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© Mr Downes
(ج)
Mr Welsh FED
Mi Marria
pw
TAIWAN: ELECTION PREVIEW
Referenc
useft
bac
If for up to fotog
CODE RAD
1.
Nationwide elections for the National Assembly are to be held on 21 December. This marks the beginning of a new era for Taiwan politics in which the ruling Kuomintang can no longer rely
on an automatic majority in Taiwan's elected political bodies. The opposition parties stand a reasonable chance of achieving sufficient seats so that the KMT is forced to deal with them in order to get its policies through. The main opposition Party has made Taiwan independence into an important campaign issue, but it will have to broaden its appeal if it is to become a credible alternative government to the KMT. This minute provides some background to the elections.
A
2. In June 1990, the Supreme Court ruled June-1991 that those incumbent members of the Assembly elected on the mainland in 1947 and 1948 have to retire by the end of 1991; the same month a National Affairs Conference agreed on the outlines for constitutional reforms in both the National Assembly and the other parliamentary bodies; appropriate constitutional reforms were adopted by a special session of the National Assembly on 22 April 1991. The domination of Taiwan's elected bodies by very old men elected on the mainland had long been a source of particular anger to the opposition and indeed to many ordinary people on Taiwan. total of 325 seats are up for election in the National Assembly; 225 of these will be filled by direct elections and the remaining 100 will be allocated to the various parties in accordance with the proportion of votes they have won (these seats theoretically represent a mainland constituency, 80 seats, and the Overseas Chinese, 20 seats). The term of office of the new National Assembly will begin on 1 January 1991 and will last at the latest until 1996 (when the term of office of the current President expires). Further elections for the other two parliamentary bodies, the Legislative Yuan and the Control Yuan, will take place before 31 January 1993.
3. This is the first time since the Kuomintang fled to Taiwan in 1949 that elections on this scale have been held with the potential decisively to alter the make up of one of the major national parliamentary bodies. In the past when by-elections have been held they have only affected a small proportion of the seats. The KMT has thus been able to rely on an inbuilt majority in any resulting National Assembly, because of the incumbent members elected in 1946/47 who have never been subject to reelection.
4.
The National Assembly has two main functions: to amend the Constitution and to elect the President. Constitutional amendments have to be passed by a resolution of three fourths of the delegates present at a meeting having a quorum of two thirds of the entire Assembly. Thus to be certain of being able to achieve any Constitutional amendment it desires, the Kuomintang would have to to win three quarters of the seats in the election.
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