The Role of Local Self-government in the Democratization Process in Taiwan

Comparing Polish and Taiwan's Experiences.

Wojciech Ostrowski

Warsaw 2001

The Kuomintang (KMT) regime in Taiwan, like the Communist regimes in  Poland, restricted political freedoms and violated human rights. Almost as in Poland in the Republic of China in Taiwan many citizens perceived KMT government as an 'alien force' of the Mainlanders (daluren). In such a situation government undertook attempts to gain popular support. However the democratic transition in Taiwan did not result in an electoral defeat of the ruling party and did not bring about success to the opposition.

On the turn of the 1980's and 1990's  in Poland as well as in Taiwan, one party regime of a Leninist party had been replaced by a multi-party democratic system. There was a significant difference in the dynamics of those transformations. The Polish rulers identified themselves with the Left but KMT in Taiwan with the Right. Notwithstanding the state interventionism, Taiwanese economy was of a market nature, therefore the economic changes were much less significant than in Poland. One of the causes of democratic transformation in Eastern Europe was the breaking of the Communist economy, in Taiwan the political transformation took place during the intensive economic development.

From 1945 to 2000 Kuomintang as a ruling party in Taiwan maintained its Leninist nature, but there are significant differences between Communist Party in Soviet Union and KMT. KMT in Taiwan has been never conceived itself as representing the interests of any particular class, but it has been representing the nation as a whole. It hasn't been promoting proletarian dictatorship, but the achievement of democracy through stages of military rule. It hasn't been advocating to building socialism or communism, and its grand wide scope for private business.[1]

Another difference resulting from different systems of values presented by authorities and the common people. In the western countries some actions of government are perceived as a painful "restrictions of humane rights". In Asia (as in Taiwan) restrictions of human rights were not perceived as very arduous, because the idea of humane rights, as we know it, is elaborated in the western tradition and only adapted in some of the Asian countries.[2] In Confucian tradition, still strong in Taiwan, the government has two principal duties: the assurance of well-being prosperity and access to education for every citizen. These duties were  performed well by the Taiwanese administration. In Eastern Europe on the other hand restrictions of the political freedom and civil rights were considered "immoral actions". Communist governments in Eastern Europe did not consider economic development of their countries a primary duty, more important was obedience  to Moscow and its rules.

          In fact the authorities in Taiwan in the years 1949 - 1987 realized its Confucians duty of assuring of welfare and education to inhabitants. Political systems modeled on Soviet solutions brought to Europe Eastern economic stagnancy. In Taiwan instead, rapid economic development changed poor, agricultural areas, worn out by war, into one of the richest areas in the world.

In spite of the constantly worsening political status of Taiwan's authorities in the world, and threats of potential military conflict with Mainland China, Taiwanese economy have been developed extremely intensively. Although there are scare natural resources and heavy defense expenditures, Taiwan's intermediate economic growth in the years 1951 - 1984 totaled about 8, 9%. GDP per capita, which in 1952 totaled less than 200 USD, reached a value of 1200 USD in 1977. In the 1980's Taiwan, counting only 19 millions inhabitants, advanced to eleventh place among the worlds greatest exporters.[3] In 2000 GDP per capita totaled 1500 USD. In the 1960's agriculture sector accounted for 30% of Taiwan's GDP in the 1990's only 3.3%.[4] From the 1970's almost 100% of school - age children frequented schools.[5] In Taiwan the number grew of persons educated in the worlds best colleges and universities.  When the democratic transformation started on the turn of 1980's and 1990's, Taiwan's conditions of life, social and economical structures, was similar to most rich countries of world.

Under those circumstances in Eastern Europe a victory of the opposition offered a hope of radical improvements in the condition of life and political freedoms. In Taiwan on the other hand victory of the opposition could not bring radical improvements, instead political destabilization could even cause an economical crisis. The limitation on human rights was not considered by the society to be as painful as by European societies and they was gradually removed under the control of the ruling party. So the ruling parties in Poland and in Taiwan had a different fate. In 1989 Polish United Workers Party lost the elections, while Kuomintang remained as a ruling party for the next ten years.

          Formally the government in Taiwan called by the KMT authorities the Free China was democratic and respected rights and freedoms of the citizens. But although in 1947 democratic constitution of the Republic of China was promulgated, until the turn of 1980's and 1990's operations of the government had been circumscribed by a series of emergency laws,[6] among them, the Provision Amendments for the Period of Mobilization of the Suppression of Communist Rebellion, commonly known as the temporary provisions, and martial law had the most profound effects on the scope of governmental power and sociopolitical life on the island. When the constitution was adapted, China was in the midst of civil war, then in 1949 the government of the Republic of China was forced from the mainland. For the next forty years the ROC government's structure derived from both the constitution and numerous extralegal constraints issued on the basis of Taiwan's state of emergency.

          The restriction on the constitutional freedoms resulted in the hegemony of the Kuomintang in the political life in Taiwan. The Kuomintang was a Leninist type political party, organized on hierarchic principles of democratic-centralism with a revolutionary agenda, with the Sun Yat-sen's Three Principles of the People as its ideology. It didn't tolerate opposition political parties or heterodox ideologies. The party monopolized appointments to the state bureaucracy and administrated a Bolshevik commissar system in the army. It penetrated most social organizations, directly intervened in the education system and played a dominant role in the media.[7] In the early 1950' Kuomintang consolidated its control over the state, army, internal security apparatus, and legal system. The ruling party controlled the economy through ownership of most large industries and banking system and appropriating the agricultural surplus, and it controlled society by pervasive internal security networks, the controlling of media and the education system.

According to administration orders issued by Government (Executive Yuan) in December 1949 Taiwan was designated a combat area in "China's civil war". President's emergency decree activated martial law stipulated that the local administration and judicial matters of the combat area shall be placed under the jurisdiction of the commander in chief in the said area. In fact Taiwan Garrison Command headquarters created in 1950 under the Ministry of Defense never assumed control of local administration and judicial matters, but its responsibilities include authorizing  citizens to travel abroad, monitoring all entries into Taiwan, approving meetings and rallies, reviewing and sanctioning books and periodicals, and maintaining social order. In addition, the decree specified ten categories of criminal offences by civilians that were to be handled by military tribunals.[8]

For almost four decades, the temporary provisions and martial law blockaded the democracy on a national level, but in Taiwan had been organizing free elections at a local level.

In the circumstances the local government gets much credit for political reform and democratization in Taiwan. Many argue that democracy occurred in Taiwan "from the bottom up" meaning that democratic change came first to local government institutions.[9] Do now the local government play as much of a role as like during the KMT mono-party ruling? I like to answer this question but first I would like say something about the role of local government in democratic transformation from single-party dictatorship to multiparty democracy.  

During the latter part of Japanese colonial rule elections were held for representatives to advisory councils in townships, but only half of the members of the advisory councils were elected and with only limited franchise. In 1935 only 14,6% of Japanese and 3,8% of Taiwanese was allowed to vote.[10] In the 1950's, under the ROC elections were first initiated and were as popular election at the township, county, city, and provincial levels. In 1969 the first popular elections at the national level took place, but only for a limited number of members to the Legislative Yuan. Only in the local and provincial levels were all of the members of the representative bodies elected in the popular election, but the organizing of popular elections was not easy.

          In October 1945, after 50 years period of Japanese colonial rule, Nationalist Chinese officials assumed political control over Taiwan. In October 2 1945 Taiwan officially became a part of the Republic of China, but Taiwan was not made a province of China as had been expected. Similarly, no efforts were made to establish a democratic government.[11] Instead the island was placed under military rule. Chiang Kai-shek appointed Chen-Yi governor-general and supreme commander and gave him the same kind of near-absolute power Japanese governors had enjoyed.

          Chiang Kai-shek briefly turned his attention from events on the Mainland to Taiwan after the February 28 Incident. On that day in 1947 plainclothes police officers killed a Taiwanese women who had been selling black market cigarettes. The ill feeling between Chinese authorities and Taiwanese came to a head in the next weeks. Many Mainlanders had been killed by Taiwanese, the army killed around 10 000 Taiwanese including the core of the local political leadership many intellectuals. After the February 22 Incident even politically active or just educated people, were arrested. They have never come back from the prisons, and theirs families were discriminated against until the democratic transformations in the 1990's.

When the army restored order in Taiwan, Chiang Kai-shek removed Chen-Yi from his post, along with a number of other top leaders. He made Taiwan a province, rescinded military rule, and appointed some Taiwanese to official positions, but it did not develop as expected. Taiwan Province soon became a province totally under the control of the central government.[12]

          If we consider Taiwanese democratization we recognize two processes have been going on. The first is a "Taiwanesation" of Kuomintang, the second is democratization and liberalization of political life.

          Although the Kuomintang was a ruling party in Taiwan, until 1968 it had been dominated not by Taiwan origins, but by Mainlander Chinese. Only a few Taiwanese rose to high party positions. Mainlanders continued to hold practically all key offices in the central and provincial party headquarters. Even at county and municipal levels mainlanders were almost always the party branch chairmen.[13] Most of them didn't spoke the native Taiwanese dialects, and this limitation contributed to the social gap between local party leaders, and local residents. That situation started to changed at the turn of 1960's and 1970's when Chiang Ching-kuo (eldest son and successor of Chiang Kai-shek, premier since 1972, president of the Republic since 1978) with his subordinate Lee Huan (from 1868 to 1977 secretary general of the KMT Central Committee) initiated his politics promoting of the native Taiwanese in KMT.

          The democratization process in Taiwan took place at the tern of 1980's and 1990's but in fact many years earlier, in the 1950's the first step to democracy was organizing popular elections. In the 1950's in Taiwan existed two kinds of opposition activities, the first type included Mainlander oppositionist, the second the native Taiwanese.

          The mainlanders concentrated their activities around the Free China Journal, which began publication in 1949 to promote political reform and a genuine constitutional democracy.[14] Managed by Lei Chen Free China consisted of a group of liberal intellectuals, who had established reputations on the mainland before coming to Taiwan. None of the journal's editors was Taiwanese. The Free China group wanted the KMT authorities to replace the one-party dictatorship with a constitutional democracy. Although the articles in the magazine were often highly critical of the KMT Free China existed as a oppositional forum. Authorities tolerated activity of these intellectualists as an example of the Chiang Kai-shek's "liberal politics", and oppositionists were not involved directly in the electoral politics.

In contrast a group of native politicians tried to win electoral contests against KMT candidates. These men made individual electoral gains in their separate territorial bases in Taiwan's counties and municipalities, but overall they lacked the coherent party organization needed to challenge KMT power. In part this weakness reflected Taiwan's electoral policies in the 1950's, when all elections were at sub national an and local levels, so no nationwide opposition could emerge.

In 1958 these local politicians organized the Association for the Study of China's Local Self-government to reform what they saw as corrupt electoral politics in Taiwan. Their moderate effort fell short of organizing a party structure to challenge the Kuomintang's authorities. Nevertheless, the authorities refused to accept the association even as a civic organization. In 1960 these independent activists joined in an attempt to form the China Democratic Party, but the effort died when Lei Chen - party's chairman was arrested on September 4 1960, on a highly questionable charge of associating with communists then quickly evaporated, and the KMT thus successfully blocked the first serious effort in Taiwan to create a real opposition party.

After 1960 Taiwan's opposition activists stopped trying to organize or lead political movements. The only surviving electoral challenges to KMT authority came from no official associated candidates, who ran against ruling party's candidates in provincial and local elections.

Chiang Kai-shek died in 1975. According to the provisions to Constitution Vice President Yen Chia-kan became president, but Chiang Kai-shek's eldest son, Chiang Ching-kuo, who from 1972 had been premier and chairman of the Nationalist Party, in fact, ruled Taiwan. In 1978, when Yen's term as president expired, Chiang Ching-kuo was elected president.[15]

Although not schooled in democratic tradition, having in his youth been sent to the Soviet Union by his father, Chiang Ching-kuo initiated a process of liberalization in Taiwan. In the early 1970's as premier and head of the Kuomintang, he had been recruiting Taiwanese into the party and government. As a consequence in 1977 about one-third of the county and city's chairmen were Taiwanese.[16] He subsequently as president, launched an anticorruption campaign, subdued the conservative force in the state, opened a dialogue with opposition groups, and skillfully led social forces into the institutionalized framework of state-society interaction.[17]

In 1977 political candidates associates in tangwai (party outside) movement scored impressive, for the Taiwanese circumstances, victories by winning 21 of the 77 seats in the Taiwan Provincial Assembly and 4 of 20 magistrate and mayoral races.[18] After election in the central Taiwanese town of Chungli citizens protested against irregularities in vote counting which touched off a serious clash between crowds and the police. These events known as a Chungli Incident signaled a growing popular disenchantment with the Kuomintang' domination in electoral politics. Since then the opposition movement has revived, led by the tangwai activists.

In the next year the tangwai leaders encouraged by results of the 1977 election hoped to accrue considerable gain in the election for seats in the national parliament, but the election were canceled after the U.S. decision to cut off diplomatic relation with ROC government.

Since the early 1980's opposition groups have been allowed to organize a "quasi-party form"[19] to nominate candidates and to campaign. In 1986 the opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) was organized, and in that year the first two-party election followed. Although in 1986 because of the "martial law" creation of any oppositional party was illegal, DPP was organized without immediate official repression, and it vied for recognition in the Legislative Yuan and National Assembly with the ruling Nationalist Party. In 1987 the martial law was finally lifted. Authorities were allowed to organize the legal political parties, but in spite of genuine competition and supporting mostly Taiwanese candidates by the DPP - opposition the strongest party,  Kuomintang  burnished its mandate to rule Taiwan (Figure 1). 

Figure 1.[20]

For the next fourteen years Kuomintang enjoyed the support of voters. In spite of organizing free elections the KMT regime survived, and the Nationalist Party - which in the past had been breaking of humane rights continued as ruling forces in Taiwan until 2000. A different situation took place in local government, then at state level. The opposition has been more successful in the city and county elections.

What is the Local Government in Taiwan? At present day the Republic of China include two provinces; Taiwan Province and Fujian Province. Although formally the Republic of China had 35 provinces, Taiwan is only one complete province under the effective control of the ROC government. The Taiwan Province has sixteen counties and five cities. Counties are divided into smaller cities, townships and rural administrative villages. Fujian Provincial Government oversees the regional affairs of Kinmen County and Lienchiang County. The rest of that province is under control of the government in Beijing. The biggest towns in Taiwan - Taipei and Kaohsiung are special municipalities directly under the jurisdiction of the central government instead of the Taiwan Provincial Government (Taipei from 1967 and Kaohsiung from 1979).[21]

John F. Copper characterized Taiwan's political system as a "basically unitary one though it has some of the characteristic of a federal one"[22] The unitary nature of the system means that local government and political institutions are subservient to and inferior to the central government. The fact that there is overlapping jurisdiction with the central government, particularly in the case of the provincial government, also weakens local government. Meanwhile, the small size of the county, advance in transportation and communication, and external threats have enhanced the role of the central government.

The Taiwan's provincial government unlike the Executive Yuan has no authority over defense, foreign affairs, the judiciary, and intelligence. All other administrative functions are roughly divided between the central government and provincial governments, obscuring the boundaries of responsibility.[23]

Before 1980's and 1990's political reforms the premier of the Republic of China appointed the governors of the provinces, and Mayors of Taipei and Kaohsiung. The governors were also members of the KMT's Central Standing Committee. He was both the chief executive of the provincial government and the chairmen of executive council. From 1949 to 1988 there were eleven governors, four of them military men of mainlander  origins. After 1972 Chiang Ching-kuo appointed four Taiwanese as governor. The election in 1994 involved the first ever direct election of the governor of Taiwan Province in history, and the first direct election of the mayors of Taipei and Kaohsiung.[24] In that year mainland born KMT candidate James Soong was elected as the governor for the province where more then 85% of the voters were native Taiwanese.

When the terms of office of the members of the Tenth Provincial Assembly and of the first popularly elected governor of Taiwan Province ended in 1998, elections for such functionaries was suspended according to the constitutional amendment. According to the amendment of July 1997 a province has only a provincial government of nine members. President of Executive Yuan nominates all of them. One of the members of the provincial government is a provincial governor. The governor is nominated by the president of Executive Yuan and appointed by the president of the Republic.

In July 1956 the ROC military assumed full administrative responsibility for the part of the Fukien Province overseen by the Government in Taipei. Military administration lasted until 1992 when authority in the county and sub-county levels was revived. Because of the small area under the Fukien Provincial Government jurisdiction, the popular election at the provincial level hasn't been organized.

The provinces are divided into counties and cities. Each county and city has its own government and council. County governments are headed by magistrates and city governments by mayors. All of them are popularly elected for four-years terms of office. The number of city or county councilors is determined by the population of each given county our city. There are several county and city council seats reserved for women [25] and aborigines - the Taiwan's indigenous Austronesian peoples came to Taiwan probably 12 000 to 15 000 years ago.

In Taiwan Province there are Three levels of cities: special municipalities (Taipei and Kaohsiung), which, like provinces, fall under the direct jurisdiction of the central government, provincial municipalities which are under direct provincial jurisdiction, and county municipalities which are under direct county governments.

Under the Self-government Law for Provinces and counties, an area with a population over 600,000 and which is politically, economically, and culturally important should be considered a provincial municipality, in status compared to county. There are five such cities directly under Taiwan Province: Keelung City, Hsinchu City, Taichung City, Chiayi City, and Tainan City. Those cities are equivalent to county in status.

According to the Self-governance Law for Provinces and Counties, an area with a population of over 150,000 may become a county municipality if it is industrially and commercially developed, and has ample financial resources, convenient transportation links, and complete public facilities. There are 28 county municipalities in the Taiwan area.

Map. 1 Counties, provincial cities, and special municipalities in Taiwan.

Counties are subdivided into county municipalities, rural township, or urban township, depending on population density. Each city, urban and rural township has a magistrate who is popularly elected for up to two four-years terms of office. The Taiwan Province currently has 28 county municipalities, 221 rural township, and 60 urban township under county jurisdiction. Rural townships are subdivided into villages, and urban townships into boroughs. The residences of each village or borough elect their own wardens for four-years terms of office. The wardens work with executive officers to handle the administrative affairs of their village or borough. Villages and boroughs are subdivided into neighborhoods. Wardens for appointment to the rural township or urban township office routinely recommended heads of neighborhoods.[26]

The Kinmen County in Fukien Province has six rural, and urban townships which are subdivided into 37 villages and boroughs. Lienching County has four urban and rural townships, subdivided into 22 villages and boroughs.[27]

However the democratic elections in the Taiwan's local government are organized from 1950's, and many self-government's institutions are organized like the similar institutions in most of the democratic countries, elections in Taiwan are not simply a contests in which voters exercise rational choices for representation from among competing candidates with different political programs. Factionalism often intervenes in the electoral process, and play an important role at the nomination stage in campaign activities, and in vote getting.

According to Hung-mao Tien factions can be defined "as dyadic noncorporate groups based on patron-client relations. Such relations allow the established elite to mobilize lower-status individuals in traditional societies. The dyadic ties within factions are cemented on the basis of supportive exchange between patron and client. In the political area the patron is a superior figure who commands or has access to resources (politic revenue, employment, power, and official connections) that can be dispensed to the client in exchange for his support (vote, delivery of vote, and campaign contributions)." [28] The institution of competitive election give the new abilities to build the network of patron client exchange. The factions in turn establish a network of alliances with individuals, and other factions in the lower level of the local administrative hierarchy. In a real electoral competition a faction comes to resemble "a political machine"[29] for political organization which buys electoral support with particularistic rewards distributed through a leader-follower network of clients ties.

The factional system is common in some of the Third World countries. Bat not only there. In Japan, for example, factionalism continues to play a central role in the Liberal Democratic Party which has governed Japan for forty years. According to Hung-mao Tien "factionalism tends to be fostered by the strong affective social ties among Chinese referred to as relationship ties, mutual affection or reciprocity. Relationship ties can be described as personalistic, particularistic, non-ideological ties between persons, based on a commonality of shared identification."[30] This identification may emerge from a shared native place or surname, a family relationship, marriage, educational institution, or places of employment. Additional factors such as a need for security, affective families, an elitist community structure, and corporate institutions may also account for the strength of clienteles.

The Chinese tend to establish personal dependency relationships is another foundation of the faction system. Need for security may by related to the socialization patterns of Chinese children, which stresses the treatment of insecurity and dangers within humane relation and hence the need for protection against these dangers. 

Another explanation for factionalism is that Chinese propensity for achievement is motivated by a desire to satisfy the expectations of family members. According to this argument, family's dictates that able family members work to satisfy the material demands of other family members. It explain why a lot of Taiwanese factions are traditionally family derived.

The influence of relationship ties depends on the affective content of natural sentiment in dyadic relations. In Taiwan mutual obligation requires reciprocal favoritism and thus provides an important attitudinal basis patron-client exchange in politics, therefore factionalism is a common characteristic of Taiwan's elections to local administrative units at a municipal, county, township, and village.

Local factions at city and county level are often related to electoral contests. Their geographic   boundaries are usually the administrative territories of a county or municipality, which have served traditionally as the election districts for mayors, magistrates, and provincial assembly. Nearly all of these factions originated in 1951 when popular elections were first instituted. Hung-mao Tien in his book The Great Transition published in 1989 reported  that all  contemporary cities, and counties had two factions and more factions. Most of factions took the surnames of their founding leaders as faction labels, but in more urban areas the faction had adapted colors, geographic area, or ethnic identity (Fukienese and Hakka) as their labels. Leadership of factions was hereditary whenever a capable successor (son, son in law, daughter, daughter in law) was available within the family.[31] Faction at the county level tend to form a network of allies among smaller factions at the sub county levels. When succession by a family member is not feasible, the factional leadership passes to a major ally of the founder.

Each faction consist of a leader his key lieutenants, grass-root, supporters, and reliable voters in local government, various institutions, associations, and geographical areas. Factional leaders and their key lieutenants may be mayors, magistrates, provincial assemblymen, or national parliamentarians. Some of them may not now hold these elected offices, but have previously served. Leaders offering for theirs supporters material benefits, and favoritism, and channels of upward social mobility, so although faction have no organizational structures, they informal network of affiliation play an important rule in the political life in Taiwan.

Before 1989 factional leaders were affiliates of ruling party, or nonparty winners in the local or provincial elections. From the 1990's they have been affiliated to various parties existing in Taiwan. From the first local elections factions dominated at the local level. Even during the dictatorship KMT was not ruling directly in the local governments. For example in the 1986 election in Kaohsiung County only 9 of the 53 county councilors were not affiliated with any faction and were under direct KMT control.[32]

The urbanization and concomitant social changes are spoiling the factional groups. Dyadic factions are weaker in urban settings then in rural communities. According to some prognoses as Taiwan modernization factionalism may lose its importance.

In the East Asia countries, where, the democracy is formally introduced, and the Confucians traditions and the factionalism plays an important roll in the social and political life, dominate a so called "one and a half party" political system. It means that in those countries there are perpetual ruling parties and permanent oppositionists. KMT has been ruling in Taiwan from 1987 to 2000. For several years ROC could be recognized as a state where dictatorship was replaced by a "one and a half party" model. The results of Taiwan's popular elections shows that political system in Taiwan is not just a simply "one and a half party" system. One of the differences is a perpetual decrease of popular support of Kuomintang.

Rapid economic growth has evoked extreme social change in Taiwan.[33] That change was increased by the threat of war. Taiwan was protected by the rich United Sates against "poor and backward" Mainland China. In that situation for Taiwanese, American life style and values seems much more attractive then for most of the East-Asia people. At the end of the twentieth century about 50% of Taiwanese lived in two great agglomerations (Taipei and Kaohsiung). In the big cities traditional culture and factional systems broke down. In the cities people formed new bonds based on friendship, work, business, and school ties. Westernization has become more and more common, and the social change has brought changes in political life.

          Explanation for the decrease of KMT's support could be that political parties which came to exist as a result of breaches in Kuomintang, took away KMT's voters. Twice in the last decade of twentieth century groups of KMT members have broken away from the Kuomintang to establish the new political parties. The first in 1993 the was New Party. Such prominent personalities as the former Finance Minister Wang Chien-shen and former head of Environment Protection Administration Jaw Shau-kong were among the founders of the New Party.[34] In 2000 the former deputy Governor of Taiwan Province James Soong with a group of members broke away from Kuomintang and established the People First Party.[35] Was political weakness of KMT, which resulted in the wining of the DPP candidate in the 2000 presidential election,  caused only by breaches in the party?

          For this report I categorized political parties in Taiwan in to two groups. The first group included party which came to exist after the breach in Kuomintang (KMT-origins parties), the second group include the former opposition parties (non-KMT parties).

Figure 2.1 shows the percentage of popular votes for KMT, KMT-origins and non-KMT party candidates for members of Legislative Yuan and national assemblymen from 1969 to 2001. Figure 2.2 shows the percentage of popular vote for KMT, KMT-origins and non-KMT party candidates for Taiwan's Provincial Assemblymen from 1954 to 1994. Figure 3.1 shows the percentage of popular votes for KMT, KMT-origins  and non-KMT party candidates for Mayors and Magistrates from 1954 to 1997. Figure 3.2 shows the percentage of popular vote for KMT, KMT-origins, and non-KMT candidates to Taipei City Assembly from 1968 to 1974. Figure 4 shows the percentage of popular votes for KMT, and KMT-origins party candidates for Legislative Yuan, Taiwan's Provincial Assemblymen, and mayors and magistrates from 1954 to 1994. The term KMT-origins candidates include the candidates from the New Party (NP) and People's First Party (PFP).

          The results shows the perpetual decrease of support for the both the, KMT and KMT origins parties. It suggests that Taiwan's political system is transforming from one party dictatorship through the "one and a half party" political system to multiparty democracy. In most of the East European countries we had a "jump" from dictatorship to multiparty democracy which always resulted in smaller of bigger political crisis. Different than in East Europe, in Taiwan the political system is slowly evolving.

* The term KMT candidates include candidates from KMT, NP, and PFP.

Figure 2.1.[36]

* The term KMT candidates include candidates from KMT, NP, and PFP.

* The term KMT candidates include candidates from KMT, NP, and PFP.

* The term KMT candidates include candidates from KMT, NP, and PFP.

* The term KMT candidates include candidates from KMT, NP, and PFP.

Comparing the results of elections shows that the decrease of KMT's popular support is more significant at the local level then at the national one. It suggests, that some processes in political life in Taiwan take place, first at a local level, and later at the national one.

Many scholars indicate that in Taiwan democracy evolved "from the bottom up". It had been practiced on the local level for thirty years in the form of regular elections before a competitive election was first evidenced at national level. Local elections were quite democratic in most respects even in the 1950's and 1960's it was much earlier then Chiang Ching-kuo initiated process of political liberalization, and Taiwanesation of KMT. Voter turnout was, and still is, higher then in national elections, which suggest that the electorate sees more democracy locally then at the national level.[41]

Traditionally Chinese society concentrated around local communities. The state has a much more restricted impact on everyday life then in the West. At present the voters tend to identify with local issues and see it is still important. Voters also perceive that their vote is more important in deciding local issues then national ones, and they are generally better informed about candidates for positions in local government.[42] According to John F. Copper "The local government allows local politicians to gain experience and name recognition, which often provides them with an avenue by which they can move up to positions in the national government. This benefit, in turn, makes it easier for local government to find talent."[43]

Therefore, I think that the, process of transformation from the single-party dictatorship thought the "one and a half parties" political system to multiparty democracy is more significant at the local level.

Results of elections still shows that some processes in political life in Taiwan take place, first at local level, and later at the national one. Meaning of local self-government in social, and political life in Taiwan is much greater then in Eastern Europe. Therefore if we consider the democracy in Taiwan, we can not omit the issue of Taiwan's local self-government.

Contact:

wostrowski@isppan.waw.pl