2012 ELECTIONS: Elections ‘free, partly unfair,’ watchdog says
FEAR FACTORS:An independent observation mission said cross-strait relations and an imbalance in parties’ wealth, among others, weighed on voters
The presidential and legislative elections conducted on Saturday were “mostly free, but partly unfair,” because of concerns about an authoritarian legacy and foreign interference, an international election watch group said in Taipei yesterday.
“Taiwan’s autocratic past has become interlinked with pressures from an authoritarian China, which have framed an unfair political context in the elections,” said Michael Danielsen, chairman of Danish group Taiwan Corner.
Danielsen and former US senator and governor of Alaska Frank Murkowski were among 21 observers from eight countries who were invited to Taiwan by the International Commission for Fair Elections in Taiwan (ICFET), a watchdog group of more than 80 international and domestic politicians, academics and democracy advocates, to form an International Election Observation Mission (IEOM).
The mission issued an official statement yesterday after meeting with campaign organizers, staff and candidates, and observing rallies and activities nationwide for the three major political parties between Tuesday and yesterday.
The structural problems of vote-buying, misuse of government power and a huge imbalance in party wealth and resources observed in the elections are at least in part legacies from Taiwan’s authoritarian past, Danielsen said.
Influences from the US and China also posed concerns, in particular those from Beijing, the mission said.
“The cross-strait relations in the context of an economically and politically rising China weighs heavily on the election process in Taiwan. It puts tremendous pressures on Taiwan’s democracy and the freedom and fairness of the choices that its voters must take,” Danielsen said.
“In our view, the fear factor is very important in the elections,” said Gerrit van der Wees, editor of the Taiwan Communique, adding that the factor had built a sense of “fictional stability” for Taiwanese voters.
Murkowski, known for his support for Taiwan’s democracy, said judicial reform should also be in place to ensure fair elections.
The former senator said that fear has been a major factor in people’s deciding which party to support and the “golden rule” — he who has the gold, rules — of political party competition appeared to reflect the imbalanced political situation in Taiwan.
The imbalance between foreign interference and international support for Taiwan’s fair elections was also alarming, said Bruno Kaufmann, president of the Initiative and Referendum Institute Europe, who has observed 11 Taiwanese elections.
The development of Taiwan’s democracy means a lot to Asia, as Taiwan could be a beacon of democracy for all of Asia in the next 20 years, said John Tkacik, senior fellow and director of the International Assessment and Strategy Center’s Future Asia Project.
However, Tkacik warned, looking at what happened in the past 15 years in Hong Kong and Macau, he could not predict what kind of impact China’s system would have on Taiwan in 20 years and it would very likely reflect China’s influence on other Asian democracies over the next 20 years.
“This is the real significance of Taiwan’s democracy. It is a harbinger and a precursor, helping predict the impact of China on democracies throughout the rest of Asia,” he said.
Opinion: Washington, Beijing’s relief over Taiwan election will be temporary
When Beijing and Washington take a second look at the results of Saturday’s elections in Taiwan, their initial delight at the victory of incumbent President Ma Ying-jeou will likely be tempered by doubts about what it means for the future.
Both the Chinese and United States governments promoted in word and deed the victory of Ma, who is credited with improving the island nation’s relationship with Beijing since he was first elected in 2008.
Taiwan, which China claims to own though it has been an independent nation for over 60 years and about 90 per cent of its people want it to stay that way, is a constant irritant in Sino-U.S. relations.
The island and its people have strong support among American politicians, though U.S. administrations have in the last two decades seen the affirmation of the island’s independence by Taiwan’s leaders of various political stripes as a major problem in relations between Washington and Beijing.
Strangely, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and now Barack Obama have all concluded it is Taiwan that is the problem, when in reality it is Beijing’s claim to own the island that is troublesome.
But Washington has more ability to put pressure on Taiwan and its 23 million people than it does on Beijing, so it is not surprising that U.S. administrations choose to lean on the weaker element in the equation.
In this election, that influence took the form of clear messages from Washington and a senior former American diplomat to Taipei that the people should vote for Ma, with his record of lessening cross-strait tensions, making a trade deal with China, and opening up direct transport links across the Taiwan Strait.
There’s a consensus in post-mortem analysis of the election that U.S. support for Ma together with uncertainty about the cross-strait policies of his main challenger, Tsai Ing-wen of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), contributed to Ma’s win.
There are other factors, such as large blocks of mostly DPP-supporting migrant workers and college students being unable to get to their hometowns to vote for economic reasons.
Ma won 51.5 per cent of the vote, while his Kuomintang (KMT) party took 64 of the 113 seats in parliament.
Tsai won 45.6 per cent in a 75-per-cent turnout, the lowest since Taiwan completed the transition to democracy in 1996 after half a century of one-party KMT rule and martial law.
In contrast, Ma won the 2008 election with nearly 60 per cent of the vote, and there were well-founded predictions that the DPP was a permanently spent political force.
But on Saturday, Ma got nearly a million fewer votes than he did four years ago and Tsai re-established the DPP as a viable opposition party.
Ma’s KMT also lost 17 seats in parliament while the DPP picked up 13.
The overall picture is of a sharply divided political landscape, with Ma having a curtailed mandate in his second term.
Although Beijing has backed Ma by such strategies as pushing commercial relations with southern Taiwan where support for the DPP is strongest, it doesn’t really trust him.
From Beijing’s point of view, Ma has been at best abstruse and sometimes duplicitous in his dealings with China over the sovereignty issue.
Beijing has welcomed the economic links that Ma agreed to in his first term, but what it really wants is for him to open negotiations on some form of political union.
Ma could not do that under the most advantageous of circumstances because of deep-seated popular opposition in Taiwan.
Now, with a sharply cut popular mandate, he is in an even weaker position.
Ma hoped that in response to his first friendly gestures Beijing would lift its blocking of Taiwan from joining international organizations.
It was always a pipe dream that Beijing would give succour to Taiwan’s stature as a nation by allowing it to join international bodies other than as a junior partner to China.
It is now even less likely that China will give Taiwan diplomatic space.
Beijing will, however, promote ever-deeper economic relations.
This may well cause trouble in Taiwan. There is already much unhappiness at the growing disparity between the rich and the middle class that has accompanied more open trade with China.
There is also widespread concern that unchecked Chinese investment on the island may achieve assimilation by itself.
jmanthorpe@vancouversun.com
國台辦助馬連任 官員領獎金
不計成本 只看政治效果
華文傳媒「博訊新聞網」昨刊登一則「馬英九勝選，國台辦鉅資介入兩岸經貿受嘉獎」獨家消息，內容指出兩年前開始，中國為助馬英九連任，國台辦透過國營和私企有選擇性地與台灣做生意；不計經濟成本，只看政治影響。馬連任也讓國台辦官員獲得獎金獎勵。
消息指出，一位國台辦官員前晚在北京飯店同他私人朋友聚會時透露重要資訊。他說馬英九險勝，國台辦才鬆了一口氣。他還表示，自己在辦公室已守一個星期，「今天第一次出來喝酒」。
他透露，國台辦一位副主任十五日下午表示，「現在補發獎金來不及，大家春節後回來，要好好獎勵一下」。
助中抗美 指馬功不可沒
博訊網報導這位「正處級領導」說，這是中央對國台辦的工作滿意，主任才敢開口要「補發一次獎金」。他說，馬英九上台，兩岸關係大改善，從根本上改變美國把台灣當成對付中國籌碼的做法，這對提升中國大國地位非常重要，主要功勞就是國台辦，當然，馬英九功不可沒。
這位官員說，就大陸掌握的情報顯示，馬英九這次連任之路走得很難。在這種情況下，從兩年前開始，國台辦介入兩岸經貿，開始了一項以爭取台灣民心為主的計畫。這個計畫的主要目標是民進黨的大本營台南與台中民眾。
經貿手段 比射導彈便宜
根據這個計畫，博訊網指出，在國台辦的支持下，中國國營和私企有選擇性地同這些地區做生意，不計經濟成本，只看政治影響，做生意虧的錢由國台辦專款專撥。如購買某地魚回大陸，悄悄送到西部，免費發送給國營機關。還有，進口台灣水果，部分擺放在高級商場拍照上媒體，剩下的大部分直接以低價出售給國家部門職工。
報導指出，這位官員向朋友透露，原本國台辦認為要花費上百億來擴大中國在這些綠營根據地的政治影響，但一年多下來，發現直接從財政撥款的「經濟成本要小得多」。這位官員笑著說，這比向台灣海峽發射導彈要便宜。
中國官員 要馬拿出誠意
博訊網指出，官員透露，未來四年會繼續協助馬英九的中國政策，但馬英九既然連任了，也應該拿出一些誠意給大陸看。不過，這位官員並沒有透露國台辦希望馬英九拿出什麼誠意，只表示：「未來四年是關鍵」。自由時報01-17
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