Hello,
Jan asked me to post here my comments about the Taiwan Legislative elections last Saturday. I assume that the interested reader knows at least the basics about Taiwan politics, so I won't explain much that can be found on wikipedia. Also, http://www.taipeitimes.com/ is a good source of information in English. Post election issue: http://www.taipeitimes.com/News?pubdate=2008-01-13 For those interested, I will create (in Chinese) http://minguo.info/taiwan/ (link will become active in a couple of weeks from now) which will be the equivalent of the existing USA version: http://minguo.info/usa/ content: 1) comments on the legislative election. a- stupid old system b- stupid plurality system c- stupid party (DPP) 2) comments on the 2 referendums. a- stupid 50% rule. b- stupid party (KMT) c- stupid pick the ballot rule. d- stupid citizens 1) comments on the legislative election. ========================================== The legislature was halved, from 255 seats to 113 seats. The KMT barely lost a seat and they have 2/3 of the seats in the new legislature. The DPP lost big time, and smaller parties have all but disappeared. :( Also, this election was the first under a new voting system. a- stupid old system --------------------- There used to be several seats per district, and they had a crazy election system. Voters could only vote for one candidate, so that several candidates from the same party had to compete with each other. E.g. 4 KMT candidates, 4 DPP, 2 PFP, etc. would compete for 5 seats. A common strategy for the different parties, was to evaluate the vote percentage they were likely to get, and to ask voters to evenly spread their votes among the party's candidates according to the last digit of their ID card, or to their month of birth, etc... 8-| !! That system allowed for a limited amount of proportionality. Some minority (and controversial) candidates could get elected with a minority of votes. Thus, 5 parties were present in the old legislature: the KMT and the smaller PFP and NP on the blue camp, and the DPP and the small TSU on the green camp. b- stupid plurality system --------------------------- This system is gone, and we are now a single seat per district system, using plain plurality voting. In addition, the voter can cast a party ballot to elect some legislator-at-large, insuring a certain dose of of proportional representation *between the two major parties*. Thus, for the legislative election only, the voters had to cast 2 ballots: one for their own representative, and one for a party. c- stupid party ---------------- I am not sure who initiated the voting system reform. From what I read in the Taipei Times, the DPP at least supported this reform because they wanted to strengthen the two party system (in order to get rid of the annoying sister party in the green camp). If that's so, then the DPP deserve their loss, however much I regret the KMT's win. They shot themselves in the foot by making the wrong electoral reform for the wrong reason. 2) comments on the 2 referendums. ====================================== In my country (France) referendums are a common thing and accepted. In taiwan, it's still a novelty and the very fact of having a referendum or not is still a hot political issue. (In fact, the scandal in France is when we do NOT get to have a referendum. We voted NON to the European Constitution by referendum two years ago, and now the new government will ratify the barely amended constitution via the 2 legislative chambers united in a congress because they want to avoid another NON from the population by referendum!!) The KMT, including the party leader, presidential candidate and likely future president Ma Ying Jeou, has always been distrustful of the population. Ma has apposed (in the 1990s) a popular vote for the presidency. The president was until that time elected by the National Assembly. He has also opposed the legislation on the referendum... which finally passed through the legislature sometime in 2003 but in a very distorted shape. I am very angry when I think about how referendums are conducted in Taiwan. a- stupid 50% rule. ------------------- For the result of a referendum to be valid, at least 50% of the *registered voters* must participate. I.e. if at least 50% of the registered couch potatoes stay at home, the referendum will fail even if the vote expressed show 90% + support to the referendum item. Thus, the surest way to kill a referendum is to stay at home. Also, all those registered voters who genuinely don't care about the referendum one way of the other (e.g. the disinterested couch potato group of people), are all automaticall counted in the NO camp, whatever the question asked. !!! How much more undemocratic can that be?? b- stupid party ----------------- Of course, that 50% rule is used to great effect by the party opposing the referendum. During the first ever referendum (at the same time as the presidential elections in 2004), the KMT opposed the initiative by the president Chen (if only for the sake of opposing him). The 2004 referendum was a way for the Taiwan people to protest against the 800+ communist Chinese ballistic missiles pointed at Taiwan. The blue camp, always quick to defend the mainland Chinese interests, asked for a boycot of the referendum. Thus, most people voted YES, but not enough people participated and the referendum was invalidated. c- stupid pick the ballot rule. -------------------------------- Have you heard about the secrecy of the ballot? Why do we have polling booths, were we can privately cast our ballot privately? The anti vote-buying measures are strict in Taiwan. For example it is forbidden to bring a cell-phone into a voting booth or any other camera or video recording device. Yet, the presidential and referendum poll (in 2004) and the legislative and referendum poll (last Saturday) take place at the same time, at the same place. But we have *distinct* ballot papers distributed at different desks. Thus, by standing within the polling station, only by observing people and looking at whether they were going to pick up their referendum ballot, you could guess which party they would vote for. Citizens picking the ballot were most likely supporters of the pan-green camp, and those who didn't were pan-blue party supporters. Secret ballot??? Ha!! d- stupid citizens ---------------------- The Taiwan citizens lost a very good opportunity to have a very clear shot at dirty politicians. A caring and clever citizen should have voted YES to each of the two referendum questions that were asked last Saturday. Those who voted, did vote YES... but again, we have that stupid 50% participation rule... Let's go back a bit to understand the enormity of the opportunity that was just lost. The KMT has been for a long time (and may still be) the *richest political party in the world*. They ruled the country for 50+ years, and for some probably innocent reasons, they didn't make much difference between party assets, and national assets. Of course, when the democratization process began, they made sure that assets and real estate were registered in the name of the party. That's including prime location real estate at the very center of the capital, right across the street from the presidential palace (the party headquarter!). The KMT never came clean on the topic of "stolen assets". But in cases where the situation was getting too hot, they promptly sold at grossly bargained prices some huge real estates complexes, so that they wouldn't have to give it back to the State. This has been a hot topic ever since Chen became president, in 2000. Unfortunately, he never disposed of a majority in the legislature to pass a bill to have a proper audit made on the KMT party assets. So, this year they tried the referendum route, asking the citizens if a commission should be formed to investigate the matter, etc. That was the 1st referendum question, initiated by the DPP. Not to be outdone, the KMT came up with their own referendum question. The integrity of the president Chen has been questioned for a long time. His family has actually been investigated in a series of bribery scandals, including his wife, and his son in law. The son in law was actually found guilty, but I'm not sure: I have not followed the story very much. Heavy suspicions still linger on Chen's wife, and Chen himself. So, the referendum called for an investigation committee to be set up to investigate the people at the highest echelon of power, and their family, clearly targeting Chen and his family. But the fact is, the KMT didn't really want their own referendum to pass. For the people to vote in their referendum article, it would also imply that they would also vote in the DPP-initiated referendum. Obviously, they didn't want an audit of their stolen assets to be made. So, the official recommendation from the KMT: boycot the two referendums. Obviously, the right thing to do would have been to vote YES to the two referendums. Let's get rid of dirty politicians, whatever party they come from! It was a great opportunity to have the laundry done. An opportunity for the citizens to send a message to the leaders of the two parties: get your acts together, be clean, etc... But the stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid citizens, blinded by negative propaganda by the pro-blue media against Chen, failed to recognize that the KMT has a huge past (and present) of dirty and corrupted behavior. They don't see a referendum as a means of democratic expression, but as a dirty and corrupted tool created by Chen, and as such, each referendum ballot cast (whatever the question and whatever the answer) is, for them, a vote of confidence for Chen. ! So, by not participating in the referendum, they actually killed both measures that any intelligent person should have supported. Did I mention that the people are stupid? So, this time like in 2004, we could observe which people went to pick the referendum ballot, and which only voted in the presidential election. Mostly green camp supporter for the formers, and certainly a blue-camp supporter for the latter. Here is a telling incident: One person got confused upon entering the polling station. A doubly stupid KMT supporter, he went on to pick the referendum ballot. Upon realizing his "mistake", he tried to return the ballot to the election officials who refused to take it back. Since he certainly didn't want to cast it, he tore the ballot into pieces, which is a crime according to the local law. Well, I didn't hear that this voter got prosecuted for this. :-/ But this incident is indicative of the blind hatred of the supporters of one party against the other party. What a missed opportunity. How sad! Augustin -- http://minguo.info/ better election methods http://minguo.info/usa/ the USA FA/DP Free Association with Delegable Proxy: an internet experiment in democracy. ---- Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
