President of The Republic of China - Succession

Succession

The Constitution of the Republic of China gives a short list of persons who will succeed to the presidency if the office of the President of the Republic of China were to become vacant. According to the Additional Articles of the Constitution, Article 2:

Should the office of the vice president become vacant, the president shall nominate a candidate(s) within three months, and the Legislative Yuan shall elect a new vice president, who shall serve the remainder of the original term until its expiration. Should the offices of both the president and the vice president become vacant, the president of the Executive Yuan shall exercise the official powers of the president and the vice president. A new president and a new vice president shall be elected in accordance with Paragraph 1 of this article and shall serve out each respective original term until its expiration. The pertinent provisions of Article 49 of the Constitution shall not apply.

As no president of the Executive Yuan (also known as the Premier) has ever succeeded to the presidency under these provisions (or their predecessors, under Article 49), it is untested whether, should the office of the premier be vacant as well, whether, pursuant to the Additional Articles, Article 3, the vice president of the Executive Yuan (vice premier), who would be acting premier, would act as president. There is currently no constitutional provision for a succession list beyond the possibility that the vice president of the Executive Yuan might succeed to the presidency.

Assuming that the vice president of the Executive Yuan would be third in line for the presidency, the current line of succession is:

  1. Wu Den-yih, Vice President of the Republic of China.
  2. Sean Chen, President of the Executive Yuan
  3. Yi-Huah Jiang, Vice President of the Executive Yuan

Presidential succession has occurred three times under the 1947 Constitution:

  1. President Chiang Kai-shek resigned on 21 January 1949 amid several Communist victories in the Chinese Civil War and was replaced by Vice President Li Tsung-jen as Acting President. However, Chiang continued to wield authority as Director-General of the Kuomintang and Commander of the National Revolutionary Army. Li Tsung-jen lost the ensuing power struggle and fled to the United States in November 1949. Chiang evacuated with the government to Taiwan in December 1949 and resumed his duties on 1 March 1950.
  2. President Chiang Kai-shek died on 5 April 1975 and was replaced by Vice President Yen Chia-kan who served out the remainder of the term.
  3. President Chiang Ching-kuo died on 13 January 1988 and was replaced by Vice President Lee Teng-hui who served out the remainder of the term and won two more terms on his own right.

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