Apple Daily Endorses Saturday's Referendums

Apple Daily's editorial page today called on Taiwanese voters to vote for social justice by voting for both referendums in Saturday's election. It correctly points out that both referendums--the KMT's anti-corruption referendum and the DPP's KMT Party Assets referendum--are serious issues that enjoy strong support from the electorate. And as everyone's favorite tabloid points out, constitutional government is not a joke, and voters should punish both parties for playing games with the people's right to direct democracy. The KMT is singled out for extra scorn for having first put forward referendums and then calling for a boycott of their own referendum.

Legislative Analyses

Max Hirsch of Kyodo News has a nice article on the upcoming legislative election in January, which in many ways is the more important of the two elections. The whole thing is here:

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As eyes turn to Taiwan's presidential race, the outcome of which will impact on key security interests for Japan and the United States, another electoral showdown with arguably more important consequences draws near.

Wednesday marks one month before Taiwan's general elections in which the island's ruling and opposition camps lock horns in races whose implications are reaching past parliament to reshape the overall political landscape.

For starters, the general elections Jan. 12 will serve as a litmus test for the presidential election on March 22, observers say. Whichever party beats its rival in parliamentary elections will pass on to its presidential candidate ''decisive momentum.'''

'A victory in general elections typically works out to be a big advantage going into the presidential election -- it enables a party to be seen as a winner, and voters like a winner,'' says Michael Boyden, director of Taiwan Asia Strategy Consulting.

That message is not lost on the opposition Nationalist Party amid speculation that a ''pendulum effect'' could turn a parliamentary win into a black mark for the presidential election.

That is, Taiwan -- which in 2000 emerged from nearly 60 years of sometimes brutal, one-party rule by the Nationalist Party (KMT) -- may not be ready to see one party dominate both the legislative and executive branches.

Hence, voters might swing back to whichever party that lost the parliamentary elections when casting their presidential ballots -- a scenario that KMT heavyweights dismiss.

''We need a victory in parliamentary elections in order to win the presidency,'' says KMT Secretary General Wu Dun-yi. ''Keeping our majority in parliament will give us the momentum we need before the presidential election.''

The KMT has enjoyed majority status in parliament since the lifting of martial law in 1987.[Nit: Actually, the pan-Blues had a majority; the largest single party was the DPP until last year when several members quit.]

In 2000, the Democratic Progressive Party pushed the KMT from the Presidential Office after the DPP's Chen Shui-bian won the presidential race that year -- a victory he repeated in 2004.
Next month, the DPP hopes to clinch parliament with at least 50 seats for itself and seven for allied parliamentarians in the unicameral, 113-seat body, says Chen, who also serves as DPP chairman.

The KMT seeks ''65 to 70 seats,'' says a KMT insider.

''Street cred'' and ''stature,'' Boyden says, will go to the presidential candidate whose party wins majority status in parliament.

Beyond implications for the presidential race, however, the general elections' outcome could radically alter Taiwan's relations with Japan and the United States, the island's chief security benefactor.

A halving of the parliament from its current 225 seats to 113 in the next session, for example, will see key legislative committees merge.

And among the committees to merge, Wu says, are the National Defense and Foreign and Overseas Chinese Affairs committees.

Combining those committees will put one group of parliamentarians in charge of both defense and diplomacy bills, by far the most important legislation in terms of relations with Tokyo and Washington, says Kharis Templeman of think tank Taiwan Foundation for Democracy.

Hence, how that committee is stacked as a result of the parliamentary elections will play a key role in foreign relations.

The sheer power of parliamentarians on such a committee, Templeman says, ''isn't necessarily a bad thing. Having a few powerful committee members could make it easier to negotiate across party lines. We could see quicker responses to foreign policy issues put to the legislature, like weapons systems offered by the U.S.''

Parliamentary gridlock led to Taiwan's stalling on a huge U.S. arms package, offered to the island in 2001.

The DPP blames the opposition for killing some 65 bids to consider the package in parliament, while the KMT slams the DPP for poorly budgeting the proposed weapons.

The parliament finally passed a reduced package earlier this year, allotting funds to buy a defensive missile system and antisubmarine warfare aircraft from Washington.

But Taipei's dawdling seriously damaged ties with Washington amid concerns there and in Tokyo that Taipei does not take its defense seriously.

China, which vows to unify Taiwan with the mainland, threatens to attack the island if it formalizes its de facto statehood.

Those threats concern Tokyo because any conflict in the Taiwan Strait could result in U.S. military intervention, which in turn could drag Japan's Self-Defense forces into the fight via a joint defense pact.

With both the DPP and KMT vowing to pass future arms bills, however, a streamlined parliament boasting more powerful incumbents promises to ease gridlock.

Thus, while the presidential race looms large in gauging Taiwan's future ties with key partners, it is the island's next parliament, and the impact of general elections on the presidential race, that pack the most political wallop, both at home and abroad.

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A-gu has been putting together a wonderful tool for assessing the election, an interactive map on the Google Map platform. It's right on his blog; have a look.

[Taiwan]

DPP to topple own premier?

The DPP is moving closer toward a joining a no-confidence vote in the Premier initiated by the PFP last year. The new premier, Chang Chun-hsiung, observed.....

Speaking to reporters at the Grand Hotel after attending a national drug control conference, Chang said he respected the president's and legislators' positions on toppling the Cabinet to pave the way for a dissolving of the legislature.

The Constitution stipulates that the president may, within 10 days following the legislative approval of a no-confidence vote against the premier, dissolve the legislature.

As of Friday, 46 out of the the 83 DPP legislators had endorsed Chen Chin-de's motion, 26 signatures short of the one-third threshold required to send the motion to the legislature.

Chen Chin-de said he would work toward getting more DPP legislators on board.

Explaining the rationale behind the motion, he said the prevailing disorder in the pan-blue-dominated legislature had seriously hindered administrative operations and that "now is the time to put an end to the farce."

Several DPP legislators, however, have expressed doubts about the no-confidence motion, which has also drawn flak from legislators in the opposition.

The politics of this is now quite interesting. The KMT has been doubtful about toppling the Premier since the idea was first proposed last year when the recall motions against Chen Shui-bian failed (as they were inevitably bound to)....as I wrote at the time:

The Blues' obsession with taking out Chen has now led them to propose that, if they fail to bring down Chen, they will bring down the government so they can form a new legislature....so they can bring down Chen. There's no clearer statement of the radicalism of the Blues, who are willing to destroy governance on the island so that they can bring down a President who now has less than 18 months left in his tenure. The Blues are not a stability party; they are radical reactionaries, and they will cheerfully sacrifice the interests of Taiwan, Japan, the US, and the region to achieve their goals. I hope policymakers in Washington are following this closely. You've picked the wrong side, guys, and the Blues are going to betray you in the end.

The DPP has picked up this radical move, which is not likely to be greeted with joy by the business sector, as a possible answer to the problem of the legislative deadlock caused principally by the KMT and its allies. Call their bluff; force a vote. Not all the DPP legislators favor the move, however.

Speculation: lurking behind this is the upcoming legislative election. The KMT wants to have the legislative and Presidential elections at the same time. Since it has more money, it can afford that, while the DPP cannot and would prefer to have the elections at separate times. Not by coincidence the KMT recently complained about the Central Election Commission's decision to set the date of the legislative elections to Jan 12. Suddenly here is the PFP offering a way to do that: dissolve the legislature, force elections early -- which hurts the KMT more, since its more extensive local networks require stroking with flows of cash and patronage that take time and effort to arrange. Advantage? Hard to say, but it hurts the DPP less to have the elections early.

[Taiwan] [DPP] [KMT] (crossposted at The View from Taiwan)

Bullets and Elections in Taiwan

The popular China blog ESWN, discussing the recent bullets flying in Taiwan, observes....

(TVBS) In Taichung's District #3, DPP legislature candidate Hsieh Hsin-ni lost her primary election but she has filed an appeal on the grounds that one of the polling research companies had an improper business relationship with her opponent and this company gave her really bad numbers that resulted in her losing by 0.28%.

Yesterday, the office of Hsieh-Hsin-ni received a threatening letter which contained a bullet. The letter told her not to support DPP presidential candidate Frank Hsieh anymore.

Hsieh Hsin-ni had appealed to the Appeals Committee of five persons, of which three agreed that there was a procedure flaw in the selection of the polling research companies. But there was also no evidence of wrongdoing by that research company. The matter has been referred to higher levels. If the polls should have to be taken over again, then Hsieh Hsin-ni's current public campaign against the nefarious collusion between her opponent and the polling company will in fact be an unfair factor in the public's mind. That is to day, a poll taking back then and a poll next week will differ to the extent that the public has been exposed to blanket coverage of the public brawl. Oh, yes, it is also well-known that bullets can affect election outcomes in Taiwan.

That last sentence appears to refer to the assassination attempt on Chen Shui-bian by a disgruntled Blue supporter the day before the 2004 Presidential election. It's an article of faith among the pro-Blue crowd that Chen arranged to have himself shot, or dickered the surgery, or something, but anyway, it was all a conspiracy, and of course, it swung the election over to Chen. This theory is on par with alien abduction claims and spoon-bending and other claims of faith that fly in the face of reality -- those same people who constantly claim that Chen and the DPP are hopeless incompetents nevertheless argue that they pulled off a conspiracy involving a cast of thousands at several different locations. The one good thing about, however, is that it makes it easy to sort out who is pro-Blue: pretty much anyone who pushes this theory.

Reality is a bit different than the pro-Blue fantasies alluded to by ESWN, however. It is an article of faith among the Blues that the assassination swung Chen over the edge, giving him the election, but no evidence exists to support this claim. In fact, Agence France Press (AFP) reported on March 7, 2004, that the pro-Blue China Times had come out with a poll showing that the election was close and that Chen had a slight lead over Lien Chan on March 6, 40-38. DPP internal polls were also showing a very tight election with Lien Chan trailing Chen Shui-bian as well by this time. Two days later the pro-Green Taiwan Thinktank came out with a poll that showed results similar to the pro-Blue polls, putting Chen up 40-39.5. In other words, both sides had the election was tight with Chen leading two weeks prior to the assassination attempt.

Chen won by less than 1% of the vote, a number that would have been greater if invalid ballots had been counted, as they had in previous elections. In early March he was leading by up to 2%. Any way you cut it, there's no support in any numbers for a claim that the assassination gave Chen the victory. Instead, any rational analysis of the 2004 election results would have to start with the incompetence of the Blues, who thought they had the election in the bag, mailed in their campaign, and blew a 20 point lead from the 2000 election - a lead that shrank steadily from December of 2003 on. They also had no counter for the 2-28 rally three weeks prior to the election that brought together people from all over the island, and apparently pushing up Chen's support. The DPP government thoughtfully arranged for the Taipei-Ilan tunnel to open five days before the election, and several other things, such as a last-minute endorsement of Chen by Nobel Laureate Lee Yuan-tse, also fell the DPP's way. Fundamentally, if you start with a 20+% lead, and lose by 1%, then you're the one with a problem.

The full irony of the KMT selecting Lien Chan as its Presidential candidate in 2004 is that in 2000, when the Blue vote was split between Lien Chan (24%) and James Soong (38%), enabling Chen to win with 39% of the vote, Deep Blue conspiracy theorists blamed Lee Teng-hui for promoting the candidacy of Lien Chan as a way to split the Blues. Wikipedia records:

Though more popular and consistently ranked higher in the polls, the outspoken former Taiwan Governor James Soong failed to gain the Kuomintang's nomination. As a result, he announced his candidacy as an independent candidate. The Kuomintang responded by expelling Soong and twenty one of his allies in November 1999. It is a very common belief by KMT supporters that President Lee Teng-hui was secretly supporting Chen Shui-bian, and purposely supported the less popular Lien in order to split the Kuomintang, and this belief was given a great deal of credibility after the 2000 election with Lee defected to the pan-Green coalition. Soong, a mainlander, tried to appeal to the native Taiwanese by nominating pro-independence surgeon Chang Chao-hsiung as his running-mate.

In other words, the KMT conspiracy position on the 2000 election recognizes, explicitly, that Lien Chan was too unpopular to win. Yet in 2004 that very same KMT went ahead and nominated that very same Lien Chan themselves!

It is clear that the function of the Chen Asassination conspiracy claim is twofold: it exists to attack Chen Shui-bian, and to more importantly, to divert attention from the incompetence and venality of the Blues.

On a lighter note, in that same post ESWN observes that

Late today, independent legislator Li Ao's office received a threatening letter with a bullet in it. The author claimed to be the leader of a criminal gang and he used foul to language to call Li Ao a coward who is taking money from Frank Hsieh. The writer also said that only Ma Ying-jeou can save taiwan.

Li Ao is a pro-annexation mainlander who ran for President in 2000 on the New Party ticket, the first of the many parties to spin off from the KMT. Li Ao, you may recall, gassed the legislature last year. Li once brandished a knife during a legislative session and told Minister of Defense Lee Jye that he should castrate himself. He has also claimed that the CIA gave him information that Chen arranged his own assassination. Li, who was once a useful public intellectual, has become a clown who told the authorities in Beijing that he hopes they have another 1,000 years of rule....

This is not the first time for Li Ao to make a bullet claim. A couple of years ago he also reported that he recieved a bullet in the mail. Let's hope the police find the culprit, whom I suspect will not be very far from Li Ao's mailbox....

[Taiwan] [Li Ao] [ESWN] [media] [Chen Shui-bian] [KMT] (cr0ss-posted from The View from Taiwan)

Referendums Redux

In 2004 one of the ways the DPP stoked its base and powered its way to victory was the use of referendums held during the election. One purpose may have been to demonstrate a popular basis for DPP policies; another, to establish the use of popular referendum, thus taking another step toward independence of government, but mainly, the referendums were intended to get out the DPP base. The China Post described them yesterday:

Taiwan held its first referendum alongside the presidential election of 2004. President Chen Shui-bian initiated the referendum on a dialogue between Taipei and Beijing and the purchase of defense missiles from the United States.

The DPP is currently proposing adding two referendums to the '08 poll.

Trong Chai, acting chairman of the Democratic Progressive Party, pledged yesterday no effort will be spared to have two referendums held alongside the presidential race of 2008.

He told a press conference the party and the government have decided to push for the referendums on "ill-gotten" assets of the Kuomintang and the accession to the United Nations under the name of Taiwan.

"We'll be doing whatever we can to have both held at the same time with the presidential election," Chai declared.

The referendums (Note how the pro-KMT China Post puts the term ill-gotten in quotes) are aimed at popular topics -- support for entry into the UN is strong, and the stolen assets of the KMT are a major issue for Greens. This formula was successful in 2004, but it remains to be seen whether the DPP is fighting this war with the weapons of the last one. Last time around the KMT countered with a program of fei piao, urging Taiwanese to cast invalid ballots as a way to express disapproval of the system, through the "One Million Invalid Vote" alliance. Its success was demonstrated by a near-tripling of invalid ballots from 122,000 in 2000 to 330,000 in 2004 (due also in part to more stringent rules about what constituted a valid ballot). No doubt a similar 'grass-roots' movement will appear in 2008 as well.

One key factor here is the Central Election Commission (CEC). The CEC will vet and approve the referendum process, and the KMT is out to gain control of that institution.

Lawmaker Tseng Yung-chuan, Kuomintang legislative caucus whip, said yesterday it's unfair to let the Central Election Commission decide on whether to hold two referendums alongside the presidential election of 2008.

At a press conference at the Legislative Yuan, Tseng characterized the CEC, founded in 1982 under the Executive Yuan to hold and supervise elections, as an "illegal institution."

"It's unfair to let the illegal institution make a decision on such an important issue as referendums," Tseng pointed out.

The ruling Democratic Progressive Party has control over the CEC, which the opposition Kuomintang has tried in vain to reorganize.

A Kuomintang-sponsored bill to amend the appointment of commissioners according to the proportional representation in the Legislative Yuan has been stalled by the ruling party.

Recently the KMT has been holding the national budget hostage by demanding that the DPP accede to its demands on the CEC. The CEC will determine whether the referendums get on the ballot. It also oversees the fairness of elections, and validates, and reports on, results. It triggers investigations of vote buying, crucial tactics of the KMT and its allies.

Speculation: why is the KMT so concerned about the CEC? Cynical remarks about the KMT objecting to fair elections aside, there are repeated rumors that Shih Ming-teh, leader of the anti-Chen campaign, is getting Chinese money. Shih actually met with Chen Yu-hao, the accused embezzler who fled to China years ago, in Thailand, held to be a favored meeting ground of the CCP and the KMT. I'm wondering whether the KMT wants electoral law oversight to be lax because it is expecting an influx of Chinese money for use in the 2007 legislative elections and 2008 presidential elections. It sure is interesting that the first thing Wu Po-hsiung did after announcing his ascension to the Chairmanship of the KMT is to run to Beijing to hobnob with the CPP leadership.....

[Taiwan] [China] [DPP] [KMT] [2008 Presidential Election] [corruption]

Caning for an At-Large Seat

One reason Taiwan's politics are filled with grandstanders is that grandstanding gets attention, which gets votes. Although the new legislative districting system is supposed to eliminate that, the tactic remains useful.

Thus the suggestion that sex offenders be caned that was mooted yesterday by a DPP femme legislator. I'm not going to comment on how stupid that was; I am sure the blogosphere will be filled with wonderful snark today. Note, however, that this was coupled with a threat against the DPP's political heavyweights (emphasis mine):

At a press conference in the legislature yesterday, DPP Legislator Hsueh Ling (薛凌) demanded that presidential contenders declare their stance toward the proposed amendment immediately.

She also called on lawmakers to back an amendment to the Sexual Assault Prevention Law (性侵害防治法) that includes the provision on caning.

She said she would publicize the names of presidential contenders who did not back the amendment, adding that she hoped it would pass cross-party negotiations this week.

Proposing provocative public policy? Penalizing Presidential pretenders? It's the P-word: Primary. Hsueh Ling is neither stupid nor fruitcake. As my pal Jason pointed out to me, the redoubtable A-gu listed her among the DPP hopefuls for an at-large seat (parties are granted at-large legislative seats proportional to their score in the election -- if a party wins 45% of the elected seats, they get 45% of the at-large seats). Moreover, half the at-large seats go to the Fair Sex. The DPP is making noises about settling the at-large seats by election somehow, instead of by backroom deals, the usual method.

Hence the publicity grab by Hsueh Ling -- she's positioning herself for the at-large primary by the tried and true method of running "against" the party elites while grabbing an issue that no one could object to, punishing rapists -- a classic "woman's" issue. Thus the Law of Unintended Consequences strikes again: it was thought that the new legislature would lead to fewer unseemly displays by legislators to get elected, but instead, the penchant for publicity stunts appears to have simply shifted to the competition for at-large seats. Hsueh is ahead of the curve, but look for more fun stuff to follow as we approach the election.

[Taiwan] [DPP] [2007 legislative election]