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Updated Sunday, September 20, 2009 11:03 am TWN, The China Post news staff

There can never be 'too many elections'

Over the coming days, President Ma Ying-jeou is planning to hold separate meetings with ruling Kuomintang lawmakers.

According to media reports, the main purpose of these meetings is for Ma to exchange opinions with party lawmakers as he prepares to take on the post of KMT chairman, whilst remaining as President of the R.O.C.

But many reports have suggested that one of the main items on Ma's agenda will be persuading KMT lawmakers to revise local autonomy laws during the upcoming legislative session.

The purpose of amending such laws will be to ratify the Interior Ministry's plans for extending the terms of county commissioners, county council deputies and small- and medium-sized city mayors due to be elected this December.

According to the Ministry of the Interior, the four-year terms of these officials would be extended once by another year, totaling five years in all, so that the next round of elections will coincide with mayoral and council elections in Taiwan's five largest municipalities.

These five municipalities are Taipei, “New Taipei,” Greater Taichung, Greater Tainan and Greater Kaohsiung.

With the exception of the capital Taipei, four of these five municipalities recently received approval from the central government to form new municipal administrations under the direct supervision and jurisdiction of the central government, mostly by merging with neighboring regions.

“New Taipei” consists of Taipei County, while “Greater Taichung” will be formed by the joining of the city of Taichung with Taichung County.

“Greater Tainan” is a merger of Tainan City and Tainan County, while “Greater Kaohsiung” is a union of Kaohsiung County with the city of Kaohsiung, which itself was already a “special municipality” enjoying the same status as Taipei before the merger.

Reports are suggesting that President Ma is eager to see elections for leaders of counties and cities with smaller populations held at the same time as similar elections held for the island's new “mega-metropolises.”

The main reason given for lining up the timing of

these elections is the purported waste of public resources and attention lavished on elections that come one after another, year after year.

There is no reason to oppose reduction of waste, especially at a time when government budgets are coming under increased scrutiny.

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September 20, 2009 groobannerman@

The news media wants elections at many different times in order to milk the cow of controversy and sensationalism to sell as much advertising as possible. If they could only have an election every day of every year, they could sell their maximum rate of advertising every day. Imagine the eye-bulging profits they could make.

The only item in this essay that has any connection to frequent elections is the last one, that many elections at the same time could lead to corruption by drowning out attention on local contests. That concern is false, and likely deliberate deceit, as no politician has proposed holding all elections on the same day. The reality that Taiwan has too many elections is still a fact, and only the greedy news media objects to the plan to consolidate similar elections to the same term limit. The entire editorial is merely an exercise in self-serving dishonesty.


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