I don’t think two-year terms are desirable as they don’t provide for stable government. Longer terms encourage more long term planning and allow governments to make unpopular but necessary decisions. Holding the Presidential and Legislative elections a few months apart is not a good idea though. They should either be held simultaneously or in a two-year cycle like PR suggests.

My suggestion that 3% should be the quota for parties for the legislator-at-large seats is based on simple mathematics and not out of preference for any particular party.

What I wrote was oriented towards the future and building a better democracy in Taiwan. Further reform of the electoral system is a key part of that.

I don’t think that is an accurate characterization of the KMT, and I would even question if a majority of the KMT really want to reunify (at all costs). The highest ranking members of the KMT have publicly said that independence remains an option for the people of Taiwan.

So is it your position that the KMT will refuse to cede power if Ma wins in March and a DPP candidate were to win in 2012? Sorry, I don’t buy it.

I think one very real problem in Taiwan is that the terms of LY members are too long. Two years would be better, because it would hold them accountable to the electorate sooner. And if people here really want 4 year LY terms, it’s a bad idea to hold the election in the same year as the presidential election. It should be on an off-cycle, so that every two years there would be a national election, either LY or presidential.

The New Party and TSU gained 3.95% and 3.52% of the vote respectively but failed to gain a seat because they didn’t get past the 5% threshold. However, with 34 seats, 3% should be sufficient for a party to gain a seat.

That’s not how things usually work. The distribution of election victories is nearly always more concentrated than that of the votes. The US, UK, Canada and many other Democratic countries use first past the post systems and have similar results.

One example from the US would be the 2006 US House elections, 2.04% of the votes went to the Libertarian Party and 1.41% to the Green Party. Out of the 435 seats, the parties combined to win zero seats. Similarly, when Reagan won 49 of 50 states in his 1984 election, he was nowhere near winning 98% of the popular vote (it was actually about 60%).

The vote differential in this Taiwanese election was quite substantial. The people made their choice at the ballot box, and they chose decisively. Some districts were definitely thin victories for the KMT, but as a whole the results weren’t that surprising. There were probably a lot more Taiwanese people than you realized who were unhappy with the DDP’s focus on things like this

Wasn’t it the DPP’s idea in the first place?

The key features of a future electoral system should be that it doesn’t allow any single party to gain a super majority

But what if a super majority of the electorate prefer one party over the others?

and it ensures that minor parties can gain representation.

I thought that was the whole point of the realignment: both the DPP and KMT apparently don’t want minor parties. I’m not sure how the general electorate feels about it…

Now that the KMT has such a large majority in the legislature there is no incentive for reform.

Why? They have to stand for re-election after all. If the Taiwanese don’t like what’s going on, they can throw the bums out.

The only real possibility for reform is if the DPP holds on to the Presidency and some sort of deal is struck…

or maybe the DPP needs to become more inclusive of Taiwanese society as a whole and start appealing more to mainstream voters…

I can’t subscribe to the Bushman’s rather bizarre claim that ‘the time for democracy has passed’. I certainly do agree with his latter point: nothing went wrong. The people did in fact choose the KMT, and it is as simple as that. Full stop.