Lessons from Taiwan’s New Power Party

Last week, the Economic Intelligence Unit (EIU) democracy index was released. According to the EIU, Malaysia now stands at 68th position out of the 167 countries measured, with a score of 6.43.

The EIU democracy index is based on ratings for 60 indicators grouped in five categories – electoral process and pluralism, civil liberties, the functioning of government, political participation and political culture. Each category has its own rating scale from 0 to 10 with the overall index as the average of the five category indexes.

The index values place the countries measured under one of the four types of regimes identified by the EIU, with those scoring 8 to 10 regarded as full democracies, between 6 and 7.9 as flawed democracies and categories below, hybrid regimes and authoritarian states.

Based on the EIU democracy index, Malaysia moved from a hybrid regime in 2006 to a flawed democracy in 2008.

Over time, we have seen a wealth of public opinion survey data that puts Malaysia in a similar category – some agree with while others question the methods these indexes use.

But one thing we can agreed on is this – Malaysia is widely characterised as a mixture model of democracy and authoritarian. Other terms used by scholars are semi-democracy, quasi democracy, soft authoritarianism and statist democracy.

With our "handicap" democracy, many feel the need to constrain the exercise of political power and at least put some form of constitutional limits around it. At the same time, many others feel the need to hold those who exercise power accountable in order to protect individual rights.

But how can we hold accountable the potentially enormous power of the state?

We might find ourselves admiring Taiwan's recent election result. Although it had been widely predicted, the landslide victory of Tsai Ing-wen in Taiwan’s presidential race, along with the overall performance of her Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in the legislative election, is remarkable.

For some (I am one of them), the victory of Freddy Lim, the lead singer of Chthonic, a heavy metal band, is certainly refreshing and inspiring. With his ponytail and unconventional style, he stands out among Taiwan’s legislators.

What’s more encouraging is that representing a new party that he co-founded in early 2015 – the New Power Party (NPP) – he defeated Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) member of Parliament Lin Yu-fang, who had held his seat for two decades. NPP managed to win five legislative seats in the recent election.

NPP originated from the Sunflower Student Movement in 2014 and generally, the party advocates universal human rights, civil and political liberties, as well as Taiwan's independence.

This new party is fuelled by the growing discontent and frustration of its young constituents over the current political environment in Taiwan – the goal is to eventually eliminate KMT.

On its website, NPP says one of its major goals is to advocate citizens' comprehensive participation in the formulation and building up of the constitution through the channel of grassroots with the bottom-up approach.

NPP believes human dignity and the protection of human rights should be the highest principles of all exercise of political power.

These are very similar to the attempts by our own civil society and youth activists in particular.

Some time ago, I remembered we had held similar debates on the role of youths in politics and in a much broader picture, the role of third force.

The momentum of the Taiwan election reminded me of the atmosphere surrounding the 2013 general election in Malaysia, the vibrancy of the campaigning and the engagement of young voters.

Political cynicism runs deep in many Malaysians, but we need to avoid being trapped in political fatigue.

Taiwan’s NPP victory is a reminder that it is crucial to continue active public involvement. There is much we can learn from NPP in terms of soliciting public views, especially the voices of young people. – January 25, 2016.

* This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insider.