Written by Gunter Schubert.
Image credit: 05.20 中華民國第16任總統副總統宣誓就職典禮 by 總統府 / Flickr, license: CC BY 2.0.
It has finally happened: On May 20, Lai Ching-te was inaugurated as the fifth popularly elected president of the Republic of China. A new government has come to power. Under normal circumstances, even for a minority government like the current one, one would expect some “normal” policymaking. Taiwan certainly needs it, especially on the domestic front. Energy security needs to be addressed, as it is unclear whether Taiwan’s current energy mix is sustainable. After decades of “growth with equity” in the postwar period, Taiwan faces widening income disparities, a low-wage job market for university graduates, a distorted real estate market, and a housing crisis that leaves many young Taiwanese without hope of ever owning a home. The country’s fiscal position is structurally weak and requires reforms to meet the needs of an aging population. Relatedly, Taiwan needs more immigration at both low and high skill levels to keep its economy humming. Then there is the usual pledge from Washington to do more for defense, not only in terms of purchasing military hardware but also planning for reserve training and civil defense.
For all this, Taiwan needs a functioning legislature in the coming years, but what we have seen since the last legislative elections in January is far from promising. The recent brawls over proposed amendments to Article 25 of the Act Governing the Legislative Yuan’s Power (立法院職權行使法) may be just a harbinger of what we will see in the legislature over the next four years: Elected lawmakers pushing and shoving, yelling and screaming at each other, seizing or violently defending the Speaker’s chair, grabbing documents and fleeing the chamber, playing musical instruments and taking selfies, accusing the political opponent of destroying Taiwan’s democracy, engaging in emotional biaotai in front of television cameras to elicit public sympathy for their “just course”… Nothing new, of course, we have seen this before. But that’s the point: This kind of behaviour by Taiwan’s so-called political elites is apparently considered legitimate action in the parliament – a place where mature democracies should engage in what they usually demand in the realm of international politics: peaceful negotiations.
What is the core problem?
Hung parliaments are rare in Taiwan, but they are quite common in established democracies. What are the usual mechanisms for dealing with such a situation? In Germany, where there is little experience with absolute majorities, there is a long tradition of coalition governments. They usually do not work well, but they work. They are based on a coalition treaty negotiated before the new government is elected, and although this is not a legally binding document, such treaties are a useful and necessary means of stabilising a party coalition. They embody a willingness to compromise, even on the most sensitive issues of party identity for each of the coalition partners. And their negotiation allows the partners to distribute ministerial and committee positions fairly. Coalition governments may be called bad compromises – but they are compromises nonetheless, which is the precondition for any meaningful policymaking.
If a coalition government is not possible, there is a second option: Tolerating a minority government. This arrangement is more difficult than a coalition, and often serves only to bridge the gap until the next general election, which all parties may eventually see as inevitable. However, there are many examples of tolerated minority governments that have lasted quite a long time, even for an entire electoral term. Toleration basically means that a minority government is supported by another party in parliament, which helps it to achieve a majority, as long as the main policies of the tolerating party are sufficiently included in the government’s agenda. Toleration is thus not as binding as a coalition agreement, but it guarantees a minimum of parliamentary effectiveness, since the tolerating party would honor its promise to prioritize cooperation with the minority government over opportunistic deals with other parties. Beyond these two options – coalition and toleration – there is the possibility of shifting majorities, which the minority government must secure through policy-oriented negotiations with all parties until a majority for a particular policy is achieved. This presupposes that all parties in parliament are willing to ensure a functioning parliament in which at least important policies are decided – no matter what.
Apart from these three practices, which are broadly compatible with parliamentary democracy, the only option is gridlock, in which the parliamentary majority systematically prevents the minority government from implementing any policy it deems important; or pushes through its own policy agenda, perhaps through a bipartisan agreement with other opposition parties. This option is the worst imaginable for a democratic system, as government and opposition do what they can to fight each other, losing sight of what is in the overall interest of the polity. Unfortunately, Taiwan’s Legislative Yuan is on this path: In the telling case of the LY reform bill finally passed on May 28, the KMT and TPP seem to have joined hands to teach the DPP-led minority government a lesson, no matter how reasonable some of the reform measures in this bill may be, and despite the fact that the DPP has also supported them in the past. Many Taiwanese are fed up with a system in which winning elections and legislative battles is all that matters, in which eliminating and smearing political opponents during election campaigns is all that counts, and in which uncompromising floor fighting is more important than a willingness to rationally debate sensible policies in a spirit of responsibility to the demos once a new parliament is elected.
In essence, there is a zero-sum mentality in Taiwanese politics that does not allow for institutionalized compromise. Compromise is possible only in the form of behind-the-scenes deals struck by political leaders. These are opaque tit-for-tat arrangements that emphasize the primacy of parochial party interests over the value of transparent arrangements as a core component of democratic legitimacy and stability. The zero-sum mentality can easily be traced back to Taiwan’s history of authoritarianism (a life-and-death struggle), the “China threat,” and Taiwan’s complex identity, not to mention a personalistic political culture that focuses much more on the public appearance and favours of individual politicians than on the policy performance of political parties over time, and suffers from a lack of commitment to the idea of the “common good”. Symbolic, if not physical, confrontations in the legislature underscore this: I win or I lose, so I won’t let you win. Or: You have won long enough, now you will lose – at any cost!
President Lai and his new government are therefore likely to have a very difficult time over the next four years. With no tradition and no serious willingness to compromise, Taiwan’s divided legislature risks becoming as paralyzed as it was during much of the Chen Shui-bian years – perhaps worse now that there are three parties capable of playing the power game, one with little legislative experience but plenty of personal vanity in its ranks.
I do not want to be misunderstood: Taiwan’s Legislative Yuan is no worse than many other parliaments in more or less functioning democracies – but it should not set its standards where parliamentary politics is an egoistic battle. It should cultivate a culture of compromise, negotiated by politicians who value transparency and the acceptance of basic rules of fairness to be followed when there is no absolute majority; and who understand that staged “life and death” performances on the floor to exploit the political polarization in Taiwanese society to denigrate their opponents as selling out to China or exhibiting authoritarian behaviour is detrimental to public support for Taiwan’s democracy. At the same time, Taiwan’s voters should become more aware of the essence of political competition, which is not to win elections for personal gain (by politicians and voters alike), but to put into office capable leaders who can balance their personal ambition with a sense of responsibility for the common good.
Gunter Schubert is Chair Professor of Greater China Studies and Director of the European Research Center on Contemporary Taiwan (ERCCT) at the University of Tübingen.
(This article is a revised version of an op-ed published by Commonwealth Magazine on May 22nd.)
This article was published as part of a special issue on ‘Bluebird Movement: Legislative Reform Protests in Taiwan’.
Taiwan Insight 