Forcefully Pushing for Halving Parliamentary Seats Yesteryear, Now However Wanting to Increase Them

 Forcefully Pushing for Halving Parliamentary Seats Yesteryear, Now However Wanting to Increase Them

United Daily News Editorial (Taipei, Taiwan)

October 24, 2017

 Translation of an Excerpt

At the DPP National Party Congress, Tsai Ying-wen tossed out the issue of Constitutional reform, proposing four great directions, i.e., citizen rights for 18-year-olds, human rights clauses, equality of value for ballots, and establishing a government system of power commensurate with accountability. Among them, besides citizen rights for 18-year-olds, which are relatively concrete, the rest are fuzzy and not clear; precisely because of this, it has been repeatedly questioned by the outside world that tossing out the issue of Constitutional reform was nothing but political maneuverings. Only recently, the DPP’s direction for Constitutional reform has surfaced; it has been rumored that it intends to adopt the "joint system" à la Germany (election on party list by proportional representation), and increase the parliamentary seats in order to solve the problem in inequality of value for ballots.

The so-called "inequality of value for ballots" is a paradoxical issue. Whether it is better to have a "joint system" or the existing "parallel system" (district elections which combine with elections on party list by proportional representation), including how many parliamentary seats is more ideal, in theory and practice have a lot of divergences. In democratic countries, "equality of value for ballots" is of course an important principle, but it does not represent the supreme value. In the US Senate, for example, populations are 8-to-1 in the most populous state of California and the least populous state of Wyoming; they however each only elect two senators. Although this is the "inequality of value for ballots," it is, however, the realization of equality of power among the various states; people have not been questioning the United States for "contravening democratic principles."

Reviewing the many so-called "reforms" conducted by the DPP since returning to power, the targets have all been supporters of adversaries and quasi-adversaries. Therefore, if the DPP wants to change the electoral system, the major premise is logically "hurting adversaries" and "with no harm to itself." For this reason, this time the DPP claims that it wants to reform the “inequality of value for ballots,” so it is worth pondering what the DPP’s real intentions are. The answer, in fact, is obvious: One is reducing the number of seats in political sub-divisions, such as Matsu, Kinmen, Penghu and aboriginal districts with smaller electorates, and the second is increasing the total number of parliamentary seats.

In the area of increasing or reducing the total number of Parliamentary seats, it has also been full of political calculations. Years ago, when the DPP shouted out "halving parliamentary seats," scholars warned that it did not conform to the principles of democratic operations, and it would seriously undermine professionalism in the parliament. However, in order to camouflage its inefficient dominance, the DPP smeared the parliament, insisting on its own way. Now, if the DPP wanted to add back the seats that had been eliminated, how would it be able to explain the logic? The most ironic is that when Lin Yi-hsiung went on hunger strike to push for halving the seats in years gone by, while now the goal of pursuit has been erased by the DPP, he surprisingly came out to push for revising the "Plebiscite Act," and the DPP has said it will be realized before the end of year. What in the world is the value system as well as the right and wrong of the DPP?

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