Many Taiwan citizens may be perplexed by the the Democratic Progressive Party's (DPP) declaration Wednesday of "absolute opposition" to revisions proposed by the ruling Chinese Nationalist Party (Kuomintang) to the Local Government Law.
During a meeting of the rightist ruling party's Central Standing Committee Wednesday, President and KMT Chairman Ma Ying-jeou demanded that the KMT legislative caucus petition for a special legislative session next week in order to pass newly proposed but highly controversial changes to Article 58 of the local government act.
Ma maintained that the changes were necessary to pave the way for the mergers and upgrading of four new major special metropolitan districts, whose mayors and city councils will be elected in December along with those of the capital of Taipei City.
The new districts include the so-called Xinbei City (formerly Taipei County) and the merged districts of Taichung City (including Taichung County), Tainan City (including Tainan County) and Kaohsiung City (including Kaohsiung County).
Until this week, it was assumed that the incoming municipal mayors would have the right to appoint their new borough chiefs and that the members of the related township and village assemblies would simply be retired.
However, the KMT camp suddenly decided this week to rewrite the original revisions so that township and village chiefs will remain in their posts for another four years and that assembly and council members will be appointed as "advisors" and receive NT$45,000 a month in "research fees."
As noted in a statement issued by the DPP Central Executive Committee Wednesday afternoon, this provision would mark not a "reform" but a grave retreat that will set back progress toward cleaner and more streamlined local administration as well as costing Taiwan's overburdened taxpayers another NT$3.2 billion to "ease the feelings" of the now no longer to be displaced assembly members.
There is a a degree of urgency in passage of the revisions to the Local Government Act in order to authorize the redrawing (or gerrymandering) of new election districts for the new special municipal councils, but there is no inherent need to immediately resolve the question of the future employment of township and village chiefs and assembly members.
Indeed, a major justification for the administrative upgrade was precisely to turn these grassroots elected positions into appointed posts and thereby put an end to local faction control over grassroots government, a phenomenon which has served as the foundations for "black and gold" politics, a phrase which refers to the combination of "black" gangs and "golden" local development interests that underlies the domination of such local factions and greases the wheels for vote buying by well-financed KMT candidates.
Last year, when the merger program was rammed through the Legislative Yuan, there was no doubts raised that the new mayors would have the power to appoint local borough chiefs, even if they would be encouraged give precedence to well-performing incumbents.
However, Ma's views on the necessity of this "reform" seem to have been affected by the need to reignite "passion" among pro-KMT local factions and supporters in the wake of plunging approval ratings for the president and his administration and poor turnout by KMT "iron votes" in the KMT's poorer than than expected performance in the December 5 "three-in-one" local elections and the DPP's sweep of three legislative by-elections last Saturday.
KMT reneges again
Hence, not for the first time, the KMT leadership has evidently decided to renege a promise to deal decisively with this breeding ground of local corruption for reasons of its political self-interest.
In the run-up to the March 2000 presidential election, the KMT similarly refused to implement a consensus commitment solemnly made with the DPP during the December 1996 National Development Conference to revise the Local Government Law in order to suspend elections for rural township, urban township and township-level municipality offices and appoint the chiefs of these townships.
Instead, Ma and KMT Secretary-General King Pu-tsung have evidently opted to pay off its local factions to help ensure their cooperation in getting KMT votes "mobilized" in the coming five municipality elections, which the DPP is now widely expected to win at least three if not four mayoral posts.
No less of a priority is blocking the DPP from enjoying the fruits of victory should its candidates win any of the five powerful mayoral posts.
Instead, if Ma's plan is rammed through the KMT-controlled Legislative Yuan, incoming DPP mayors, regardless of their electoral mandate, will have to cope with an overwhelming domination of unelected KMT borough chiefs and "advisors" and will therefore be blocked from carrying out any major municipal programs or reforms that do not receive the cooperation of KMT - controlled local district chiefs.
It is naturally not a coincidence that this "transition" will extend through 2014 and thus potentially prevent DPP mayors from being able to secure even neutral local administrations in the run - up to the decisive presidential and national legislative elections in early 2012.
A filibuster by the DPP to block this obvious power play would be fully justified.
Source: Taiwan News Online - Editorial 2010/01/15
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