Legislative Yuan elections

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In Taiwan, parliamentary elections are held every four years to elect the 113 members of the Legislative Yuan, the unicameral legislature of Taiwan. The current electoral system was introduced in 2008. The constitutional amendments of 2005 extended term length from three to four years, reduced seat count from 225 to 113, and abolished the National Assembly, originally another governmental organ equivalent to a chamber of parliament.

Contents

Current electoral system

Members are elected by parallel voting:

Single-member constituencies

The delimitation of the single-member constituencies within the cities and counties was initially a major political issue in the early years, with bargaining between the government and the legislature. Of the 15 cities and counties to be partitioned (the ten others have only one seat), only seven of the districting schemes proposed by the CEC were approved in a normal way. The eight other schemes were decided by drawing lots: "Taipei and Taichung cities and Miaoli and Changhua counties will adopt the version suggested by the CEC, while Kaohsiung city will follow the consensus of the legislature. Taipei county will follow the proposal offered by the opposition Taiwan Solidarity Union, Taoyuan county will adopt the ruling Democratic Progressive Party's scheme, and Pingtung county will use the scheme agreed upon by the Non-partisan Solidarity Union, People First Party, Kuomintang and Taiwan Solidarity Union." [1]

Under Articles 35 and 37 of the Civil Servants Election and Recall Act  [ zh ], the electoral constituencies are to be revised every ten years based on population density. Demographic data is obtained by investigation of household registration and should be compiled two years and two months before the tenure of current legislators end. The Central Election Commission reviews the boundaries, then submits any proposed alterations to the Legislative Yuan 20 months before the election for final consent and announcement.

Indigenous districts

Six seats are reserved for indigenous peoples. They are elected by single non-transferable vote in two 3-member constituencies for lowland aborigines and highland aborigines respectively. This system did not fulfil the promise in the treaty-like document A New Partnership Between the Indigenous Peoples and the Government of Taiwan , where each of the 13 recognised indigenous peoples was to get at least one seat, and the distinction between highland and lowland abolished.

Party-list

Seats are allocated using the largest remainder method with the Hare quota which, with 34 seats, is 2.9412%. A party's vote share must exceed a threshold of 5% to win any seats. Votes for parties which do not pass the threshold are first excluded. The vote share for the remaining parties are calculated. A party is allocated one seat for every 2.9412% of votes. The remaining seats are allocated in succession to the party with the largest remainder.

For each party, at least half of the legislators elected under this system must be female. Therefore, with an odd number of seats, females will always outnumber males.

Parliamentary elections since 1991

YearChamber
Order
Seat compositionPolitical parties by popular vote
Political party ConstituencyParty listSeats
1991 NA 2








Kuomintang 6,053,366Refer to
constituency
254
Democratic Progressive 2,036,27166
Democratic Nonpartisan Union193,2343
Independents253,0322
1992 LY 2








Kuomintang 5,030,725Refer to
constituency
95
Democratic Progressive 2,944,19551
Chinese Social Democratic 126,2131
Independents1,331,55514
1995 LY3








Kuomintang 4,349,089Refer to
constituency
85
Democratic Progressive 3,132,15654
New 1,222,93121
Independents730,5294
1996 NA3








Kuomintang 5,180,829Refer to
constituency
183
Democratic Progressive 3,112,73699
New 1,425,89646
Green Party Taiwan 113,9421
Independents572,9615
1998 LY4






Kuomintang 4,659,679Refer to
constituency
123
Democratic Progressive 2,966,83570
New 708,46511
Democratic Union375,1184
Democratic Nonpartisan Union66,0333
New Nation Alliance157,8261
Taiwan Independence 145,1181
Independents946,43112
2001 LY5







Democratic Progressive 3,447,740Refer to
constituency
87
Kuomintang 2,949,37168
People First 1,917,83646
Taiwan Solidarity Union 801,56013
New 269,6201
Taiwan Number One 12,9171
Independents899,2549
2004 LY6







Democratic Progressive 3,471,429Refer to
constituency
89
Kuomintang 3,190,08179
People First 1,350,61334
Taiwan Solidarity Union 756,71212
Non-Partisan Solidarity Union 353,1646
New 12,1371
Independents577,2924
2005 NAad
hoc








Democratic Progressive Party list
only
1,647,791127
Kuomintang 1,508,384117
Taiwan Solidarity Union 273,14721
People First 236,71618
Other parties209,56017
2008 LY7








Kuomintang 5,291,5125,010,80181
Democratic Progressive 3,775,3523,610,10627
Non-Partisan Solidarity Union 239,31768,5273
People First 28,2541
Independents393,3461
2012 LY8







Kuomintang 6,339,3015,863,37964
Democratic Progressive 5,763,1864,556,52640
Taiwan Solidarity Union 1,178,8963
People First 175,032722,0893
Non-Partisan Solidarity Union 168,8612
Independents532,2701
2016 LY9







Democratic Progressive 5,416,6835,370,95368
Kuomintang 4,724,3943,280,94935
New Power 351,244744,3155
People First 156,212794,3833
Non-Partisan Solidarity Union 27,69077,6721
Independents668,4461
2020 LY10







Democratic Progressive 6,383,7834,811,24161
Kuomintang 5,761,9954,723,50438
Taiwan People's 264,4781,588,8065
New Power 141,9521,098,1003
Statebuilding 141,503447,2861
Independents1,086,4635
2024 LY11








Kuomintang 5,401,9334,764,57652
Democratic Progressive 6,095,2764,982,06251
Taiwan People's 403,3573,040,6158
Independents1,069,7582

Early parliamentary supplementary elections (1969–1989)

According to the interpretation of the Constitutional Court (Judicial Yuan), [2] under the original constitution the National Assembly, Legislative Yuan, and Control Yuan were seen to constitute the Parliament in Taiwan. After 20 years of relocating the government to Taiwan, the Kuomintang-led government of the Republic of China amended the Temporary Provisions against the Communist Rebellion to start limited parliamentary elections. Delegates of the National Assembly [3] and members of the Legislative Yuan [4] are directly elected, while members of the Control Yuan [5] were indirectly elected by the provincial legislatures. The elected members served together with existing members elected by the 1947 Chinese National Assembly election, the 1948 Chinese legislative election, and the 1947-1948 Chinese Control Yuan election in the respective chambers.

YearChamber/OrderSeat composition Political party Seats
Direct
election
Indirect
election
Presidential
appointment
Total
1969 NA supp.










Kuomintang 1515
1969 LY supp.









Kuomintang 811
Independents3
1969 CY supp.









Kuomintang 12
Independents1
1972 NA1st supp.









Kuomintang 4353
Independents10
1972 LY1st supp.









Kuomintang 301151
Chinese Youth 10
Independents54
1973CY1st supp.









Kuomintang 9415
China Democratic Socialist 10
Independents01
1975 LY2nd supp.









Kuomintang 301352
Chinese Youth 10
Independents62
1980 NA2nd supp.









Kuomintang 6376
China Democratic Socialist 1
Independents12
1980 LY3rd supp.









Kuomintang 582397
Chinese Youth 02
Independents122
1980CY2nd supp.








Kuomintang 16532
Chinese Youth 10
China Democratic Socialist 01
Independents54
1983 LY4th supp.








Kuomintang 622198
Chinese Youth 02
China Democratic Socialist 01
Independents93
1986 NA3rd supp.








Kuomintang 6884
Democratic Progressive 11
China Democratic Socialist 1
Independents4
1986 LY5th supp.








Kuomintang 5920100
Democratic Progressive 120
Chinese Youth 02
China Democratic Socialist 01
Independents24
1987CY3rd supp.








Kuomintang 17732
Chinese Youth 10
China Democratic Socialist 01
Independents42
1989 LY6th supp.








Kuomintang 7222130
Democratic Progressive 210
Chinese Youth 01
Independents86

See also

References