As next year's presidential election approaches, the nation's two biggest political parties are faced with the difficult task of having to select tickets that would give them the greatest chance of winning the presidency.
The importance of the upcoming presidential election for the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) is without question.
For the DPP, winning this election will help salvage the party from the past year's slump, during which its top figures, including President Chen Shui-bian (
As for the KMT, after losing the previous two presidential elections, it cannot wait to reclaim the presidency and enjoy the sweet taste of political victory.
Both parties have mechanisms for the primaries through which -- in theory at least -- the best candidates will be elected through a combination of ballots cast by party members and public opinion polls. While this process seems straightforward and in conformity with the fundamentals of democracy, it has some fatal flaws.
This explains why, before the primaries have even been held, both parties have decided to resort to negotiations among the contenders to decide who should be nominated. The biggest flaw in that approach is that the attendant party infighting could split them.
When it comes to the consequences of such splits, the KMT probably has the most painful experience -- notably the 2000 presidential election. The KMT's votes were divided between the party's nominated candidate -- Lien Chan (
Life, however, has its many ironies. In light of the standoff between former KMT chairman Ma Ying-jeou (
Although Wang has more seniority than Ma in the party, Ma's popularity made it almost certain that he would be chosen to represent the party. However, the scales began to tip in Wang's favor after Ma was formally indicted on embezzlement charges.
While Ma's popularity remains high, it is not unlikely that he will be convicted on those charges, which could have serious repercussions for the KMT's image. Hence Wang's determination to run as presidential candidate and nothing else.
Under such extraordinary circumstances, Lien and Wu Po-hsiung (
Given his political stature, it is highly unlikely Lien would settle for anything less than the presidency. However, Ma's unwillingness to be Wang's sidekick probably also applies to Lien.
It seems that in the weeks ahead the KMT will need to accomplish no less than squaring the circle.
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,