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Trading votes for
public service
By Wang Hsing-chi ¤ý¿ô¤§
Keelung Mayor Chang Tong-rong (±i³qºa) recently caused a hullabaloo after it was
revealed he had visited a police station on Sept. 14 and asked the police to
release a woman who was believed to be drunk and who had allegedly punched and
injured a police officer. Chang tried to justify his intervention on the grounds
that he was ¡§providing a service to voters.¡¨ His excuse will probably not
resolve the political crisis he has stirred up, but it does reveal the state of
grassroots democracy that has prevailed in the country ever since all seats in
the legislature were made open to election, ie, everything will be fine as long
as you have connections.
Still more worth thinking about is why Chang would think that his claim that he
was ¡§providing a service to voters¡¨ would be a sufficient justification for what
he did. What kind of mainstream political environment does this reflect?
Although we get to be ¡§masters for a day¡¨ when we exercise our right to vote
once every couple of years, nobody would deny that we are politically
disadvantaged compared with the politicians who walk the corridors of power. All
kinds of things in ordinary people¡¦s lives are covered by ¡§service to voters,¡¨
including arrangements and banners for weddings and funerals, dealing with
administrative penalties, public procurement, unemployed workers, staff
appointments, emergency relief, welfare supplements, applications for low-income
household status and even buying hard-to-get train tickets to visit one¡¦s
hometown on public holidays. This situation makes politicians into a kind of
political tout or agent, roaming in a quasi-legal gray area of pulling strings
and twisting arms.
Consequently, votes in elections for councilors and borough wardens have long
since been devalued into a game of fill-in-the-blanks for disadvantaged voters,
rather than a chance to vote for reform and distinguish between candidates¡¦
political orientation. People tend to vote for whichever candidate will provide
the most effective service, and in so doing they forfeit their political rights.
Rather than reflecting voters¡¦ political wishes, it would be more accurate to
say that this outcome is what the politically disadvantaged get in return for
finding some relief from their worries about getting by.
Considering the powers that politicians have and the things common people need
to survive, who wouldn¡¦t want to have a political connection or two to rely on?
Who would be so brazen as to claim that he or she has no need of ¡§service to
voters?¡¨ Under such circumstances, a vote is like an insurance policy, and the
whole arrangement constitutes a ¡§political service industry¡¨ that encompasses
both politicians and their ¡§election brokers¡¨ ¡X the grassroots supporters who
drum up votes for them. Such is the business model that allows the likes of
Chang and most other politicians to stand firm and unshakeable in their elected
positions.
This logic that thrives on disadvantaged people¡¦s anxiety and dependence is a
mechanism that members of the ruling class have connived in setting up, and
whose benefits they share among themselves. This is true of the pan-blue and
pan-green parties alike, and it has become a new bottleneck on the road to
grassroots political reform. The anxiety that the politically disadvantaged feel
and their worries about the risks they face in life are often directly connected
with repressive aspects of the system that need a complete and thorough
overhaul.
Unfortunately the kind of ¡§service to voters¡¨ that prevails in the nation, which
comes in the form of favors bestowed on a case-by-case basis, has the effect of
covering up these structural problems. It weakens people¡¦s ability to change the
system and strips them of political vision. More than that, it ties people up in
the electoral system so that their role is just to cast their votes and nothing
more. Apart from doing politicians a favor in return for their services by
voting for them every couple of years, what further space for action does the
public enjoy?
There is no point in rushing to analyze what happened in Keelung in terms of the
spectrum of struggle between the mainstream pan-blue and pan-green camps. There
is no good in saying it is all about ¡§Chang Tong-rong of the Chinese Nationalist
Party [KMT].¡¨ It would be better to take a good look at our political anxieties
and the institutional problems that lie behind them, and take the time to
question how legitimate the ¡§service to voters¡¨ provided by both the pan-blue
and pan-green camps really is. Only by so doing can we gradually cease relying
on politicians and giving up our rights in return for their ¡§service.¡¨
It is time for ordinary people to take political responsibility back into their
own hands. We should demand that the politicians we once supported make real
reforms to the system. Still better, we should take it upon ourselves to do the
job.
Wang Hsing-chi is an instructor in Fu Jen Catholic University¡¦s Department of
Psychology and general secretary of Raging Citizens Act Now.
Translated by Julian Clegg
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