechanism, Tsai
said. In
addition to a lack of representative democracy, she said people have no
recourse to national referendums to resolve disputes due to the high
threshold required. Tsai
proposed replacing the mixed-member majoritarian (MMM) system with
mixed-member proportional representation (MMP), which was adopted in Germany,
saying that the system would ensure that the number of seats a party receives
better mirrors the proportion of votes it received. The
MMP system ensures a party’s total legislative seats, including the
single-member seats and at-large seats, are proportional with its share of
the vote, thus benefiting smaller parties if the threshold of party votes
were lowered, while the MMM system’s methodology of calculating single-member
seats and at-large seats separately works against smaller parties and is
often criticized as unfair. The
system would also eliminate the current phenomenon of votes of unequal value
and ensure that smaller political parties are included in the legislature,
she said, adding that the DPP “has paid the price for messing up the previous
round of constitutional amendments in 2005 and has to be held responsible for
it.” Lowering
the threshold of a national referendum unrelated to changing the status of
the country to a simple majority is also necessary for the purpose of direct
democracy, Tsai said. However,
Tsai’s priorities regarding reform were questioned by several party members
and academics, who said that discussion of the presidential versus
parliamentary system should come before the legislature’s structure. National Dong Hua University professor Shih Cheng-feng
(施正鋒) said Tsai could intentionally sidestep the agenda because of her
planned presidential bid. Former
DPP legislator Lin Cho-shui (林濁水) wrote in a column published
yesterday by my-formosa.com, a news Web site, that Tsai should have
approached the constitutional reform agenda with a “broader perspective” by
promoting parliamentarism, which is widely
supported by the public. At
a time when even the pan-blue camp supports eliminating the Control Yuan and
the Examination Yuan, which means changing the separation of five powers —
the core of the Constitution — Tsai should seize the opportunity to promote
fundamental changes to the constitutional system, Lin said. “[Fundamental
changes] would provide more benefits to the people of Taiwan,” Lin said. Hung
Chi-kune (洪智坤), a member of the DPP’s
Central Executive Committee, also questioned whether reform of the
legislature and central government could be separated, saying that if Tsai
intended to prioritize legislative reform, she should have proposed to limit
presidential power at the same time.
* 《Taipei Times》2014/05/27。 |
