The Quest for Electoral Reform in Macau
In February 2008, the Macau government published a consultative document entitled “Diligently Improving Electoral Quality, Stably Promoting Democratic Development.” The document aimed at consulting public opinion on the content and direction of electoral reform in Macau. This article examines the content of the consultative document and assesses its merits and weaknesses.
The consultative document is organized into four chapters, covering the issues of voters registration, groups registration, electoral fairness, and proposed reforms as well as technical changes. Chapter One focuses on the question of voters registration. Interestingly, even after Macau’s return to the People’s Republic of China (PRC), two key terms used in this document retain the Portuguese usage before December 1999: “natural” voters and “legal” voters. Outsiders unfamiliar with Macao politics can be easily confused by these two key terms. Actually, “natural” voters refer to the individual voters, whereas “legal person voters” refer to the organizations and groups registering in the elections. While the need to maintain continuity in the usage of electoral terms is understandable, the consultative document could have explained the two terms by using footnotes. Unfortunately, it did not do so and took it for granted that ordinary citizens who read the document must understand the background and meaning of the two key terms.
Chapter One proposes a number of electoral reforms pertinent to individual voters registration. First, the age of those citizens who can register to vote can be lowered from 18 to 17 so that those who will reach 18 years old near the election day will be able to exercise their voting right. The idea is to allow more people who reach the voting age to cast their ballots – a technical issue that appears to be well received by the community during the one-month consultative process. However, a minority of citizens expressed the view that changing the voter registration age to 17 would have legal implications. It seems that some citizens do not fully understand the proposed reform, which does not really alter the age of voters eligible to vote but which aims at allowing more time for those voters who reach 18 years old in the election year to pre-register themselves.
The most important proposed reform in Chapter One is the abolition of the voters’ cards. In the past, voters who went to the polls in Macau were required to carry their voters’ cards to the voting stations. Yet, the voters’ cards have presented a golden opportunity for those individuals and organizations attempting to bribe the voters. The idea of abolishing voters’ cards is to plug this electoral loophole and to replace them with the smart identity cards of citizens. The reform proposal, however, stressed that citizens who wish to vote will still have to manage registration procedures.
From a progressive perspective, the proposal of repealing the use of voters’ cards is the first step toward clean elections. Individuals and candidates who wish to bribe voters will be deprived of an essential instrument—the voters’ cards. Nevertheless, as long as voters will have to register themselves voluntarily rather than automatically, electoral bribery will continue to take other forms, like offering hidden fringe benefits to bribe voters, inviting them to free lunches and dinners, and inducing them with other souvenirs. Automatic registration can take the form of sending voters detailed information on their voting stations through the regular mailing of electricity or water bills to households. If citizens who possess smart identity cards and who reach the eligible voting age can be automatically registered as voters, electoral bribery would perhaps be curbed significantly. Otherwise, some candidates and groups who are keen to plant their own supporters will continue to exert undue pressure on their employees to register as voters. In short, the abolition of voters’ cards will undoubtedly reduce a channel of electoral bribery, but other ways of bribing and exerting work pressure on potential voters will persist.
Chapter Two proposes that those groups and organizations eligible to vote in elections should follow stricter criteria, such as registering as “legal voters” after four years of their establishment, the proof of organizational activities in their annual reports, and the ban on a particular group that applies to two occupational sectors for voting registration simultaneously. Obviously, the Commission Against Corruption and the Macau government have identified some irregularities in the group registration processes in the past elections, including the Chief Executive and Legislative Assembly elections. Moreover, Chapter Two proposes that the committees that will be established to assess the eligibility of “legal persons’ voting registration” should spell out the criteria clearly. Transparency and accountability have been the underlying motives behind the electoral reform
proposals in Chapter Two, which can be viewed as a very progressive section perfecting Macau’s elections. The committees concerned should, according to the proposal, assess the eligibility of the groups applications within a particular timeframe, such as every five years. In short, the modernization and institutionalization of groups or organizational registration in elections are the proper emphases.
Indeed, Chapter Two’s proposals, if implemented, will plug the previous loopholes of allowing suspicious “groups” to register in a hurry prior to elections, and having ambiguous criteria of assessment that led to accusations of vote planting in the indirect elections held for the Legislative Assembly and perhaps in the Chief Executive elections. The committees that will assess the eligibility of groups applications will play a critical role in ensuring electoral fairness in Macau. However, the consultative document has not mentioned any linkage between these eligibility committees and the Electoral Commission. Ideally, if these committees are integrated into the framework of the Electoral Commission, the public image of the fairness of elections would be consolidated.
Chapter Three aims at maximizing the criminal liability of those candidates and individuals who bribe the voters. The most interesting aspect of the proposed reform is to allow the suspected offenders who bribe voters to be witnesses in the court proceedings. As a result, the criminal liability of the suspected offenders would be reduced or repealed if they cooperate with the court. The retroactive effect of those suspected offenders who bribe voters would also be increased from one year to two years.
Chapter Three also touches upon the issue of donations from individuals to the candidates. The reform proposal stresses that all donations in cash and material goods should be reported to the authorities, and that receipts reaching a certain amount (such as MOP1,000) should be kept. These proposals are well received, but the actual implementation will likely be difficult unless the government provides concrete incentives, such as tax deductions, so that the donors will be willing to disclose the details of their donations to candidates.
Chapter Four examines the role of the Electoral Commission. It proposes a number of reforms, embracing the need to establish the Commission regularly for both the Chief Executive and Legislative Assembly elections, the necessity of enhancing its powers and management responsibilities, and the possibility of prolonging its work to at least 180 days before the election day or establishing it during the first week of January during the election year. The document proposes that the Commission would terminate its work 150 days after the completion of all election expenditures. Finally, it suggests that the Election Commission will be composed of at least a court judge, a representative from the Commission Against Corruption, and an officer from the Prosecution Office. Although the proposed composition does not involve any representative from the Audit Commission, the whole package of reforms in Chapter Four is politically and administratively progressive.
Some critics of the consultative document, including both the democrats and a minority of citizens in public forums, criticized the Macau government for dragging its feet in terms of the pace and speed of introducing more directly elected seats to the Legislative Assembly. Some democrats also criticized the reform proposal of turning a blind eye to any timetable and content of allowing Macau citizens to directly elect their Chief Executive.
From an objective standpoint, the consultative document does not include sufficient justifications on why the possibility of increasing the number of directly elected legislators and reforming the Chief Executive Election Committee are not discussed at all. The Introduction of the document is written in a historical but perhaps a bit dried manner. A more progressive administration would have confronted the politico-legal challenges to the democratization of the Legislative Assembly and Chief Executive elections in a more straightforward manner. At the very least, the document should have mentioned that the proposed reforms are only the first step in a series of measures that will be followed. This way, the issues of how to reform the composition of the Legislative Assembly and the question of democratizing the election of the Chief Executive could have been skillfully referred to the future Macau administration beyond 2009. Perhaps the consultative document’s reluctance in examining these politically sensitive issues reflects the mentality of the top bureaucrats and principal officials, who prefer to wait until the next Chief Executive and his or her new batch of subordinates will be selected.
This inherent conservatism amidst a largely progressive consultative document is understandable.
However, a minor progressive step in the next reform move by the Macau government is to trigger public discussions on the likelihood of reforming the existing number and portfolios of the existing secretaries. Interestingly, when the Macau members of the National People’s Congress and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference attend their annual meetings in Beijing in March, some of them surprisingly followed the footstep of the central government in introducing the idea of “large cabinet system”. According to the mainland’s “large cabinet system,” some ministries and departments of the State Council have to be restructured and merged. A few Macau elites mentioned that the Macau government should increase the number of the principal officials so that the administrative capacity would be enhanced. Arguably, this proposal is long overdue. The Macau administration will have to consider how to restructure, reform and merge some departments and bureaus, while toying with the idea of how to create any new principal official to cope with the policy challenges ahead. At present, the Macau government contains five secretaries: the Secretary for Administration and Justice, the Secretary for Economy and Finance, the Secretary for Security, the Secretary for Social Affairs and Culture, and the Secretary for Transport and Public Works. Arguably, the Secretary for Administration and Justice should perhaps be split into two, one dealing solely with administration and the other with the more neutral and legal aspect of justice. Similarly, the Secretary for Social Affairs and Culture should be revamped, with the possibility of creating a new health secretary to cope with the new challenges of infectious disease in the Greater China region. On the other hand, labor and education perhaps demand separate new secretaries. The creation of more secretaries will in fact be beneficial to the Macau administration, which will be able to train more political elites and to allow the ministers concerned to concentrate on their painstaking portfolios.
Perhaps the critical issue of how to reform Macao’s secretariat and the composition of both the Legislative Assembly and the Chief Executive elections remains politically stagnant at this moment until the candidates for the next Chief Executive will put forward their concrete platforms and reform agendas. To a certain extent, Macau is now entering a brief period of politico-administrative stagnation, although it must be recognized that the consultative document on electoral reform is a very progressive one that should be fully supported by the masses and the elites.
Sonny Lo is an Associate Professor in Political Science at the University of Waterloo. His new books include Political Change in Macao (London: Routledge, March 2008), The Dynamics of Beijing-Hong Kong Relations: A Model for Taiwan? (Hong Kong University Press, April 2008), and The Politics of Cross-Border Crime in Greater China: Case Studies of Mainland China, Hong Kong and Macao (M. E. Sharpe, September 2008).