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Note: This article represents the view of the author and not the University of Hong Kong.

During the sixth Legislative Yuan Election in Taiwan, the author was honoured to be received by the Friends of Hong Kong & Macau Association to observe the election in Taipei. Just like the past, the author is more concerned about the development of the public opinion poll's mechanism, as the supporting facilities of the whole democratic system in Taiwan.

As far as the author knows, the legislation in Taiwan has stipulated that the media is banned from releasing election-related opinion polls 10 days before the presidential elections, so as to "maintain the election order". However, according to the author's observations over the past years, major pollsters are still conducting public opinion polls before various elections, only that they have not released the result openly. Political parties, the media and many academics in fact are very clear about the result of those surveys in private.

With the exception of the presidential elections, there are no laws prohibiting the opinion polls during the elections of other public officials at present. Yet, on December 9, Ms. Lin Mei-zhu, the Chief Secretariat of the Central Election Commission, suggested in a meeting with us that, the future development of the election legislation in Taiwan would probably be a complete ban of all the election polls. If that is really the case, the author thinks this will be a retrogression of the democratic development in Taiwan.

Despite the fact that quite a lot of candidates have criticized the influence of opinion polls either by speeches or articles before and after the elections, and directly or indirectly put the burden of their defeats onto the pollsters, in the author's view, before introducing further legislations, all people in Taiwan possibly need to consider the following 4 factors:

Firstly, the importance of freedom of information to the democratic society. Ten days before the presidential election in Taiwan, although the media has stopped releasing the opinion polls, one can see a flood of different candidates' publicity and election advertisements in the media. Many of them involve forecast and judgment of elections based on the internal poll result. If the government allows this kind of assessment, which may be true or false, to influence the voters, why can't objective figures with solid bases derived from scientific method be accommodated? In a mature democratic society, the duty of the media is to safeguard the freedom of information. To leave the valuable election information for political groups and interest groups will violate the spirit of democracy. Besides, while the internet is so popular nowadays, even though the government can prohibit the traditional media from releasing the poll figures, it cannot stop the international media from releasing their polls on the internet. Strict prohibition will only spark off more challenges.

Secondly, the reference value of the independent public opinion figures. Some Taiwan people and candidates reject public opinion polls and they may have their reasons. Yet, in the author's view, the solution should be demanding the pollsters to be more impartial and independent and to establish a professional code of ethics, so as to prevent the political parties from misusing and abusing public opinion polls, and hence the polls can have higher reference value. To resort to legal ban will only deter the development of the opinion polls. On the other hand, if pollsters can adjust the time and format of the releases through self-regulation based on professional considerations, that would be a step forward. Like the Legislative Yuan election which was just over, since the existing election system has created questions to the poll forecast, 7 major bodies thus have reached a consensus not to release the poll result 7 days before the election. This is a kind of progress. However, in the author's view, in order to safeguard the information freedom, a 7-day period is too long. Only if the poll figures are utilized properly and stated clearly when releasing, 2 to 3 days should be enough for the cool-down period. How do the political parties and public utilize the poll result at the final stage should not be relevant to the independent operation of the poll.

Thirdly, the international vision of Taiwan society. In 1996 and 2002, the World Association for Public Opinion Research conducted 2 worldwide surveys and discovered that, among the 66 countries which have been covered in the survey in 2002, 36 of them (i.e. nearly 55%) posed no restrictions to the election polls. Among them, South Africa banned the 42-day restriction period completely while Indonesia abolished its 21-day restriction period. For those countries where restrictions still existed, many have shortened their restriction periods between the 2 surveys. For example, France has shortened its period from 7 days to 1 day, Portugal from 7 days to 1 day, Poland from 12 days to 1 day, Turkey from 30 days to 7 days, Canada from 3 days to 2 days, etc. While Taiwan claims itself to be a free and democratic society, should it also make reference to the international society's development and argument in this field?

Fourthly, Taiwan as the role model of the Chinese democratic society. Hong Kong, where the author lives in, has no restriction to the pre-election polls. This is in line with the 36 countries in the above survey, including democratic countries like the UK, the USA, Germany, Japan, etc, and the author feels so proud of this. Hong Kong is a society valuing freedom and rule of law. While its democratic development is still in the primary stage, its freedom in the release of poll result has surpassed Taiwan. Macau is also the Chinese society, but its laws have banned anyone from releasing the election poll result 15 days before the Legislative Assembly election. Although its ex-sovereign state, Portugal, has already shortened the restriction period to 1 day, the Macau government has not followed the changes and seemingly it wants to differentiate itself clearly from Portugal. While there is no large-scale democratic election in mainland China, it is definitely unnecessary to discuss the issues of public opinion polls. Therefore, in the Chinese societies like Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan and mainland China, whether Taiwan would like to be the role model of the Chinese democratic society depends, to a certain extent, on whether Taiwan will take one step forward to ban the election poll.

The author is only a visitor from Hong Kong and should not say much about the development of Taiwan society. The reason for the author to point out the drawback of its ban of opinion polls is only because of his emotional ties with Taiwan people and the whole society. If the Taiwan government wants to further restrict the release of election polls, it should not meet too much resistance. However, the author still hopes that, while the system of institutional democracy is developing in Taiwan society, the supporting software will not be neglected. Impartial and free media, independent intellectuals and credible pollsters are all indispensable components in a democratic society.