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EDITORIA :Coalition
is a legitimate proposal
A week ahead of Saturday’s presidential election, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP)
presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) said that if elected, she would work
toward a coalition government, and that the premier did not necessarily have to
come from the pan-green camp.
This issue directly involves the outcome of the election and the subsequent
distribution of power, and it has therefore stirred up debate in both the
opposition and ruling parties.
Even if Tsai is elected, whether the DPP wins a legislative majority would
influence the selection of a premier and policy implementation over the next
four years, thus making it a matter of the utmost importance.
During his eight-year term, former president Chen Shui-bian’s (陳水扁) policy
achievements were limited because the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) controlled
the legislature. The KMT constantly blocked the DPP government’s budgets and
legislation, so that many of the president’s and Cabinet’s ideals, proposed laws
and budget proposals died a slow death on the legislative floor.
If Tsai is elected, she must find a way to stop history from repeating itself.
The KMT and several media outlets have criticized Tsai’s coalition suggestion,
saying it is both unconstitutional and infeasible. The current semi-presidential
Constitution does not contain any clear regulations stipulating the organization
of political parties or governments and the term “coalition government” does not
appear in the Constitution. However, when the president’s party does not hold
the legislative majority, a coalition government is one option, both in theory
and in practice. There are many examples in other countries of governments
either made up of a coalition of parties, and there is nothing in our
Constitution that prohibits such a solution.
When Chen was elected in 2000, he said his was a “government for the whole
people” and invited a former KMT defense minister, Tang Fei (唐飛), to serve as
premier. However, that Tang headed up the Cabinet as a private individual,
rather than as a KMT member, combined with a failure to see eye-to-eye on the
construction of the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant, resulted in Tang stepping down
after four months. After that, every premier was a DPP member.
Tsai’s suggestion implies that the formation of a coalition government could be
preceded by party-to-party talks. Looking at ideologies, a coalition between the
DPP and the Taiwan Solidarity Union would be the easiest, but the question is
whether that would be enough to create a stable legislative majority. In the
case of the DPP and the People First Party, there are differences in
cross-strait policy that would first have to be solved. A coalition between the
DPP and the KMT would involve concerns over party competition and party
interests, and is not very probable. However, cooperating with a few individual
KMT members and groups to build a stable legislative majority would be feasible,
although party opposition would remain strong, making that, too, a difficult
task.
One of the side effects of changing the law so that the presidential and
legislative terms overlap completely is that when the legislative majority is
comprised of a party that is not the president’s, there is no mechanism to
reflect changes in public opinion, and it is unclear which should carry more
weight as representative of public opinion: the president or the biggest party
in the legislature. This means that the two parties will compete based on their
political strength, which could easily lead to a constitutional stalemate. The
KMT is talking down the possibility of a coalition government, but since no one
can predict the outcome of the elections, any responsible politician would plan
ahead for any eventuality. Tsai’s suggestion of a coalition government is just a
first glimpse of the changes in the power structure that may be brought about by
Saturday’s elections.
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