Taipei, May 5 (CNA) President Chen Shui-bian said Sunday he looks forward to seeing the completion of the long-planned legislative reform by the end of 2004.
Presiding over a meeting of the Government Reform Committee, Chen also outlined three major directions for legislative reform, including the introduction of a single-seat, two-vote electoral system, reduction of the number of legislators from the current 225 to 150 and extension of the tenure of legislators to four years.
Chen said he hopes that the Legislative Yuan can cooperate with his administration to pave the way for sweeping legislative reform as part of the ongoing government restructuring plan.
According to an estimate by the Government Reform Committee, if the current legislature can approve the proposed legislative reform plan by the end of this year, a "functional National Assembly" would be elected in mid-2003 to revise the nation's Constitution to accommodate changes to the legislature's electoral system.
Once the necessary constitutional amendments are completed, the Central Election Commission will be able to unveil a redrawn constituency map in January 2004 in preparation for holding elections in December 2004 for members of the sixth Legislative Yuan.
If all goes well, the sixth Legislative Yuan will be elected under the new "single-seat, two-vote" system, and the new legislature will have 90 regional seats and 60 at-large seats.
According to the new system, each voter can cast two ballots -- one for regional legislators and one for political parties. The number of ballots received by political parties will be the basis for allotting at-large legislative seats to various parties which manage to garner at least 5 percent of the total votes cast for political parties.
Under the reform plan, the term of office of legislators will be extended to four years from the current three years from the seventh Legislative Yuan so that the legislative elections can be held simultaneously with the presidential election starting in 2008. And the tenure of the six Legislative Yuan will consequently be extended for three months to expire on May 19, 2008.