Taiwan Today

The Jan. 16 national elections transformed Taiwan’s political landscape. Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) emerged victorious in the presidential race, while her party earned its first parliamentary majority. The DPP secured 68 of the 113 seats in the 9th Legislative Yuan, far outstripping its main rival, the Kuomintang (KMT), which saw its total fall from 64 to 35.

On Feb. 1, the nation’s new Legislature met to elect its speaker. The DPP candidate, and thus shoo-in for the post, was Su Jia-chyuan (蘇嘉全). Su garnered 74 votes after attracting support from six non-DPP parliamentarians, easily defeating his opponent for the position, KMT lawmaker Lai Shyh-bao (賴士葆). The DPP’s Tsai Chi-chang (蔡其昌) won a separate election for deputy speaker.

Although the DPP was the single largest party in the 5th and 6th Legislatures between 2002 and 2008, it has never before possessed a true majority. In those prior parliamentary terms, the pan-blue coalition, then comprised of the KMT, People First Party and New Party, had superior numbers to the pan-green coalition, consisting of the DPP and smaller parties such as the Taiwan Solidarity Union. With President Tsai being sworn in on May 20, the DPP for the first time has a ruling majority.

The party made reform of the Legislature a key aspect of its campaign platform, stating that the body should be more representative and that the speaker should be neutral. After being sworn in, Su announced that he and his deputy would immediately relinquish all their posts in the DPP to ensure impartiality. The new speaker also used the occasion to express his determination to enhance the transparency and professionalism of the lawmaking body.

“In order to end the vicious struggle between political parties in the Legislature, we must start by ensuring the impartiality of the speaker,” Su said. “To meet the people’s expectations, a parliament must adopt an open attitude and win the public’s trust.”

Greater Openness

Veteran KMT lawmaker Lai said the Legislature is already quite transparent, pointing out that legislative and committee meetings have been streamed online since February 2009. The body has eight standing committees, each focusing on a specific area. “It’s the process of cross-party negotiations that’s been hidden from public view,” Lai said.

Chang Hung-lin (張宏林), executive director of the Taipei-based nonprofit Citizen Congress Watch (CCW), said that Taiwan’s parliament possesses a relatively high level of transparency in comparison with those of many other nations. But he also stated that the system of closed-door cross-party negotiations made it possible for lawmakers to cut deals that did not best serve the public interest.

The Act Governing the Exercise of Rights of the Legislative Yuan, promulgated in January 1999, stipulates that cross-party caucus meetings must be videotaped and audiotaped and that the recordings must be made available to the public. However, according to Chang, prior to the current legislative session, the parliament had only ever released written documents outlining the results of the meetings. In response to Su’s call for greater transparency, complete recordings have been made public since the beginning of the current legislative session.

Cross-party negotiations are common worldwide. In Taiwan, they have been a formal part of the parliamentary process since the Act Governing the Exercise of Rights of the Legislative Yuan took effect at the start of the 4th Legislature in February 1999. “As these meetings constitute an official aspect of legislative procedure, their contents must be released to the public,” Chang said.

The CCW executive director believes that opening up these talks to scrutiny will result in better legislation. “People expect lawmakers to do a lot of research so there is sufficient and significant debate on important issues and strong laws are created, but traditionally in Taiwan many legislators preferred to spend their time doing other things, such as attending weddings and funerals in their electoral districts, because they knew they could reach deals in cross-party talks, which lacked appropriate oversight,” he said.

Speaker Su met with CCW representatives in mid-February and expressed support for another move to boost parliamentary transparency, enabling interested parties and members of the public to sit in on legislative committee meetings. At present, this is prohibited by Article 61 of the Rules of Procedure of the Legislature Yuan.

Members on both sides of the aisle generally support allowing the public to attend committee meetings, though Lai said it is important to first establish clear rules. “No one opposes parliamentary transparency, but at the same time it is important to first adopt supporting measures,” he said. “What if people in attendance try to disrupt meetings or even threaten to use violence against committee members?”

There are two parliamentary sessions every year, each lasting about four months. The inaugural session of the 9th Legislative Yuan started on Feb. 19. Su has indicated he is hopeful that the procedural rules can be revised and relevant security measures implemented in time to enable members of the public to attend committee meetings when the next session starts in September.

Future Plans and Legislative Agenda

Legislative leaders are considering a number of large-scale changes to the operations of the nation’s parliament. Members of the body have already agreed to allow proceedings to be televised, with trial broadcasts having commenced on April 8. “We’re definitely going to start broadcasting legislative meetings and affairs on TV, but we first have to address related statutory and budgetary issues,” Speaker Su noted during his February meeting with CCW representatives.

Another idea that has been raised in recent months is relocating the Legislative Yuan, currently situated in downtown Taipei, to a city in central or southern Taiwan such as Taichung. Su and his deputy have expressed support for moving the parliament to Taichung, stating that it would help promote regional development.

There have also been calls to grant lawmakers greater investigative powers. At present, they can call members of government agencies to answer questions and provide data. However, some legislators and commentators want to see these powers extended to cover private individuals and organizations.

The CCW’s Chang is broadly supportive of expanding the ability of lawmakers to conduct probes, stating that “The Legislature should be fully informed before it makes a decision.” While there has been some opposition to such a move owing to concerns about privacy, Chang believes that once the body becomes more transparent, the public will feel more comfortable about granting lawmakers greater investigative powers.

Parliamentary reform is far from the only topic on the agenda of the new Legislature. The DPP and KMT have each prioritized more than 30 pieces of legislation for deliberation in the current session. Of these, many are intended to address matters that have received considerable public attention in recent years, such as food safety, long-term care services and disaster mitigation. The latter issue has been much debated in the aftermath of a Feb. 6 earthquake that caused 117 deaths in Tainan City, southern Taiwan.

The DPP’s caucus has also prioritized bills concerning political party assets and the supervision of cross-strait agreements. “Since the DPP has won both the presidency and a solid majority in the Legislative Yuan, it should be able to achieve its major goals,” Chang said. “It’s a huge opportunity, but ruling majority status also comes with considerable pressure and great responsibility.”

Closing the Gender Gap in Politics

This is a historic year for women’s participation in politics. In addition to Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) claiming victory in the presidential election, a record proportion of women earned seats in the nation’s parliament. Female lawmakers occupy 43 of the 113 seats in the 9th Legislative Yuan, or 38.05 percent of the total.

DPP legislator and veteran women’s rights campaigner Yu Mei-nu (尤美女) is delighted by the gains that women have made in the recent elections and believes that having a higher proportion of female parliamentarians will prove beneficial to society. “In general, women still encounter greater obstacles in life than men, so they tend to have more empathy for the underprivileged,” said Yu, who has served in the Legislature since February 2012.

In terms of the ratio of parliamentary seats held by women, Taiwan is among the top nations both in Asia and around the world, though it still lags behind northern European countries, the leaders in this regard. Figures published in February this year by the Inter-Parliamentary Union, a global institution that has permanent observer status at the U.N., showed that women occupy on average 19.1 percent of the seats in national legislatures across Asia. The figure is 43.6 percent in Sweden, 29.4 in the U.K., 19.4 in the U.S. and 9.5 in Japan.

Yu noted that the progress achieved in Taiwan over the past four decades owes much to the dedication of women’s rights campaigners. Their efforts to boost participation in politics led to a provision in a 2005 constitutional amendment on legislative reform stipulating that at least 50 percent of a party’s at-large lawmakers must be women. When this law was first applied for the 2008 election, the percentage of women in the Legislative Yuan jumped from 20.88 to 30.09.

According to Yu, the rise in the proportion of female parliamentarians increases the likelihood of the Legislature passing effective laws and policies on major social issues such as child care and long-term care for the elderly. “Women are still often expected to tend to children and older relatives at the expense of their careers, so well-thought-out laws in these areas could boost female participation in the workforce,” she said.

Though considerable progress has been made, Yu is quick to point out that there is much work still to be done to achieve true gender equality in Taiwan. In relation to the 9th Legislative Yuan, she was disappointed to see that both the new speaker and deputy speaker are men. In contrast, the Legislature had a female deputy speaker during the previous parliamentary term. “Women should be more ambitious when it comes to vying for key positions,” she said. “We have to remind people that the fight for gender equality is not yet over.”
—by Oscar Chung

Write to Oscar Chung at mhchung@mofa.gov.tw

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ILLUSTRATIONS AND INFOGRAPHICS: Cho Yi-ju, Yui Han, Kao Shun-hui