[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 127 (Wednesday, September 19, 2012)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6438-S6440]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




               REPORT ON THE NATIONAL ELECTION IN TAIWAN

  Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, in August I submitted a resolution 
expressing the sense of the Senate that the U.S. Government should 
continue to support democracy and human rights in Taiwan following the 
January 2012 Presidential and legislative elections. The International 
Election Observers Mission has prepared a Report on the National 
Election in Taiwan that includes some important details and findings. I 
ask unanimous consent that the summary of that report be printed in the 
Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

      Report on the National Election in Taiwan, January 14, 2012

       To: International Committee for Fair Elections in Taiwan
       From: The International Election Observers Mission (IEOM)
       By: Woodrow W. Clark II MA, PhD, Lead Author and Senator 
     Frank Murkowski, Chair and all IEOM Members.


                                Overview

       Taiwan is an island nation of 23.2 million people (November 
     2011) in an area of 35,980 sq. km. The nation has 18.1 
     million eligible voters, all citizens who are 20 or more 
     years of age. The winner of the January 14, 2012 Presidential 
     Election, with 51.6 per cent of the vote, was Mr. Ma Ying-
     jeou, the incumbent and the nominee, Chinese Nationalist 
     Party (Kuomintang or KMT). Ms. Tsai Ing-wen of the opposition 
     Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) followed with 45.6 per 
     cent and the nominee of the small People First Party (PFP), 
     Mr. James Soong received about 2.8 per cent of the vote 
     (Taiwan Election Results, January 2012).
       At the same time, voters also elected the 113 members of 
     the national parliament, the Legislative Yuan. The KMT won 64 
     seats, while the DPP won 40 seats and the PFP, the Taiwan 
     Solidarity Union (TSU) and non-partisan independent 
     candidates each won three seats. Compared with the 2008 
     legislative election, the KMT won 17 fewer seats, the DPP 
     gained 13 additional seats, the PFP won two additional seats 
     and the TSU, with its three seats, returned to the 
     legislature after a four-year absence.


                          Political Background

       Taiwan experienced a long political struggle during the 
     authoritarian era. Democracy in Taiwan only began after the 
     death of President Chiang Ching-kuo in January 1988 and the 
     accession of Lee Teng-hui to the presidency. The political 
     system is not divided between ``left'' and ``right,'' though 
     the DPP does place somewhat more emphasis on ``social 
     justice.'' Instead, ``the primary political cleavage between 
     the political parties has been and remains the issue of 
     national identity, often referred to as the `unification-
     independence' issue'' (Taiwan Elections Handbook, 2012: 
     p.13), or between the ``pan-blue'' alliance (Kuomintang and 
     associated parties) and the ``pan-green'' alliance (DPP and 
     aligned parties).
       Mr. Ma's percentage of the vote fell from the 58 per cent 
     he gained four years earlier and, as indicated earlier, the 
     new KMT majority in the legislature was much less than the 
     huge victory, which it won in 2008 (Cole, March 9, 2012).


           The International Election Observer Mission (IEOM)

       Eighteen (18) observers from seven countries were invited 
     by the International Committee for Fair Elections in Taiwan 
     (ICFET) to form an International Election Observation Mission 
     (IEOM) for the January 2012 Presidential and Legislative 
     elections in Taiwan. See the list of members of the IEOM 
     below in Table 1.
       The group consisted of observers from Australia, Canada, 
     Denmark, France, Japan, Sweden, the Netherlands, and the 
     United States, ranging in experiences from academia, elected 
     representatives, religious groups, businesses, and civil 
     society. As observers, the IEOM members tried to be strictly 
     neutral in all their activities, data gathering, and 
     conclusions.
       Most members of the IEOM were in Taiwan from January 10-15, 
     2012. Members visited locations in Taipei, Kaohsiung, Tainan, 
     and Taichung. As a group, they met with campaign organizers, 
     staff, and candidates from the three political parties 
     running presidential tickets: the Democratic Progressive 
     Party (DPP), the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), and the 
     People First Party (PFP). Then, on the day before the 
     election (January 13, 2012) and during Election Day (January 
     14, 2012), the IEOM split into smaller groups of 2-4 members 
     who observed political rallies, street campaigns, and polling 
     station as well as the Central Election Commission counting 
     center on Election Day.
       This report consists of direct IEOM observations by its 
     members as well as other sources, including the Taiwan and 
     international press as well as post-election news sources in 
     Chinese and English. Other observer groups were also present 
     in Taiwan.
       One other neutral observation group, the Asian Network for 
     Free Elections Foundation (ANFREL), headquartered in Bangkok, 
     Thailand, deserves special mention. ANFREL produced an 
     Observers Report (entitled ``Credible Elections but a Tilted 
     Playing Field'') after the Election that corresponds with 
     many IEOM observations as well as our Press Release and this 
     Report. The ANFREL Report (2012) will be cited herein.


                              Full Report

  The full report of the IEOM was published in Taiwan on June 11th 
2012, and is available on the website of the International Committee 
for Fair Elections in Taiwan (ICFET) at: http://
www.taiwanelections.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/Taiwan-2012-
Elections-IEOM-Final-Report.pdf

[[Page S6439]]

          Key Sections: Nation Elections and Set of Conditions

     The National Election: democracy and identity politics
       Over the past twenty years, many surveys have been 
     conducted on the identity of Taiwan's citizens. Overall, the 
     numbers who consider themselves solely Taiwanese have 
     increased from 17.3 per cent in 1992 to 54.2 per cent in June 
     2011. At the same time, the numbers who consider themselves 
     solely Chinese have declined from 25.5 per cent in 1992 to 
     only 4.1 per cent in June 2011. This development has 
     continued since Ma become president in 2008. Furthermore, a 
     recent survey shows that 74 per cent prefer independence, if 
     given a free choice, and more than 81.7 per cent refused to 
     accept the ``One country, Two systems'' proposal from China 
     (Danielsen, 2012, pp. 141-142).
       Taiwan has much more income equality than most countries 
     today, and according to some commentators is one of the most 
     ``equal societies'' in East Asia. However, inequality has 
     been rising in recent years, so that about 20 per cent of the 
     Taiwan population earns over six times that of the bottom 20 
     per cent of the population. While the unemployment level 
     remains low by international comparison, it too has been 
     rising, affecting mainly lower and working-class people.
       The national elections on January 14, 2012 were the fifth 
     direct presidential and the seventh direct parliamentary 
     election. Many have called Taiwan's elections ``a beacon of 
     democratic practices in Asia'' (Baum and van der Wees, 2012). 
     Thus, many other nations in Asia and around the world were 
     watching the Taiwan election process and its outcome very 
     carefully. Taiwan has indeed become more ``democratic'' over 
     the last twenty-four years, due to its allowing the existence 
     and activities of opposition political parties and the rapid 
     growth of human rights on the island. Nonetheless, these 
     national elections were not perfect. This is why the IEOM, in 
     its post-election Press Release, labeled them ``mostly free 
     but partly unfair'' (Taiwan Elections, 2012).
       Taiwan is surely not alone among countries across the globe 
     in which movements dealing with social and environmental 
     concerns have been followed up by developments focusing on 
     the establishing and functioning of a genuinely democratic 
     system. ``People power movements'' have also occurred in 
     Eastern Europe and Latin America, and most recently in the 
     Middle East and Northern Africa. . . .
       Taiwan is also not alone among nations concerned with 
     democracy today. Many western nations face similar problems. 
     Thus, David Kilgour, a member of the IEOM, spoke about 
     election issues in Ontario, Canada in 2005 to the House of 
     Commons Study Group. He noted then that Canada had some 
     similar issues with vote-getting (that is, the process 
     whereby candidates seek votes by offering various forms of 
     financial gains). . . . .
       Hence the concern for free and open democratic elections is 
     not restricted to nations, which have recently become 
     democratic (Economist, 2012, pp. 47-48). They are also 
     prominent in western developed democratic nations in the 
     West, like the USA, Canada, France, Italy, Spain, and the UK.
     Conditions for Free Elections
       In the following section, we follow the universal 
     conditions for democratic elections, as set forth by Wolf 
     (1984), which can be applied to evaluate the national 
     elections in Taiwan in January 2012. These conditions are 
     based upon election observations in Nicaragua during which 
     Wolf identified nine ``Conditions'' that can be applied 
     anywhere in the world (ibid., Preface). Wolf's nine 
     Conditions are:
       1) Honest watching of each polling station
       2) Total secrecy in casting the vote
       3) Voting: Dates, Residency, Inspection, and Counting
       4) Absence of a climate of coercion and fear
       5) Pre-election freedom of party organization and activity
       6) Institutional freedom of intermediate organizations
       7) Freedom of speech, campaigning, and assembly
       8) Freedom of access to the media
       9) Media financing of cable, TV, social and electronic, 
     journals, newspapers, and others
       The IEOM proposes two additional Conditions both for Taiwan 
     and for other nations:
       No. 10: Elections not determined or influenced by 
     international pressure or informal relationships.
       No. 11: All Candidates should have equal access to funding 
     for elections.
       Overall, the IEOM considers the 2012 Taiwan National 
     Election to have been acceptable for Conditions 1, 2, 4, and 
     6. However, Conditions 3, 5, and 7 through 11 raise issues 
     that should be addressed and corrected in future elections to 
     improve the functioning of democracy in Taiwan.


                    Conclusions and Recommendations

       The IEOM would like to thank the organizers of the visit, 
     the ICFET, for their invitation and organizing of the 
     delegation. The IEOM wants to encourage the ICFET to continue 
     in its efforts and to support election observation activities 
     in the future to strengthen Taiwan's democracy, so that it 
     can be shared with other countries in the region and around 
     the world. As the IEOM conducted its observations, the 
     members greatly appreciated the willingness of candidates, 
     party representatives, and government representatives to meet 
     with them. Every party organization and its representatives 
     demonstrated hospitality, and suffered the IEOM's questions 
     with grace and dignity.
     Areas for Improvement
       The IEOM and ANFREL (January 2012) delegations made 
     comments on the successes of the Taiwan national election, 
     which are summarized below. Both groups saw ``areas of 
     concern''. These comments are made to provide constructive 
     feedback on the process in the spirit of improving it, so as 
     to provide a vibrant democratic system worthy of Taiwan's 
     people. No matter what happens in the future, China will 
     continue to have an impact and influence in Taiwan, just as 
     its economic impact is being felt around the world. The 
     peaceful interactions between nations will result in building 
     relationships and producing changes for both nations. Ms. 
     Tsai indicated the need for the DPP to work with China during 
     the election campaign.
       Several key institutions need to be strengthened. For 
     example, civil service and non-elected offices all need to be 
     further de-politicized. Improvements in the legitimacy of the 
     elections and reduction of the politicization of the police 
     and courts would increase trust in them by the people and 
     reduce criticism of them during campaigns. Attention should 
     be put to ensuring the neutrality and impartiality, both real 
     and perceived, of all related government agencies.
       The IEOM affirms that Taiwan is already a democratic 
     nation. But as with other democracies, there are problems 
     that need to be addressed. These range from public reporting 
     and control of election expenditures to the use of media and 
     neutrality of the administration. The issues of the 
     neutrality of the administrative and judicial systems are 
     serious and need to be addressed through public oversight, 
     evaluation and control. Will the newly re-elected government 
     appoint and oversee ``objective'' and ``transparent'' 
     government officials and judicial officers and move towards 
     much-needed judicial, administrative as well as legislative 
     reforms?
       The world will continue to watch Taiwan as it ``performs'' 
     and reveals in the next four years what those future steps 
     will be. Taiwan is a sign of hope to many and has been a 
     model of democratic transformation. It should continue to be 
     the ``showcase nation'' for democracy. To do that requires 
     ongoing review and oversight.
       The IEOM has a number of specific recommendations:
       A) Thoroughly and honestly resolve the longstanding problem 
     of KMT party assets, including their source, use and 
     investments that create a huge imbalance in financial 
     resources available to each party. This imbalance distorts 
     everything else in Taiwan's elections, including that which 
     is otherwise fair. These hidden assets also provide huge 
     hidden funds to use for election media and other public 
     relations activities. President Ma has stated he wants to 
     resolve the status of these funds, but has not done so as 
     yet. In his new term, the proof will be in his actions.
       B) Strengthen enforcement and public promotion of campaign 
     spending laws, and close the many loopholes that candidates 
     and parties can use.
       C) Make consequences real for candidates who buy votes, 
     such as disqualification from running in future elections. 
     For example, in 2008 the PFP Plains Aboriginal candidate Lin 
     Cheng-er was removed as a legislator after he was convicted 
     of vote-buying, yet he ran again as a PFP candidate in 2012 
     and won. We believe he should have been disqualified from 
     running.
       D) Use party discipline to combat vote-buying. Parties can 
     mobilize members to assist with the oversight of compliance 
     with election laws and can establish committees to gather 
     evidence concerning election improprieties. However, it is 
     the individual candidates who will make the difference. In 
     short, it is the candidates, not the parties, who buy votes.
       E) Change the household registration system to allow people 
     to vote where they actually work or study in Taiwan and thus 
     end the need to travel long distances in Taiwan to vote. This 
     is already practiced in many countries.


Table 1: Members of The International Election Observers Mission (IEOM)

       United States--Frank Murkowski, Former Senator and Former 
     Governor of Alaska (USA); USA, Chair of IEOM Mission; Woodrow 
     Clark II, PhD. Contributor to Nobel Peace Prize-winning 
     Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (2007), USA and 
     Lead Author of Formal IEOM Report; Edward Friedman, 
     Professor, Political Science, University of Wisconsin, 
     Madison; John Tkacik, Senior Fellow and Director, Future Asia 
     Project, International Assessment and Strategy Center.
       Canada--Bill Blaikie, Former M.P, Deputy Speaker of 
     Canadian House of Commons; Susan Henders, Director, York 
     Centre for Asian Research at York University; David Kilgour, 
     Former Secretary of State, Asia Pacific, and former Member of 
     Parliament; Peter Noteboom, Deputy Secretary of Canadian 
     Council of Churches, Commission on Justice and Peace; Ted 
     Siverns, Former Dean, Vancouver School of Theology; Michael 
     Stainton, President, Taiwanese Human Rights Association of 
     Canada; Research Associate at the York Centre for Asian 
     Research at York University; Lois Wilson, Former Canadian 
     Senator, leader on Committee on Human Rights in the Canadian 
     Senate, President of World Council of Churches, first female 
     Moderator of the United Church of Canada.
       Europe (one member from France could not participate in the 
     Report)--Michael

[[Page S6440]]

     Danielsen, Chairman, Taiwan Corner (Denmark); Bruno Kaufmann, 
     President, Initiative and Referendum Institute Europe and 
     Chairman of the Election Commission in Falun (Sweden); Gerrit 
     van der Wees, Editor, Taiwan Communique (The Netherlands).
       Japan--Katsuhiko Eguchi, Member, House of Councilors, Diet; 
     Yoshinori Ohno, Member, House of Representatives, Diet; 
     Yoshiko Sakurai, President, Japan Institute for National 
     Fundamentals.
       Australia--Bruce Jacobs, Professor of Asian Languages and 
     Studies, Monash University.

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