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Guarding Taiwanese democracy from KMT
By Chen Chun-kai 陳君愷
Taiwan is facing a battle for its existence and our democracy looks like it is
about to collapse.
There have been a slew of corruption scandals surrounding the Xinsheng Overpass
project and the Taipei International Flora Expo.
In fulfilling their roles as monitors of the government, Taipei City councilors
from the opposition have requested information from the city government, but
their demands have been refused.
Modern democratic politics is based on the separation of the executive,
legislative and judicial powers to maintain checks and balances and root out
corruption.
However, after the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) regained control of the
central government, the executive power became the dominant power, and it has
abused its power and done whatever it wants. This runs counter to the principles
of a modern democracy.
However, because of the flawed and restrictive Referendum Act (公民投票法),
referendums, which should be a symbol of how sovereignty rests with the people,
the public have not been allowed to have a say even on the issue of the
important Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement with China.
In response to the government’s breach of the law and negligence of its
responsibilities, the opposition parties and citizens have had no choice but to
turn to the law.
However, they have faced discrimination by a judiciary that will handle cases
against the pan-green camp, but not the pan-blue camp. The judicial corruption
that late democracy activist Lei Chen (雷震) spoke about during the 1950s is still
rampant today.
Today’s democracy was borrowed from the West. In Western nations, there are
often great tensions between society and the government, and this is what is
referred to as civil society.
However, during several decades of the KMT’s authoritarian rule and culture,
that authoritarianism was not restricted to politics alone, but was allowed to
spread to every corner of society so that civil society was deprived of its
independence.
Taiwanese society is therefore full of people who have been working for those in
power. Whenever people in power need help, they call on so-called “academics”
and “experts” to endorse their ideas.
After being ruled by the KMT’s vicious practices for several decades, many
things still remain to be done. Although the Democratic Progressive Party
managed to break the KMT’s hold on power for eight years, it remains a very
difficult task to eradicate the corruption that has plagued Taiwan for so long.
Yet at a time when Taiwanese society still has not developed sufficient
confidence in our current political system, the KMT is once again trying to push
the idea of absentee voting.
This move is aimed at erasing every last bit of trust that Taiwanese may have
left in our democracy. Regardless of what certain people may say about the
current electoral system, the KMT’s motives could not be any clearer.
With the special municipality mayoral and council elections upon us, we have
another major decision to make. Of course, not everything is about elections.
However, when the elections are all that is left to the public, we will be left
with nothing at all if we do not cherish the right to vote and make these
elections count.
Chen Chun-kai is a professor of history at Fu Jen Catholic
University.
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