All this changed in 1992 with the retirement of the last senior parliamentarians and the election that December. For the first time in forty-four years, the Legislature was primarily responsible to the voters. Since then, it has begun flexing its legislative muscles.
But balancing the power of the Executive Yuan has not been easy. As the following articles demonstrate, the Legislature is still trying to develop and refine some essential democratic practices and support institutions. These include building more effective interactions between the political parties, establishing clear rules of the game in legislative committees and during floor sessions with the premier and other officials, and upgrading the professional status and expectations of legislative aides and researchers. Success in these will have considerable impact on the balance of power between the branches of government in the years to come.
Factional maneuvering and policy disputes have always been a part of internal affairs in the 100-year-old Kuomintang (KMT), the ruling party on Taiwan for the last forty four years. But on August 10, 1993, the KMT experienced an unprecedented event: a contentious faction made up of young and popular legislators formally split away to form a new, competing party, the Chinese New Party (CNP). What would have been virtually impossible during the martial law years (which ended in mid 1987) was almost effortlessly achieved in today’s heady multiparty environment.
Although more than seventy parties have registered with the government over the past five years, this newest entry into the race for seats in local and national offices is second in size and power among the opposition only to the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). Despite its relatively small size, the CNP has enough members to sway voting results in the legislative struggles between the KMT and DPP, and it has already begun carving out that role for itself.
The breakaway party is led by young legislators from the former New KMT Alliance, for many years a highly critical minority faction in the Legislative Yuan. Among the six legislators who signed on as charter members of the CNP are Wang Chien-shien (王建煊), former Minister of Finance who resigned in October 1992 to protest government financial policies, and Jaw Shau-kong (趙少康), the former administrator of the Environmental Protection Administration. The two garnered the most votes in the 1992 election for the Legislative Yuan.
Other founders of the CNP are Yok Mu-ming (郁慕明), one of the biggest vote-getters among military veterans; Lee Ching-hua (李慶華), son of former premier Lee Huan; Chen Kuei-miao (陳癸淼), a well-known professor and lawmaker from Penghu county; and Chou Chuan (周荃), an active woman lawmaker and advocate of private cable TV stations.
The CNP members claim that their split with the KMT stems less from ideological concerns than from the ruling party’s style of governing. High among their concerns is what they see as a growing trend toward money politics and a greater willingness by the ruling party to disregard rules and procedures when controversial bills are being considered by the Legislative Yuan. They also feared it was no longer possible to reform the KMT from the inside. “We are going to change it from the outside,” says Lee Sen-fong (李勝峰), a former KMT legislator and core member of the breakaway group.
All the CNP members have at one time or another criticized the KMT chairman, President Lee Teng-hui (李登輝), saying that he has a distaste for criticism, a magisterial style of leadership, and exacerbates the tensions between mainlanders and Taiwanese. They have also criticized the ruling party, saying it has been corrupted by corporate interests, lacks internal democracy, and is increasingly unable to hold key districts in elections due to its failure to solve conflicts between local factions.
Many of these criticisms had been levied before the New KMT Alliance members broke away from the ruling party. Hsu Shui-teh (許水德), the ruling party’s secretary-general, had urged the Alliance members to cool down their emotional attacks on the party chairman. Nevertheless, most observers were convinced that the party leadership had lost patience with the mavericks and was prepared to see them leave. The CNP was actually formed on the eve of the KMT’s 14th National Congress, with the new party members saying that they had decided to break away because there was little reason to attend a party congress where they would most likely be ignored.
Because of its relative weakness in comparison with the KMT and DPP, the CNP has concentrated its efforts on gaining power through legislative maneuvering, interparty bargaining, and incorporating lobby group interests. The tactics are already showing signs of success. The party’s impact is increased by the popularity of its members with the electorate and their ability to articulate the issues, ask tough questions, and do their legislative home work. Oftentimes CNP votes in the legislature are responsible for throwing the decision on bills on way or the other. The party’s alternating alignment with the KMT or DPP based on issues has given it a greater impact on legislative procedures than would be normally expected from its relatively small size.
For example, CNP legislators sided with the DPP and some KMT colleagues in support of the right of the Legislative Yuan to investigate the activities of the Executive Yuan, including subpoenaing government documents for review. And along with the DPP and some KMT legislators, they also criticized the government’s tendency to ignore the large number of illegal golf courses on the island, saying that golf has become a symbol of the KMTs money politics. The issue has gained considerable public support.
The CNP was also allied with the DPP in opposing the laws regulating the National Security Council and National Security Bureau under the Office of the President as well as the Central Personnel Administration under the Executive Yuan. Despite this opposition, all three bills were rushed through the Legislative Yuan on December 30, 1993, even though many legislators complained that they could not tell which versions had passed. They were signed into law the same evening by President Lee Teng-hui.
The mandates of all three organizations, originally established during the martial law years to increase presidential power, were due to expire at the end of 1993. Both the DPP and the CNP complained vociferously about the flawed procedures in pushing these bills through the legislature, and called into question the ruling party’s commitment to democratic development. Beyond criticisms about the abuse of the legislative process, opposition party members have expressed concerns about the impact these organizations would have on the balance of powers guaranteed in the ROC Constitution. They worry that by extending the life of these three agencies without instituting substantial safeguards, the presidential office might be giving itself more power than is constitutionally warranted. The contention over this issue is typical of the sort of multiparty altercations that routinely pervade the Legislative Yuan.
But CNP legislators are not always at loggerheads with the ruling party. They joined their former KMT colleagues to kill the DPP-proposed pro-Taiwan independence referendum bill, which called for a popular vote on whether Taiwan should seek unification with the mainland or go its own separate way. Because the CNP has repeatedly advocated that the best policy for strengthening Taiwan’s security and welfare is to maintain the status quo, its action was wholly expected.
Another major CNP goal is to prevent either of the two major parties from receiving a majority of the votes cast in elections at all levels. It has already recruited Young Turks to participate in lower-level elections, ranging from small city and town mayors and village leaders to county and city council seats. Through this approach, the party hopes to solidify its power base at the grassroots level.
One sign of a concerned public—Heavy rain fails to turn people away from a political rally during last year’s city and county election campaign.
In the elections for county magistrates and city mayors last November, the CNP failed to win a single seat, but it made a credible showing by winning approximately 17 percent of the votes in the six constituencies where it fielded or backed candidates. The CNP also achieved its goal of denying the major parties a majority of the votes: the KMT won 47.5 percent, and the DPP garnered 41 percent. The CNP is planning to prevent any party from capturing a majority of the votes cast in the upcoming provincial and national elections.
Political observers point out that the CNP must overcome a number of weaknesses in order to become more competitive. One of the biggest challenges is to dispel the impression that it is a party made up only of mainlanders—those who came to Taiwan in 1949 along with the Kuomintang government, and their descendants. Another is to expand its popular base. At present, the CNP’s main electoral support base is the northern part of the island, mostly in Taipei city, Taipei county, and Taoyuan county. Even though the party includes some native Taiwanese, and most members speak the Taiwanese dialect fluently, this is not yet enough to broaden its public appeal. This might be gained if the party enrolls more young native Taiwanese as core party members, recruits more of them to run in local and national elections, and attracts additional support from established Taiwanese politicians.
Yet another task for the CNP will be to shed its image of focusing on unification. Most of the party leaders are in favor of the eventual unification of Taiwan with Mainland China, but it is important that they not give people the impression of supporting unification at the cost of Taiwan’s security and welfare. Although many CNP leaders argue that their support of eventual unification is the best way to prevent Communist China from using force against Taiwan, the details of this position could be explained more clearly. For example, when the CNP members advocate direct air and sea links with the mainland, they need to show that such links would be in the best interests of most Taiwan businesspeople. It may also be useful for the CNP to expand its advisory brain trust by developing closer relationships with academics who can assist with their formulation of domestic and international policy.
The founding of the CNP is one of the most important political events since the DPP was formally established in September 1986. The rise of opposition parties has thus far helped accelerate the transformation of the political system, which started to accelerate in the 1980s during the last years of Chiang Ching-kuo’s presidency. Since then, the political environment has changed substantially. The KMT has further democratized its own party and has also supported the rise of a genuine multiparty democracy. The ruling party has also brought about the end of the special provisions that suspended much of the ROC Constitution, and it has maneuvered the retirement of the legislators who had been frozen in office for more than four decades.
Since the 1992 year-end legislative election, in which the DPP won 51 of the 161 seats, the multiparty system has become firmly entrenched. The DPP now has a stronger voice in the Legislature, and the CNP is adding to the diversity of opinions expressed in that body.
The conduct and goals of the cross-straits talks between Taiwan and the mainland are hot issues for all three of the major political parties. One major concern: the timing for reunification between the two sides.
The greater competition has had salutary results in the KMT as well. The ruling party has begun strengthening its party discipline and paying more attention to the concerns of its constituents, an important move since all parties must now deal with an electorate that, unlike decades past, has the power to deny re-election to incumbents.
The KMT has no desire to lose its majority and be forced into forming a coalition government, but the DPP and CNP are anxious to bring about just such a power shift. As a result, the coming years should be extraordinarily interesting to watch as the three major political parties develop more comprehensive domestic and international policy platforms, adopt clearer rules of the game in the ways they interact as parties, and respond more enthusiastically to the issues raised by their constituents.—Chen I-hsin (陳一新)is a professor of political science at the Graduate Institute of American Studies at Tamkang University and Wu Wen-chen (吳文成) is a professor of political science at Soochow University.