Taiwan reveals electoral reform plan

The unwieldy system makes it hard to push through legislation

By Damian Grammaticas BBC Taiwan correspondent

Taiwan's government has unveiled plans to reform the island's electoral system, including a proposal to cut the number of seats in the legislative assembly.

In the past two years, President Chen Shui-bian's administration has struggled to pass many measures because it does not control the island's legislature.

China may view efforts to update this arcane arrangement with concern. It is always unsettled by major political changes on the island

Mr Chen's reforms are part of an effort to make the island's government more efficient and more stable.

Taiwan has one of the most complicated electoral systems in the world. It was inherited from the 1930s when the island of over 20 million people was under Japanese occupation.

Following Taiwan's first democratic elections a decade ago, the system has recently produced a deeply divided parliament with weak party discipline, and it has encouraged electoral corruption.

Time wasted

Since Mr Chen became Taiwan's president two years ago, he has had to cope with a legislature in which his DPP party has not controlled a majority of the seats.

Much government time has been wasted on bitter political battles with the parliament. Mr Chen is now proposing major cuts to the number of parliamentary seats, down from 225 at the moment to just 150.

Chen is proposing a major cut in seats

Ninety geographical constituencies would return one legislator each, the other seats would be divided proportionally between any parties gaining more than 5% of the national vote.

Legislators' terms would be extended from three to four years. Mr Chen said it would cut the cost of government, but the reforms will require a revision of Taiwan's constitution, and they will have to be approved by the parliament.

Needed stability

Legislators are unlikely to be sympathetic - in effect, many are being asked to vote themselves out of a job.

The plans, though, would probably bring some much needed stability to Taiwan's political scene.

Under its current electoral arrangements there are just a few, very large geographical constituencies - each one returns an average of five legislators to Taiwan's parliament.

Candidates from the same party are reduced to fighting against each other as much as the opposition, and because they need relatively little support to get elected in fourth or fifth place, legislators can also win seats by appealing to extreme interest groups or by buying votes.

On top of that, the present parliament also has seats chosen nationally by proportional representation, others reserved for overseas Taiwanese and for ethnic-minority groups.

It is a system ripe for reform.

China meanwhile may view efforts to update this arcane arrangement with concern. It is always unsettled by major political changes on the island.