Some have said that although last Saturday's local government elections were a debacle for the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), they were a major victory for Taiwan's democracy. This is an excellent point. A number of renowned DPP candidates graciously admitted defeat and congratulated their opponents, and managed to contain their disgruntled supporters' emotions after the results were released. Such an attitude prevented a repeat of the chaotic scenes following last year's presidential elections, and indicates that the nation's democracy has matured.
Following the elections, pan-green camp supporters have begun to review why they lost. Instead of blaming the pan-blue camp, they have pointed fingers at the DPP leadership, criticizing the imprudent remarks made by President Chen Shiu-bian (
People should especially praise Luo Wen-chia (
Many corruption cases were uncovered in the lead-up to the vote -- including the Kaohsiung Rapid Transit Corp (KRTC) scandal, the excessive bad loans of the Chinese Nationalist Party's (KMT) Taipei County Commissioner-elect Chou Hsi-wei (周錫瑋) and Kaohsiung County commissioner nominee Lin Yi-shih (林益世), the defamatory VCD against the KMT's Taoyuan County commissioner-elect Chu Li-lun (朱立倫), the disclosure of the medical records of Taichung Mayor Jason Hu (胡志強) and recent developments in the Lafayette scandal. The judicial branch must hasten its investigations and deal with those who either committed crimes or made false accusations. We must not allow criminals to escape the reach of the law, for this would only encourage more negative campaign tactics in the future.
It doesn't matter much how the ruling party reorganizes in the wake of its defeat. But whatever it does, it should take this opportunity to establish a model of behavior within a democratic system. Democracies are built on the rule of law, and for this reason it is essential that a proper investigation be conducted into all of the disputes that arose during the campaign. The custom of letting accusations drop after the elections should not be continued, for that would encourage more bad behavior in future. Only in this way can we gradually improve the nation's political culture.
President Chen has done a poor job leading the DPP through legislative and local elections, and on both occasions a number of the party's elite were defeated. He should now focus on further consolidating Taiwan's democratic foundations.
In addition to pushing forward probes into allegations raised during the campaign, the DPP should also seek advice from scholars and experts to decide what the nation's government should look like. The nation must settle on whether it will adopt a presidential or Cabinet system, and whether it should have a five-branch or three-branch system of government.
President Chen should also work to establish an independent investigative system and a government watchdog to maintain ethical practices and monitor government officials' abuse of power. Only in this way will the DPP administration be able to justify its use of taxpayers' money, even if its powers to act in the current situation are considerably curtailed.
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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