Over the weekend, a group of young Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers launched a soul-searching campaign, urging the DPP to engage in introspection and to shift more of its attention to disadvantaged groups in line with the party's founding goal of pursuing social fairness and justice.
One of the initiators of the campaign, the DPP's candidate for the Taipei County commissionership, Luo Wen-jia (
Luo, a protege of President Chen Shui-bian (
After almost six years in power, the performance of the DPP administration has disappointed a number of pan-green diehards, with some gloomily wondering whether the DPP is losing its ideals and ability to improve itself. It has also alienated a large segment of the party's grassroots supporters, the very people who had helped to elect the then 14-year-old DPP in 2000.
Some supporters are beginning to wonder whether the DPP has turned into the equivalent of the old Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) regime it used to fight against -- a corrupt party leading a corrupt government. This kind of sentiment was especially prominent in the wake of the recent spate of scandals plaguing the DPP administration -- one of them being Kaohsiung's problematic MRT project. An Aug. 21 riot, ignited by Thai laborers protesting against their poor living conditions, unexpectedly brought to light a complex influence-peddling scheme in which ranking government officials apparently exploited Thai workers while pocketing money from the project's construction funds.
In the early days after the formation of the DPP, its members frequently attacked the KMT government with biting criticism for granting privileges to certain groups. They spoke of their hopes for reform with honesty and uprightness.
Back then, whenever they touched upon issues of national or civic unfairness, such as the special pension system for teachers, civil servants and military personnel, the DPP was full of fire, trumpeting social fairness and justice.
It has been almost six years since the DPP took power, but how many of the unfair regulations it criticized so severely back then have changed? What happened to the DPP's reform promises and its image of being honorable and free of corruption? Is there any difference between the DPP's current behavior and that of the late-era KMT regime? While it remains to be seen whether the "New DPP Movement" will be a boon or a liability for the DPP, it is clear that only by returning to its founding spirit and original goals will the party be able to represent the hopes of its supporters.
If the DPP remains the way it is now, it will no longer be fulfilling the purpose of its existence, and will have trouble getting the support of the voters it needs to hold power.
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,
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