Lin Zhijian threw away the topic of "Hsinchu County and City Merger"
Author Liu Jincai (Associate Professor, Department of Public Affairs, Fo Guang University)
Recently, with the proposal of the DEMOCRATIC Progressive Party mayor Lin Zhijian to merge Hsinchu County and Hsinchu City, becoming the so-called "seventh capital", it has once again set off a long-term controversy over the abolition of "direct election" and the reform of the taiwan township mayors. At present, the administrative region of Taiwan is divided into "six capitals", thirteen counties and three provinces and municipalities, showing a state of "one district and three systems". Does this election in the three levels of local autonomous regions have the significance of implementing local democracy? Why don't the people of the 170 districts of the "Six Capitals" need not have to "implement local democracy" and "citizen participation"? But the people of 198 townships and cities in the other 13 counties still want to "implement local democracy" and have the "citizens" to participate in the election of township mayors? Why is it not to promote direct elections in metropolitan districts, but to maintain direct elections in agricultural counties, townships and cities?
Most of the people in Taiwan society who advocate the abolition of township and city local autonomies believe that it will cause bribery such as buying votes for elections and tying piles, which will lead to the rise of black-money politics, clan and family politics that are rampant in local factions; those who advocate direct election believe that in accordance with the experience of abolishing the direct election of township mayors in the "six capitals," this will inevitably strengthen the centralization of power by the administrative authorities, make it difficult for local public opinion to react to higher levels of public departments, and make township and town governments more bureaucratic, which will accelerate the trend of Taiwan's urban-rural disparity and the decline of rural areas. Therefore, the township mayors who are in favor of and against the official faction have their own arguments, and it is difficult to compromise with each other.
In fact, since the 1990s, Taiwan society has reached a social consensus of support for the township (city) governor faction three times during the KMT Lee Teng-hui period, whether in the "State Council" (1990) or the "National Development Conference" (1996); or in the DPP Chen Shui-bian period and the "Economic Development Advisory Conference" (2001) after 2000. However, although the Executive Council passed the "Amendment to the Provincial and County Autonomy Law" in 1997 during the Lee Teng-hui administration period, it was not sent to the legislature. During the Chen Shui-bian period, the administrative organs also proposed amendments to the "Local System Law" to promote the dispatch of township mayors, but the pan-blue "legislators" who controlled the majority of the alliance of the "Legislative Council" did not agree to the dispatch of township mayors.
During Tsai Ing-wen's reign, the DPP gained both "executive power" and "legislative power" and completely "governed" itself. In March 2020, 19 DPP "legislators" Zheng Yunpeng, Chung Jiabin, Liu Shifang and 19 others proposed draft amendments to some provisions of the "Local System Law", including: trying to cancel autonomous elections at the township (town, city) level. However, when the DPP "legislators" proposed that the case be handled in the "Legislative Council" report, the KMT caucus proposed to return the case to the Procedure Committee for re-filing; You Xikun, head of the legislative body, asked whether the "legislators" present had any objections, and no one expressed any objections, so the resolution was returned and ultimately failed to be submitted to the committee for review. If the DPP wants to forcefully mobilize a vote on this case, there is no "legislative" difficulty at all in the number of seats in more than half of the seats, but in the end it did not vote but the resolution was returned. Obviously, the force in Taiwan society to oppose the complete abolition of direct elections in townships and townships is very great, and even the DPP, which is completely "in power," does not dare to completely oppose the will of the people.
Taiwan's grassroots society opposes the change of township mayors to official factions, believing that this is contrary to the starting point of Taiwan's democratic development from local elections and local autonomy. Obviously, the consensus of the above three reform conferences is far from the opinions and needs of Taiwan's civil society. The overwhelming majority of public opinion in Taiwan society is generally opposed to the official dispatch of township mayors, and this public opinion base has long-term stability. For example, according to a poll conducted by the Kuomintang think tank on November 17, 2017 on the "issue of township mayors and water conservancy committee chiefs", it was found that as many as 80.7% of the people disapproved of the official appointment of township mayors, and only 9.5% of the people were in favor. The poll results pointed out that if the way of electing township mayors is changed from election to official, 58.1% of the people believe that it is tied to the county mayor election and criticize it as an act of reversing democracy; only 18.6% of the people believe that it can improve administrative efficiency.
This is an investigation from the KMT think tank, and some DPP personalities have questioned that because the KMT has long held the number of township mayors, it is inevitable to oppose the abolition of the direct election of township mayors, and criticize the fairness and objectivity of this poll. On August 13, 2018, Shanshui Poll Company announced the results of the survey, favoring 24% of the official faction and opposing the official faction of 76%. A quarter of the people support the official faction, agreeing that "changing the township mayor to the official faction can end the local faction", "the current regional black gold family politics is indeed hereditary in substance, and the simplification of the system will help to eliminate these problems", "support the reform of the official faction, why the district chief duguan faction why the township mayor with a much smaller population still needs to be elected, wasting manpower and financial resources, and will be affected by the local faction, and even the underworld." This polling company has always been run by professionals close to the Green Camp, if the results of the Kuomintang think tank survey are not objective, then how can the results of the Shanshui poll be judged or interpreted? Its survey opposed the abolition of direct election at 76 percent, similar to the 80.7 percent of the Kuomintang think tank.
On March 21, 2021, the portal "YAHOO" began with the slogan "DPP member Jian asked Tsai Ing-wen to change the township mayor to 'official', are you for or against it?" On the topic, an online vote was conducted, and the results showed that 561 votes were in favor of following up the policy of the "six capitals" district governors; the leaders of the opposing official faction believed that they might not understand the public opinion of 4637 votes, and nearly 90% of the public opinions opposed the official township mayors. Logically, during Tsai Ing-wen's administration, the DPP was completely "in power", and if it is necessary to revise or abolish the regulations on the direct election of township mayors, there is no difficulty in revising the law.
Neither the Kuomintang nor the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) has been fully "in power" and has not forcibly passed the amendment of the "Local System Law," which shows how difficult it is to try to abolish the direct election of township mayors, and despite the three meetings held by the "ruling" of the Kuomintang and the Kuomintang, the opposition from civil society is still strong. In fact, the abolition of the direct election of township mayors and the change of districts to official factions is precisely to reflect the conflict between the logic of autonomy and administrativeization. The current "six capitals" plus three provinces and municipalities, Keelung, Hsinchu and Chiayi, account for 3/4 of the population of Taiwan, there is no township mayor election in these areas, and its county and township self-government organs have been changed into district offices for dispatched organs, which basically reflects the logic of professional and administrative operation.
The remaining 13 counties and 198 townships and cities with the remaining 1/4 of the population elect township mayors and their representatives in accordance with the law. Taiwan's administrative region is divided into "six capitals" and three provinces and municipalities with a population of about 70% and more than 70% of resources, but its election level is most purely related to direct election of mayors. However, the counties and counties directly under the central government have small population and resources, but they all retain township and municipal elections, and the election of township mayors must be accompanied by the election of representatives of township and town citizens' congresses, although it may lead to grass-roots politics falling into factionalization and black gold, but it is full of "autonomy" logic, forming the "two systems" problem of Taiwan's local politics.
From the fact that the DPP authorities did not forcibly amend the law to practice its original political philosophy, and its failure to adhere to it is probably also due to the fact that after the November 2018 local elections in Taiwan, the KMT won 15 county mayor seats, and once the direct election of township mayors is completely abolished, it is feared that the selection of local political "district chiefs" will form a common phenomenon of comprehensive "pan-bluening", compressing the DPP's local operations, resulting in the "comprehensive bluening" of local politics to form a state of "blue places encircling the green center", so that the "green center" becomes a political island, once the "blue place" is "blue place". Joint collective action threatens to cut off the implementation of the "Green Central" policy and administrative directives.
Shortly after the DPP "came to power" in 2016, the administrative organ under its administration passed the draft amendment to the General Rules for the Organization of Farmland Water Conservancy Associations, which transformed 15 farmland water conservancy associations in Taiwan into "public service organs" and changed them to official factions in an all-round way; later, it also proposed abolishing the election of peasant associations and comprehensively changing them to official factions. The DPP's "legislators" have proposed abolishing the direct election of township mayors and changing the official faction, and this kind of abolition of the "logic of the official faction" of grass-roots elections, named to enhance administrative efficiency and eliminate local factions and grass-roots black money, is actually to seize resources and continue to "govern" and intend to squeeze the political space of the Kuomintang and non-party personages. However, if the DPP's political party image and political support decline, eventually leading to the loss of the "two-in-one" election, and if the local county mayor election is lost, once the township mayor changes to the official faction, then the DPP will face a comprehensive tightening of the political participation space from the "central" level to the county and city level and the township level.
In other words, the change of Taiwan's township mayor to an official faction is actually a "double-sided blade," and once the other party completely gains "power" at the "central" level and the county and city levels, it is bound to completely compress the opposition party. This may damage the KMT's local base and may also compress the DPP's local operations. This may be the main reason why the three meetings reached a consensus on abolishing the direct election of township mayors, but even if the DPP is completely "in power," it does not dare to cross the thunder pond half a step. This shows the gap between the DPP's political ideals and actual politics, and the DPP is based on the political rational considerations of the interests of political parties and sustainable development, causing it to fall into the quagmire of "dilemma" and "losing ground".
Source: Huaxia Graticule