US embassy cable - 05TAIPEI2839

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 TAIPEI 002839 
 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE PASS AIT/W 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 06/30/2015 
TAGS: PGOV, TW 
SUBJECT: REDRAWING THE LINES: THE STRUGGLE OVER NEW 
ELECTORAL DISTRICTS BEGINS 
 
REF: A. 2004 TAIPEI 2662 
 
     B. TAIPEI 2066 
     C. TAIPEI 2337 
     D. TAIPEI 2490 
 
Classified By: AIT Director Douglas Paal, Reason(s): 1.4 (B/D). 
 
1. (U) Summary:  On June 7, Taiwan's ad hoc National Assembly 
approved a constitutional revision package which, as part of 
a broad package of reforms, will reduce the number of 
representatives from 225 to 113, and will increase the number 
of legislative districts from 29 to 73.  The debate has just 
begun over the politically sensitive issue of who will 
demarcate the new electoral districts and what methodology 
will be used to redraw them.  In the coming months, these 
issues will be hotly contested, both among and within 
Taiwan's political parties.  End Summary. 
 
2. (U) Under Taiwan's present "multiple representative per 
district" system, 225 representatives were elected to the 
Legislative Yuan (LY) from 29 districts.  Under the new 
"single representative per district" system, only 113 
representatives will be elected: 73 from geographic 
districts, 6 from "mountain and plains aborigine" 
constituencies, and an additional 34 at-large seats to be 
assigned according to proportional voting for political 
parties.  The Central Electoral Commission (CEC) is currently 
responsible for redrawing electoral districts.  The CEC was 
created by executive order in the 1980's, its members are all 
selected by the president, and its decisions are not subject 
to oversight or control by the LY.  For these reasons, 
Pan-Blue leaders challenge the CEC's impartiality and allege 
it would "gerrymander" districts to favor the DPP.  In its 
place, KMT and PFP leaders urge either the creation of an 
independent redistricting commission, whose decisions would 
be subject to LY approval, or the creation of a new CEC under 
new regulations determined by the LY.  Pan-Green supporters 
counter that any plan requiring LY approval would unfairly 
advantage Pan-Blue parties, which hold a slender majority of 
the LY. 
 
KMT Wants a New CEC 
------------------- 
 
3. (U) Challenging the impartiality of the existing CEC, KMT 
Central Policy Committee Executive Director Tseng Yung-chuan 
publicly called for reorganizing the CEC based on an "organic 
law" by the LY rather than on presidential decree.  This 
would enable the LY rather than the president to select the 
CEC's members and proscribe its procedures.  Tseng announced 
that the KMT will send a bill to the LY for consideration at 
the opening of the next session in September. 
 
PFP Not Willing to Budge 
------------------------ 
 
4. (C) PFP legislator Vincent Chang (Hsien-yao), Director of 
the PFP Central Policy Committee and close confidant of PFP 
Chairman James Soong, told AIT, in a bit of histrionics, that 
the outcome of the legislative redistricting battle would not 
only determine the 2008 presidential election, but would also 
decide the future security of Taiwan and the surrounding 
region.  (Note: Earlier this spring, Chang, with similar 
histrionics, told AIT that National Assembly passage of the 
constitutional reform package, which occurred on June 7, 
would send cross-Strait relations into a crisis.  End note.) 
Chang further opined that LY redistricting in favor the DPP 
would of set the stage for Taiwan to elect a President in 
2008 who would move more actively toward independence, before 
the PRC's growing strength renders independence impossible. 
This would, in turn, provoke a military response from China 
that Hu Jintao would not be able to prevent.  On the other 
hand, Chang argued, should the KMT retake the presidency, 
cross-Strait relations would relax considerably.  (Note: 
Since the LY and presidential election dates are likely to be 
adjusted to occur simultaneously, the possibility that an 
unfavorable LY election outcome would somehow adversely 
affect the result of a subsequent presidential election is 
substantially reduced.  End note.) 
 
5. (C) Chang alleged numerous examples of pro-DPP bias by the 
CEC, stating flatly that KMT and PFP would reject any 
redistricting plan crafted by the CEC in its current 
incarnation.  Citing "mutual mistrust" between the DPP and 
KMT as "Taiwan's most serious political problem," Chang told 
AIT that PFP and KMT would insist on putting any 
redistricting proposal to an LY vote.  He noted that he had 
proposed to PFP leadership the formation of a special 
redistricting committee, composed of experts chosen by the 
LY, whose proposals would be subject to a simple up-or-down 
vote by the entire LY -) no modifications permitted.  Chang 
acknowledged, however, that Pan-Green supporters would 
probably reject any redistricting plan deemed acceptable to 
the Pan-Blue-controlled LY. 
 
TSU Seeks a Middle Road 
 
SIPDIS 
----------------------- 
 
6. (C)  Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) legislator Huang 
Shi-cho, Vice-Chairman of the party's LY caucus, is the only 
member of the TSU to sit on the LY Internal Affairs 
Committee, the committee which will likely debate the LY 
response to the redistricting question.  Huang told AIT that 
the current CEC is beholden to President Chen and the DPP, 
and would be unable to remain impartial in delineating new 
electoral districts.  In its place, Huang has proposed to TSU 
leadership the formation of a "Selection Committee" of 20 LY 
members, five from each of the four major parties that would, 
in turn, select members of an LY "Redistricting Committee." 
Huang told AIT that the TSU would insist on the Redistricting 
Committee decisions as final, and not subject to review or 
approval by the LY.  (Note: Huang's remarks to AIT conflict 
with public statements made by other TSU members, who had 
insisted on LY approval.) 
 
DPP Not Worried at All 
---------------------- 
 
7. (C) Wu Hsiang-jung, Deputy Director of the DPP Central 
Policy Committee and Director of DPP polling activities, told 
AIT that DPP leaders are not concerned about the 
"gerrymandering" issue, and attribute the recent furor to 
political grandstanding.  Taiwan's redistricting laws and 
traditions, Wu explained, require that electoral district 
boundaries follow city, county, and other administrative 
boundaries to the extent possible.  He believes the LY 
Pan-Blue leadership will not dare risk the almost-certain 
media and public backlash that would follow a naked attempt 
to redraw electoral boundaries along political lines.  The 
DPP is not opposed to side-stepping the CEC in favor of a 
special redistricting committee, but is against submitting 
that committee's decisions to the LY for approval in order to 
prevent any politically-motivated tampering.  (Note: Several 
DPP leaders have told AIT that they are confident about the 
long-term Taiwanization of Taiwan society and politics, which 
should work to the DPP's advantage. This confidence might in 
part explain the DPP leadership's lack of concern regarding 
redistricting.  End Note.) 
 
Comment 
------- 
 
8. (C) As DPP legislator Lee Wen-chung told AIT, the new 
113-member LY system, by assigning five seats to Taiwan's 
aboriginal populations, and one seat each to under-populated, 
but solidly Blue Hualien, Kinmen, Matsu, Taitung, and Penghu, 
effectively gives the Pan-Blue opposition an automatic 
ten-seat advantage in the LY.  By the DPP's reckoning, it 
will need to secure 58 percent of the total vote to obtain 
parity.  Thus, it would seem the Pan-Blue alarms over 
potential gerrymandering are motivated more by the desire to 
score political points against President Chen and his alleged 
cronyism than by genuine concern over systemic unfairness. 
 
9. (C) The redistricting debate will play out in the same 
fractious political environment which enabled the PFP to 
bring the National Assembly process to a standstill.  Under 
the LY's "Party Consensus" rule, legislation cannot move 
forward unless all four party caucuses agree.  Although 
Pan-Green and Pan-Blue leaders say they understand the need 
for impartiality, and all say they are willing to bypass the 
presidentially-appointed CEC in favor of a new, more 
representative redistricting body, the PFP and KMT are 
unlikely to waive the advantage of their LY majority, and may 
insist on a final LY vote on any redistricting plan.  Of 
course, the Pan-Greens will probably balk at giving the 
Pan-Blue-controlled LY the last word.  The June 27 LY Legal 
Bureau report raised the possibility of cooperation -- it 
recommended the LY create a new redistricting subcommittee, 
independent of the CEC, comprised of impartial 
decisionmakers, but it also recommended that the 
subcommittee's redistricting plans be subject to LY approval 
before implementation.  (Note: The LY legal bureau is 
composed of civil servants, not legislators. End note.) 
Although it is still early in the game, equitable 
redistricting efforts could be stymied in any number of ways: 
the Pan-Blues could try to use their LY majority to force 
through a plan unacceptable to the Green; the PFP (or DPP) 
could use the Party Consensus rule to halt the process; or, 
in some unanticipated way, mutual suspicions could rule out 
compromise altogether, as it has thus far with the Special 
Defense Budget bill. Most probably, the LY will postpone 
dealing with the issue until the last moment, then cobble 
together a compromise, as they did in May in passing 
guidelines for the National Assembly. 
 
10. (C) Taiwan has no binding law determining how electoral 
districts must be drawn, and there are several competing 
versions for who should decide, and how.  But as often is the 
case in Taiwan, politics (and tradition) may trump the law, 
whatever it may be.  Taiwan's electoral districts have always 
been drawn along county and city lines, and local populations 
and the media will likely reject any redistricting plan that 
violates traditional notions of regional or social identity. 
More importantly, voters will likely punish at the polls any 
party caught trying to manipulate redistricting for selfish 
political ends.  Although it is still very early in the 
redistricting game, perhaps the most important check on the 
gerrymandering impulse will be social, and not legal.  End 
Comment. 
PAAL