Indigenous people underrepresentedBy Kuo Chun-yen 郭俊巖Taiwan’s major political parties are engaged in intense campaigning for next year’s presidential and legislative elections. From the perspective of Taiwanese ethnic groups, every time there is an election, indigenous people can do little but watch from the sidelines. After elections, the inaugurations of new presidents, legislators and ministers seem to have nothing to do with them, with the exception of whoever wins the six indigenous legislative seats and whoever becomes minister of the Council of Indigenous Peoples, which are normally allocated to indigenous people. No matter which party is in power, the disadvantages indigenous people face in political participation does not improve. The idea of legislators-at-large is to allow parties to recommend experts or representatives of underrepresented groups to uphold the ideal of taking care of disadvantaged people and ethnic minorities.
