|
Ma doesn’t deserve a
second term
By Lin Terng-yaw 林騰鷂
Sept. 3 was Armed Forces Day in Taiwan. This year, with the Republic of China’s
centennial approaching, the day provided an opportunity for retired senior
officers to gather and show their support for a particular political party. News
media showed these retirees taking the standpoint of their favored party and
questioning what justification the chairman of a smaller party with no
administrative resources might have to stand as a candidate in next year’s
presidential election.
Their concern has something to do with the pressures created by an unreasonable
electoral system, but it also demonstrates their poor grasp of democracy. It
also runs contrary to the military’s mission to protect all the nation’s
citizens. As soldiers in a democratic country, it might be a good idea for them
to also consider what justification President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) has for seeking
a second term, in light of the following concerns.
The foremost reason why Ma does not merit a second term is that he has failed to
raise the quality of constitutional governance. A flawed system of
constitutional government has gone from bad to worse on his watch. Ma once said
he would not serve as chairman of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) if elected
president, but later went back on his pledge. He said that he would dispense
with the KMT’s assets, but the party can still avail itself of the NT$2.89
billion (US$95.9 million) it gained from its stock investments last year. This
makes a mockery of the idea of fair competition between political parties.
Ma also said that once he had been in office for two years, ie, some time last
year, he would set about reforming our system of government to identify the
imperfections in the system that go against the principle of responsibility in
politics by giving the president power without responsibility. He has failed to
make good on this promise, too. Ma still benefits from a flawed government
system that concentrates enormous powers in his office.
Second, Taiwan’s fiscal deficit keeps getting bigger. During the
three-and-a-half years Ma has been in office, the deficit has gone up by more
than it did during the entire eight-year presidency of former president Chen
Shui-bian (陳水扁). The minister of finance behaves more like a minister of
economic affairs — he knows how to throw money around to stimulate the economy,
but he doesn’t know how to reduce government spending or uphold fairness in
taxation. As a result, the gap between rich and poor grows wider each day.
The third point is the decline of the educational system under Ma. The quality
of education keeps falling, while badly planned changes have been made to the
exam system, causing fear and a sense of hopelessness among parents and
students. Flawed and inappropriate assessments have failed to weed out
poor-quality private colleges. On the contrary, they have prompted technical
colleges to recruit “education mercenaries” and academic figureheads so that
they can get promoted to the status of “universities of science and technology.”
With new universities springing up all over, some of these schools have become
breeding grounds for unemployment and moral degeneration. Some private college
owners have absconded with their schools’ assets. Since financial control at
these colleges is often inadequate, parents may find that, having paid fees
twice as high as those at state-run institutions, what their children get in
return is moral decadence and the prospect of unemployment. Who wouldn’t be
upset?
Fourth, there have been numerous public safety issues during Ma’s term. Food
safety was called into question because industrial plasticizer was found in many
foods and drinks. Repeated fires at Formosa Plastics Group’s sixth naphtha
cracker project in Yunlin County have caused worries over industrial safety, as
well as destabilizing the chain of production when the plant’s operations were
stopped.
Flaws in medical safety were recently exposed when surgeons at National Taiwan
University Hospital transplanted organs taken from the body of an HIV-positive
donor. Other safety problems include urban crime, land subsidence and forest
soil erosion.
Ma, who likes to brag about cutting the excise tax on rice wine, cannot shirk
his responsibility for all these safety issues. If, despite all the personnel,
material and financial resources invested in him by the public, he cannot even
manage to ensure that basic inspections and safety checks are carried out, why
would the public want to leave him in charge?
The fifth reason that Ma is not worth a second term is that he has appointed a
president of the Judicial Yuan who lacks the motivation for reform. Ma had to
apologize for nominating a controversial candidate to serve as a justice of the
Constitutional Court, and several judges, prosecutors and court clerks have made
decisions that earned them the label of “dinosaurs.” All these incidents have
badly dented the public’s confidence in the judiciary and show how ineffectual
judicial reforms have been.
Moreover, salaries and benefits enjoyed by civil servants are clearly out of
proportion to their performance. This phenomenon has been criticized by Control
Yuan President Wang Chien-shien (王建煊) and Examination Yuan President John Kuan
(關中) on more than one occasion, but the system for evaluating civil servants’
performance and getting rid of poor performers is riddled with controversy and
has yet to be resolved.
There have also been instances of collective corruption and malpractice in the
customs service and in Department of Health hospitals. This problem cannot be
resolved just by setting up an anti-corruption commission under the auspices of
the Judicial Yuan if it merely goes through the motions of overseeing the powers
of prosecutors and judicial officers.
The sixth and final category for concern is that the authorities expropriate
land according to its market price, but do not tax property and land based on
its market value. What kind of land and housing justice is that? And why has
this administration waited until near the end of Ma’s term to figure out that
taxing land according to its market price is the just way of doing things?
As the rich speculate on property and land deals, why can’t the government
impose taxes based on the market price? And if all income from salaries is
taxed, why isn’t income in the form of the houses, cars and other perks given by
companies and corporations to their directors and supervisors subject to tax, as
it is in Germany? Why, for that matter, is there no tax on income from profits
gained from stock market transactions? How can the tax system be called just
when tax is imposed on wages earned through toil and sweat but not on the
profits made through speculation in the air-conditioned offices of securities
companies?
Ma is chairman of the KMT, and his party and its allies occupy almost
three-quarters of the seats in the legislature. Yet, after three years as
president, he has failed to demonstrate a broad vision for upgrading the quality
of Taiwan’s constitutional governance, safeguarding the public’s livelihood and
ensuring equal access to education for the less privileged members of society,
or for ensuring safety and justice for society as a whole.
In view of all this, there is no reason for Ma to serve a second term.
Lin Terng-yaw is a law professor at Tunghai University.
Translated by Julian Clegg
|
