Estranged allies People First Party (PFP) Chairman James Soong (
But things weren't always so cozy. Only last Thursday, the PFP broke ranks and sabotaged the KMT's efforts to block Chen Tsung-ming's (
Ma says he hopes that a formal alliance will help lead to closer unity in the legislature, which will help produce more policies beneficial to all of Taiwan. Soong said he hopes to stabilize Taiwanese politics by using more moderate, soft power to rebuild the foundation of the nation's democratic system as he sees it: the pan-blue alliance. Born of the same ideology, the KMT and PFP have always been political partners. That the two say they want to cooperate is not surprising, nor are their diplomatically chosen words.
The KMT doesn't want the PFP to cause trouble and split the pan-blue vote. Meanwhile, the PFP is coveting the quota for legislators-at-large and working for its own interests as it tries to stave off its destruction. Both parties know they need each other, but they don't have the resolve to make a long-term commitment, so instead they're just moving in together. However, this is merely a marriage of convenience in response to new electoral rules.
The new electoral system will halve the total number of legislative seats and the new electoral districts offer only 73 seats. This will lead to an explosive contest between the KMT and PFP as candidates vie for a much smaller number of seats. Both parties could use surveys to select candidates with the best chance of winning, similar to the election tactics they used before. But that cooperation failed in 2005, when KMT candidate Hsu Tsai-li (
The nomination system must be transparent and fair and potential candidates must be willing to concede defeat for it to work. The parties must stick to their guns and expel candidates who insist on running even after being eliminated by the nomination process. Otherwise, a dispute over just one legislative seat could shatter the alliance, leading the two into mutual attacks rather than cooperation.
After announcing that he was leaving Taiwanese politics following his crushing defeat in last year's Taipei mayoral election, Soong's actions certainly cast new light on the sincerity of his intentions. He witnessed the forming of the alliance from the US, and as he and PFP Vice Chairman Chang Chao-hsiung (
Regardless, the forming of the alliance is just the beginning of a new headache for the KMT chairman.
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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