People First Party (PFP) Chairman James Soong (
Soong's anti-Su proposal was clearly meant to raise his profile and set the stage for his mayoral bid. But while the KMT may have been willing to accommodate Soong in the past, the PFP chairman's latest action has created a rift in the pan-blue camp as it would pit him against the KMT's own candidate, Hau Lung-bin (
With Soong joining the Taipei mayoral race, there seems to be little hope now of the two parties cooperating in the year-end contest. The PFP hopes to keep the fire of the anti-President Chen Shui-bian (
What does the PFP hope to achieve in toppling the Su Cabinet? Realizing that the shift to the "single-district, two-vote system" next year would be unfavorable to smaller parties, the PFP is hoping that toppling the Cabinet would lead Chen to dissolve the legislature, paving the way for early elections. The PFP would rather risk a snap election now when it can ride on the wave of public support for the anti-corruption campaign, thinking that the current political mood would favor its more radical line.
The KMT is the biggest opposition party, and looks set to regain its power. While it shares the PFP's stance against the ruling party, it is not as desperate nor as uncompromising. Legislation for new electoral districts and voting methods have not yet been completed. As such, if the legislature were dissolved, there would be a period in which the executive, legislative and control yuans will have to cease all normal functions. All checks on the president's authority will cease -- a situation that the KMT would not like to see.
If the government falls and Chen chooses to forgo disbanding the legislature in favor of inviting Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (
After more than a month of anti-Chen demonstrations, KMT Chairman Ma Ying-jeou (
Unfortunately, the PFP's indiscriminate slash-and-burn politics and Shih's street protests are all designed to upset the nation's stability. Soong and Shih are nothing but political opportunists unconcerned with the nation's long-term political development. With the havoc that the two have created in the past, the DPP, or possibly the KMT in the future, are left with the long and laborious task of picking up the pieces.
Whichever official takes on this responsibility, he or she should have a long-term vision for building the nation's political future. Politicians like Soong, who are willing to sacrifice the interest of the majority for their own individual or party's benefits, are only a stumbling block to progress.
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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