The Effects of a Single-member-district Two-vote system on Future Party Politics in Taiwanese Legislative Elections

• Main Authors: Yung-shih Liu, 劉永士
• Other Authors: 作者未提供
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2009
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/70823362433391084576

碩士 === 銘傳大學 === 社會科學院國家發展與兩岸關係碩士在職專班 === 97 === The legislature passed a constitutional amendment bill in 2005 to halve the number of legislative seats from 225 to 113, including 73 regional seats and 6 aboriginal seats, to extend the term of office to four years from three, and to adopt a "single-member district, two-vote system" for legislative elections. Under the system, voters have to cast two ballots, one for a candidate and the other for a political party. The KMT won a landslide victory in the 7th legislative elections, taking a total of 61 out of 73 constituency seats and 20 at-large seats, compared to the opposition DPP''s 27. In addition to 5 seats governed by the KMT’s smaller allies, the Non-Partisan Solidarity Union, the KMT actually controls 86 seats in total which gives it new power monopoly in the legislature. The result of the election seemingly shows that the so-called Taiwanese local ideology, represented by the DDP and once the mainstream ideology, has now faded away. When it comes to the electoral system, theoretically speaking, the current system is better than before, but it still needs time to prove correct. But obliviously, the system is still unfavorable to the survival small political parties. Since each of them holds different and sometimes repulsive political concepts, they have difficulty in integrating themselves into a union capable of applying a vote-allocating strategy. As a result, small parties still struggle to survive in such an electoral system. After the alternation of political power between parties in year 2000, the tension between the two leading parties has greatly influenced the procedure of law-making. According to statistics released by the Legislative Yuan, during the 4th legislative session, 644 bills were passed and 611 in the 5th, but in the 6th session, the number fell to only 498, the lowest amount of bills passed ever. Extra plenary sessions were thus held often to handle the leftover bills. And many of the bills were passed not because they would benefit the public, but because they would benefit the two leading political parties. These are unbearable to the average citizen. Many people are waiting in anticipation to see whether the 7th Legislative Yuan led by the majority of KMT party will create a fresh perspective or not. As Kuomintang Chairman Wu Po-hsiung proclaims, “we are entrusted by our people, and we commit ourselves to the burden of the great responsibility.”