The on-again-off-again relationship between KMT Chairman Lien Chan (
It is too early for the pan-blue alliance to toast champagne. Things are not as simple as a date on Valentine's Day. First, the Public Officials Election and Recall Law (
Even if they want to officially tie the knot, they will first have to jump over a big hurdle. Cohabitation is enough to bring problems. Soong garnered a substantial number of votes in the 2000 presidential election. Together with the votes Lien received, their number of votes exceeded those of President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) by about 2 million votes. But, politics is not a matter of one plus one equals two. The attitude and popular will of the voters at any given time and in response to any given mix of candidates are what count. In these past few years, the political charisma of Soong has nose-dived. Suspicions about his political and moral virtues brought on by the Chung-hsing financial bill scandal remain. Soong's kneeling act before last year's mayoral election and the implication of several PFP Kaohsiung city councilmen in a vote-buying scandal have besmirched Soong's reputation. The KMT may be happy now, but it will soon discover Soong to be a shrewd who relishes political struggle and power grabbing. Lien will be marginalized in the election. The painful battle between the two parties is just beginning.
Soong gave a long speech on the eve of the announcement of the alliance, supposedly giving his views about the current state of affairs in Taiwan. He had no answers to give, only problems to pose. Soong's speech may have spoken the mind of some, but people do not necessarily vote based on sentiment. They need answers. "Thanks for the nuts, but where are the bolts?" they ask.
There is no denying that Chen's performance during the past three years of his presidency has been less than praiseworthy. But, the current problems are mostly remnants of the KMT era. The voters handed power to the DPP because they were dissatisfied with the slow pace of reform by the KMT. Can all these problems be solved with another change of ruling party? The KMT-PFP alliance must pitch more substantial proposals to the public and demonstrate greater determination to reform in order to convince the voters to cast their votes for them. Paying lip service to anti-government sentiment won't win them any votes.
The merging and split of parties and the rise and fall of political figures are all superficial aspects of politics. The essence of politics is to safeguard the welfare of the public. Taiwan's politicians and media waste too much energy on these superficial aspects. They are both out of focus and in dereliction of their duties. Let it be known to all interested in running for the presidency -- reforms and the economy are what matter to the voters.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus whip Fu Kun-chi (傅?萁) has caused havoc with his attempts to overturn the democratic and constitutional order in the legislature. If we look at this devolution from the context of a transition to democracy from authoritarianism in a culturally Chinese sense — that of zhonghua (中華) — then we are playing witness to a servile spirit from a millennia-old form of totalitarianism that is intent on damaging the nation’s hard-won democracy. This servile spirit is ingrained in Chinese culture. About a century ago, Chinese satirist and author Lu Xun (魯迅) saw through the servile nature of
In their New York Times bestseller How Democracies Die, Harvard political scientists Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt said that democracies today “may die at the hands not of generals but of elected leaders. Many government efforts to subvert democracy are ‘legal,’ in the sense that they are approved by the legislature or accepted by the courts. They may even be portrayed as efforts to improve democracy — making the judiciary more efficient, combating corruption, or cleaning up the electoral process.” Moreover, the two authors observe that those who denounce such legal threats to democracy are often “dismissed as exaggerating or
Monday was the 37th anniversary of former president Chiang Ching-kuo’s (蔣經國) death. Chiang — a son of former president Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石), who had implemented party-state rule and martial law in Taiwan — has a complicated legacy. Whether one looks at his time in power in a positive or negative light depends very much on who they are, and what their relationship with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) is. Although toward the end of his life Chiang Ching-kuo lifted martial law and steered Taiwan onto the path of democratization, these changes were forced upon him by internal and external pressures,
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus in the Legislative Yuan has made an internal decision to freeze NT$1.8 billion (US$54.7 million) of the indigenous submarine project’s NT$2 billion budget. This means that up to 90 percent of the budget cannot be utilized. It would only be accessible if the legislature agrees to lift the freeze sometime in the future. However, for Taiwan to construct its own submarines, it must rely on foreign support for several key pieces of equipment and technology. These foreign supporters would also be forced to endure significant pressure, infiltration and influence from Beijing. In other words,
RSS