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An Analysis of the at Large System in the Legislative Yuan

Tung-Yeh Wu
1999 / 05
Volume 6, No.1

pp.143-174
10.6612/tjes.1999.06.01.143-174
Paper

Abstract

The choice of electoral system is one of the most important parliamentary reforms for Taiwan's democracy. The at large system of the Legislative Yuan (Li-fa-yuan) and the National Assembly (Kuo-min-ta-hui) since 1992 is found to have numerous deficiencies, both for the nation and for individual political parties, that there is a growing pressure to have the system reformed. In this paper, the author will examine what's wrong with the implementation of the at large system in the Legislative Yuan, what problems the system has caused, and the proposals for reform and the difficulties encountered.Because the consequences of different PR systems for parliamentaryrepresentation are not merely influenced by the ”type” of PR system used but also by a number of other technical-related issues concerning the design of the PR system, the author will detail the important impact of the at large system for the parliamentary representation of political parties in the Legislative Yuan. In addition, relevant technical issues such as district magnitude, the thresholds, apparentement, or closed lists) are examined.

Keywords

at large system

List PR

Semi-PR

First past the post

Single Non-transferable Vote

District Magnitude