Politicians need to look beyond elections

Yaung Chih-liang, whose proposed hikes of NHI premiums reportedly have been rejected by Premier Wu Den-yih, issued a statement lamenting that the high frequency of elections in Taiwan has hampered government operations.

Politicians, in order to be victorious in elections, refrain from implementing policies that benefit the majority of the population because they are afraid of losing the votes of the minority, he said.

For the sake of winning elections, all important policies will have to be set aside despite the harm such inaction will do to the country's long-term development.

The departing minister described the high frequency of elections as a “disaster for the nation.”

He said he would launch a campaign to hold a referendum on reducing the frequency of elections.

His statement mentioned nothing about the NHI reform he had been working on, but instead vehemently talked about politics — something that the minister, as a medical practitioner who made his debut in government work just a few months ago — is definitely not good at.

His proposal for raising premiums to improve the finances of the near-bankrupt NHI program should be an issue that could be debated rationally. He might as well call for a referendum on his proposal.

Yaung believes that the proposed hikes, which would affect 41 percent of the people, are based on his professional judgment.

But it contradicts Premier Wu Den-yih's promise that the hikes would not affect more than 25 percent of the people.

Yaung apparently feels that he will not be able to win support from Wu.

So instead of calling attention to the NHI issue itself, he has diverted the focus to some wider, perennial, obvious and underlying problems. His warning is an indictment of President Ma Ying-jeou's administration that Yaung is determined to leave, as well as a populist game that Taiwan politicians have been eagerly playing.

The politics-mad Taiwan seems to have elections every year. That is what Yaung believes and what he is trying to change through a referendum — to consolidate the elections so that they will be held only every two years.

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