Local politics is the foundation for democratic
development, but it does not receive the same public
attention and media scrutiny as occurrences on the
national scene. A new crop of mayor and county
executives is grappling with the problems of governing
at the local level, starting with the limited budgets.
In Taiwan, county executives and city mayors are referred to as "parental officials," meaning that their responsibility to constituents is similar to that of parents to children. Because of that close relationship at a grassroots level, the various political parties vie aggressively to win these offices, even if the victors often feel that the problems they must deal with are much greater than the powers they are granted to resolve them.
December 20 saw the inauguration of twenty-three such parental officials--from eighteen counties plus the five county-level cities of Chiayi, Hsinchu, Keelung, Taichung, and Tainan--who had been elected on the first day of that month. For the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), the outcome of the election was less cheering than its clear victory the same day in the voting for national legislators. Compared with 1997, when the DPP gained control of twelve county and city governments, it wound up with only nine, the same number as gained by the Kuomintang (KMT). The new People First Party (PFP) won two seats in its outing for local-level races, the New Party won one, and independent candidates took the other two. The party flag changed in twelve counties and cities, and eight of the fourteen incumbents seeking reelection were defeated. As with the legislative vote, Taiwan's political map was divided into two major blocks: a "green" (DPP) south and a "pan-blue" (the presumed alliance of the KMT, the PFP, and the New Party) dominating the north, while the less-populated eastern counties were split.
At a post-election press conference, DPP Chairman Frank Hsieh, while celebrating his party's legislative election victory, conceded that it had suffered a setback in the local races and that the party needs to work harder to build support at this level, especially in the central and eastern cities and counties. DPP Secretary-General Wu Nai-ren offered the explanation that the party had devoted most of its resources to the legislative seats, to the neglect of the local elections. "Losing three local seats is a warning," he said. "If we don't do something about it, we'll face an even tougher situation next time."
KMT Chairman Lien Chan's reading of the election results was that the "pan-blue" camp faces a great opportunity to win future elections if the component parties can work together smoothly. His party won one more city/county seat than it did in 1997. "The people have given us a chance to start over from the grassroots level," Lien told the attendees at a seminar held by National Policy Foundation, a KMT think tank. "We will grab this opportunity and shoulder the heavy responsibilities of local government."
For the PFP, winning the counties of Taitung and Lienchiang (the Matsu islands off the coast of mainland China) presents the young party with an opportunity to demonstrate its administrative abilities. "The two county offices will provide a stage where we can put our policies regarding economic development, labor affairs, social welfare, and other issues into practice," says PFP spokesman Liao Tsang-song. He says that party Chairman James Soong will "pass on the administrative experience he gained as provincial governor to our local executives, enabling them to establish their districts as role models for the rest of the country."
In local-level elections, ideological issues such as national identity and Taiwan's relationship to China play a much smaller role than they do in national elections, notes Liu I-chou, professor of political science at National Chengchi University and director of the school's Election Study Center. "Besides candidates' personal characteristics and the performance of incumbents, local elections are often decided by whether a candidate enjoys a full measure of support from a political party or parties."
In Taichung City, for example, the KMT's Jason Hu was victorious largely because the DPP vote was split between the party's formal nominee and the incumbent running as an independent. But in Taipei County, the candidate jointly nominated by the New Party, the KMT, and the PFP lost. According to Liu's analysis, that joint candidate, Wang Chien-shien of the New Party, did not receive full support from the KMT or the PFP, who were preoccupied with their own legislative races. "Full support means using the power of the party to mobilize the vote," Liu says. "Such mobilization is based on a network of personal relations, not just relying on voters to act on their preference for a certain candidate. If a party fails to use those human relations successfully, people may just stay home instead of going to the polls."
Whatever their political affiliation, the first challenge all newly elected city/county executives have to confront is financial pressure. Nearly every local government faces a severe budget deficit--as much as NT$20 billion (US$571 million) in Taichung County--which is threatening to escalate into a cash flow crisis that could affect county services. According to the Ministry of Finance, the total revenue of the city and county governments fell NT$23 billion (US$657 million) short of their expenditures last year. Exacerbated by the recession, the money pressures stem from increased claims on the local governmental budgets, notably the requirement that they share in the financing of the National Health Insurance program. During a meeting with President Chen Shui-bian and Premier Chang Chun-hsiung a few days before taking office, the new mayors and county executives all expressed concern about local finances. Su Tseng-chang, reelected as the chief of Taipei County, said that if the problem worsens any further, his government might even be unable to pay its employees.
Only part of the income of local governments is generated from local taxes and fees under their own control. For the remainder--slightly over 40 percent on average--they need to rely on appropriations from higher-level government units. This role was played by the Taiwan Provincial Government until its downsizing in 1998 and has since been taken over by the central government. In fiscal 2002, the cabinet attempted to find a temporary solution by redistributing some revenue that had originally been earmarked for Taipei and Kaohsiung Cities, which are considered special municipalities.
The decision to marginalize the provincial government was a major adjustment in governmental structure. Chao Yung-mau, professor of political science at National Taiwan University, explains that the existence for many decades of a large, powerful provincial government under the central government was due to special historical circumstances. When the Nationalist Government withdrew to Taiwan in 1949, it regarded the island as only one of the Chinese provinces that should legitimately fall under its jurisdiction. But as years passed without realization of Chiang Kai-shek's goal of recovering the mainland, the inefficiencies of the duplicate levels of government became an increasing burden. "But unfortunately the streamlining [of 1998] didn't make the most of the opportunity it presented for thorough government restructuring and reengineering," including resolution of the problem of local government finances, says Chao.
Even more worrisome to many observers is that some onetime provincial responsibilities were never assigned clearly to either the central or the local government level after the reorganization. Liu I-chou cites the Pachang Creek tragedy that occurred in July 2000 as an example of this problem. Four bridge maintenance workers were trapped by a sudden, torrential flood, stranded on a small piece of land in the middle of the creek. Because of disagreements among the emergency rescue services at different levels of government over who should take responsibility in such a case, no helicopter was dispatched to the scene until after the four had already perished three hours later. "Local governments who used to call for provincial government assistance no longer knew where to seek help in an emergency," Liu says. "If the right procedures had been set up, the four people would have survived."
A basic readjustment of the powers and responsibilities of the various levels of government was spelled out in the Law on the Local Government System enacted in 1999. But Chao Yung-mau views the law as providing little practical help to the local governments, mainly because numerous other relevant statutes were not simultaneously revised. "Local governments' hands are tied by all kinds of laws concerning finance, government structure, education, public works, transportation, and environmental issues, requiring higher level approval for almost every move a local government wants to make," he says. "The only difference is that the higher level has changed from the Taiwan Provincial Government to the Executive Yuan. The time needed to gain approval is not necessarily any shorter."
One solution, as Chao has suggested at conferences on government reengineering, would be to grant local governments broader authority, allowing them merely to notify the central government of various decisions rather than waiting for central government approval to take action. But since such a change would involve the arduous task of revising a long list of statutes, burdening an already crowded legislative agenda, neither the ruling party nor the opposition has made it a priority issue.
The local governments themselves must bear some of the blame for their hardship. They are permitted to levy taxes to increase their income, but none of them has dared to do so. "They want the money but not new taxes, because that would antagonize the voters, and they want the money but not the power, because with power comes responsibility," Chao says.
Compared with the legislative elections, the contests for "parental officials" generated much less media coverage and analysis. "Since no party won more than half of the legislative seats, the result of the election will have a great impact on power distribution, interparty relations, and how well the executive branch will be able to implement its policies," Liu I-chou says. "The county and city elections were much more straightforward and therefore drew much less attention."
Less media coverage does not mean less importance. "The political pendulum effect tells us that local politics can be important sensors regarding what may happen on the national scene, especially in urbanized areas with more independent-minded voters," says Chao Yung-mau. "The message I read from this election is that if the DPP is unable to come up with solutions for the economic downturn and the unemployment rate, it is in danger of losing voters to other parties next time." According to this sensor theory, the DPP's success in winning twelve of the twenty-three local offices in 1997 foreshadowed the triumph of its candidate in the 2000 presidential election. Now, the decline in the number of counties it controls to nine may indicate a shift in voter sentiment.
To most citizens, their new parental officials' political affiliations are no longer a matter of much concern once the election results have been announced. That is positive, for accepting and respecting the election outcome is a sign of maturity among voters. But democracy is about more than elections. Will either individual voters or public interest groups monitor whether the mayors are carrying out campaign promises and raise constructive proposals on how to improve local conditions? Will the newly elected officials understand that their role is to act as managers to achieve the broadest public good?
Examined by these standards, many political observers believe, Taiwan still has a long way to go compared with democratically advanced countries. "We are one of the leading countries in economic development, but we're still lagging behind when it comes to political development," Chao Yung-mau says. "Caring more about local politics, which is the foundation for democratic development, is a good place for Taiwan to start catching up."
Two Standouts
Through their victories on December 1, two of the candidates for city and county executive--Jason Hu of the KMT in Taichung City and Su Tseng-chang of the DPP, reelected in Taipei County--have gained increased stature on the national political stage.
Four candidates were running in Taipei County, but it came down to a race between Su and Wang Chien-shien, a former finance minister. As the incumbent, Su emphasized his performance over the previous four years in promoting government efficiency and infrastructure projects in the county's twenty-nine townships. Wang, nominated jointly by three parties, asked for an opportunity to do something about the rising unemployment rate and other social ills resulting from the negative economic climate.
Su won by 50,000 votes out of nearly 1.7 million cast in Taiwan's most populous county. The result was much closer than pre-election polls had forecast, and Su has said that he considers it a warning of sizeable discontent with the DPP's performance nationally.
A National Taiwan University-trained lawyer, Su practiced law for eighteen years and was one of the defense attorneys (along with President Chen Shui-bian) in the Kaohsiung Incident trial of 1980 in which leading dissidents were convicted of sedition. Before being elected to his first term as executive of Taipei County in 1997, Su had served as a Taiwan provincial assemblyman, Pingtung County executive, DPP secretary-general, and a member of the Legislative Yuan.
Three candidates were running for mayor of Taichung, Taiwan's third largest city. Because of a split in the DPP vote between the formal nominee, Michael Tsai, and incumbent Mayor Chang Wen-ying running as an independent, Jason Hu was elected with 49 percent of the vote.
Hu holds a doctorate in international relations from Oxford University. Before becoming Taichung mayor, his administrative experience was mostly with the central government. He had served as director-general of the Government Information Office, minister of foreign affairs, Taiwan's representative to the United States, and national assemblyman.
During the campaign, Hu issued a white paper with proposals for improving the city's urban planning and zoning, economic development, cultural affairs, transportation, and social welfare policies. Referring to Seattle and Singapore as models, he says he aims to give Taichung a new look within a year. "I'm not here to be the mayor but the general manager," Hu said in a newspaper interview. "My priorities in this job will be promoting economic development, solving the unemployment problem, and sharpening the city's overall competitive advantage."
Having proven his popularity with voters, Hu--along with Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou--is expected to be one of the KMT's leading lights as the party seeks to rebuild itself.