I. Ten Thousand Year Congress vs. Will of the People The Only Universal Suffrage in Chinese History, Judicial Yuan Interpretation Extended Term Limits Indefinitely The “first elected representatives in the central government” of the ROC were voted to office between November 1947 and January 1948. To this day, this was the first and only instance of universal suffrage in Chinese history. The historical significance of this election aside, this first nationwide election was held in the winter, during an era when transportation infrastructure was lacking in China, and when there was no universal education and therefore much of the citizens are illiterate. On top of all that, there was an ongoing civil war. Therefore, the authenticity and fairness of many constituencies is up for debate. Take the legislators, for example. The total number of legislators to be elected was 773, but only 759 legislators who were sworn in and took office in Nanjing in February 1948. After the government retreated in Taiwan, the number of legislators who reported to Taiwan ranged from 479 in 1950 to 504 in 1958. According to the Constitution, the term of these elected representatives should have expired in 1951, when another election should have been held. However, the Judicial Yuan Interpretation No. 31 allowed them to continue exerting their powers because “it is de-facto impossible to hold re-elections in areas taken over by communist rebels”. By the late 1960s, the CCP had gained more support from emerging countries in the United Nations, and it became increasingly difficult for the United States to firmly support the legitimacy of Chiang’s 124 regime to represent China in the United Nations. To bolster the ROC’s image of freedom and democracy, a small number of legislators were added through “supplementary elections”. That is to say, on March 27, 1969, the government announced the Measures for the Supplementary Election and Re-election of Public Servants in the Central Government in Free Areas During the Communist Rebellion, allowing the Taiwanese people to elect “supplementary��� representatives for the first time. However, Taiwanese people were only given 15 seats in the National Assembly and 11 seats in the Legislative Yuan. Like the first elected representatives, these new representatives had indefinite terms. Former DPP chairman Huang Hsin-chieh was among those elected at this time. After the ROC lost its seat in the UN in 1971, the need for “political reform” and “challenging communism with democracy” became more urgent. In 1972, the Regulations for the Election of Supplementary Representatives in the Free Area During the Communist Rebellion was passed. Since then, regular smallscale re-elections of representatives were held, with legislators holding terms of three year. However, during the first supplementary election, there were only 53 seats in the National Assembly and 51 seats in the Legislative Yuan. The last supplementary election was held on December 2, 1989, and the elected representatives were sworn in during February the following year. By then, the “first” Legislative Yuan was in its 85th session. The number of seats in the Legislative Yuan (including regional and occupational seats) had gradually increased to 101. "Senior" legislators, whose term had lasted for 43 years, holding a meeting in the Legislative Yuan before leaving office at the end of 1991. Photographer: Hsu Po-hsin At the time, however, those with indefinite term limits included 153 legislators and another 29 legislators representing overseas nationals chosen by the President, totaling 182 seats. In other words, up to 64% of legislators were not elected by the people of Taiwan, but constituted an important voting force for the authoritarian regime. Among the 101 supplementary legislators elected, DPP candidates and the independent Chen Ting-nan were elected to 21 seats, accounting for 7.4% of the total number of legislators, just barely enough signatures to submit proposals. They didn’t even have as many seats as the 29 overseas Chinese representatives selected by the President. Although the DPP only had 21 seats in the Legislative Yuan, their calls for freedom and democracy gave them the political moral high ground. This was particularly the case at time where there was a trend of democracy succeeding autocracy in the international community. One could say that the world turned upside down between 1989 and 1990. Major interna- tional events include: the Soviet Union surrendered its one-party dictatorship in the Revolutions of 1989; the Berlin Wall fell, reuniting West and East Germany; and the proindependence movements of the Baltic nations. There was also the opening of China. It is a shame that the Tiananmen Square Massacre occurred in 1989. The Wild Lily student movement also broke out in March of 1990 in Taiwan, leading to constitutional reforms. The DPP’s actions to support political victims also escalated from street protests to legal reforms. The Ten Thousand Year Congress Defies the Will of the People, Backlash Against Police Brutality Intensified Constitutional Reforms In April 1990, Chen Shui-bian, then a new legislator elected to office just two months prior and the head of the DPP caucus, was the first to lead joint proposals to abolish the Betrayers Punishment Act 125