893.00/5–848: Airgram
The Ambassador in China ( Stuart ) to the Secretary of State
[Received May 19—10:22 a. m.]
A–130. The Legislative Yuan election has plunged the Kmt into the same dilemma which vexed the Party in connection with the National Assembly and from which it has not yet been able to extricate itself completely. Out of the 773 seats in the Legislative Yuan, the Kmt promised to assist the Young China Party to secure 80 and the Democratic Socialist Party 75. Following the sad experience of the National Assembly elections where the Kmt proved unable to fulfill a similar promise, the Central Standing Committee of the Party passed a resolution forbidding Party members to run without Party nomination. However, many Party members chose to ignore this stipulation, [Page 227] were legally nominated by petition and elected. When the final returns were in, the Democratic Socialist had won only 14 seats and the Young China Party but 8. Furthermore, many Kmt members running independently defeated official Kmt nominees just as had happened in the National Assembly elections.
The results of the election were not immediately announced, and for a time the National Assembly and the attendant excitment over the Vice-Presidential race captured the headlines, but the various interested groups began quietly to organize to protect their rights. The petition-nominated electees established the “Fraternity of Popularly-Elected Legislators”, while the Kmt nominees set up the rival “Fraternity of Kuomintang Central Headquarters Formally-Nominated Legislative Yuan Candidates”. Both these organizations and also the minor parties began sending delegations to call on Ch’en Li-fu,26 Chang Li-sheng,27 Ku Cheng-kang28 and other responsible officials to urge their points of view. The Central Standing Committee of the Kmt was unable to reach a firm decision on the matter, being already preoccupied with the more urgent problems of the National Assembly election dispute and the Vice-Presidential elections, but was reported on April 18 to have resolved that the candidates receiving the largest number of votes would be considered elected in all areas except those reserved for minor parties.
Finally the State Council handed down a decision designed to cut the Gordian knot: Membership in the Assembly would be increased by 300 and in the Legislative Yuan by 150, thus permitting the election of both the minor party candidate and the Kmt member who had usurped his place by running independently and getting more votes. This solution, which would seem to satisfy practically everybody, unfortunately was rejected by the existing Legislative Yuan, as one of its last official acts before dissolving.
Party leaders, made wary by the unpleasant consequences of their forcible ejection of legally-elected National Assembly delegates to make room for minor party men, met to consider the problem. According to the Hsin Min Pao, they decided at a conference on May 1, participated in by Sun Fo,29 Chen Pu-lei,30 Wu-T’ieh-ch’eng,31 Chang Li-sheng, Ch’en Li-fu and Ku Cheng-kang, to recognize those receiving the largest number of votes as members of the Legislative Yuan. Apparently, they decided that the participation of the minor parties [Page 228] was not worth the risk of alienating an influential group of Kmt members and further splitting the Kmt, already weakened by the violent disagreements of the National Assembly. Also the failure of the minor parties to throw their support solidly behind Sun Fo in the Vice-Presidential election may have influenced their decision. Bitter reactions from the minor parties were forthcoming immediately. A Young China Party spokesman was reported to have stated that if the Kmt did not keep its promise not only would his party withdraw from the Legislative Yuan, but together with the Democratic Socialist Party would “jointly issue a manifesto flaying the Kmt for the violation of the three-party agreement and demanding that the American Government stop American aid”. The Fraternity of Kuomintang-Nominated Candidates also published an open letter to President Chiang pointing out that their failure in the election was due to the fact that they were nominated and supported by the party and calling upon him for the prestige and discipline of the party to find a satisfactory solution to the problem.
On May 5 the Gimo called two members of the Democratic Socialist Party to see him and, according to the account later given by Hsu Fu-lin,32 told him that it would not be possible to give any assistance to those members of the Young China and Democratic Socialist parties who were defeated in the election, but that he sincerely hoped the two parties would offer their broadest cooperation in the executive branch of the Government.
Both parties have announced that they refuse to accept the stand taken by the Kmt and have stated that they will not consider participating in national or local government until they are given the number of seats promised them in the Legislative Yuan. If both sides remained adamant, the Kmt would lose its “flower vases of democracy” on which it depends to prove to foreign observers that one-party government in China is no more, and the minor party officials now in the government would all be out of jobs. Since neither side is likely to go to that extreme, the most probable result is some sort of compromise, toward which they are now feverishly working, with Lei Chen acting as principal mediator for the Kmt. It is still possible that an increase in the total number of seats will prove the only way out. Whatever the solution, it will mean another beating for the badly mauled Kmt party machine.
While the two sides work toward a settlement of the election dispute, the first meeting of the new Legislative Yuan is being held May 8, as provided by the Regulations for the Enforcement of the Constitution. By the evening of May 7th, registration of legislators had reached 370, more than twice the required quorum of 155.
- Secretary General, Kuomintang Central Political Council.↩
- Chinese Minister of Interior.↩
- Chinese Minister of Social Affairs.↩
- President of the Chinese Legislative Yuan; unsuccessful Vice-Presidential candidate.↩
- Secretary General, Central Political Committee of the Kuomintang.↩
- Vice President of the Chinese Legislative Yuan; Secretary General of the Central Executive Committee of the Kuomintang.↩
- Chinese State Councilor and unsuccessful Vice-Presidential candidate.↩