"Trial by fire" is the operative phrase for the logic of primary elections.
The reasoning is obvious. Candidates must prove their survivability in an intra-party forum before venturing onto the national stage. This ensures that a political party fields only the most viable candidate -- the person whose record and behavior can withstand the bitter politicking of the modern age.
Unfortunately, Taiwan's major political parties prefer to embrace anachronistic methods of selecting candidates -- essentially conducting primaries through backroom gatherings of party elders, who bestow the nomination on the favored son or daughter of the entrenched elite.
The input of those the parties dub "grassroots" voters (ie, normal people) is purely symbolic, often relegated to an opaquely conducted "poll" that counts for, say, 30 percent of the selection process. How a zero-sum decision-making process can be quantified with percentage points is a matter best left to social scientists or statisticians to work out.
The reasons why "members" have virtually no say in how their party conducts the important business of choosing candidates warrant close examination.
In broad terms, it is because Taiwan's political elite has more than 60 years of experience with a highly centralized authoritarian political system, as well as a Confucian-influenced political philosophy that emphasizes the nebulous concept of "social order" and an unexamined faith in hierarchy and seniority as the most reliable indicators of ability.
What is hilarious about all of this feudalistic idiocy is that it is rendered moot when egos begin to swell.
Take, for example, the recent falling out between the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the People First Party (PFP) over the up-for-grabs Keelung mayorship. Despite an "agreement" between the two "allies" that they would jointly endorse a candidate after conducting an opinion poll, the PFP's man decided he didn't like the results (because he lost), and announced he would run anyway, with party support.
You don't have to be a political scientist to see that a split ticket could well give the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) the mayorship, but such foolishness is not limited to the pan-blues (although the most famous recent example would certainly be James Soong's [
The DPP is now in the midst of hand wringing over the "messy" primary process, with legislators becoming so unhinged that they are even begging their lame-duck president to "intervene" and restore order.
Why bother? How could it possibly help any party to quell what promises to be a lively (and ugly) primary season for the pan-blues and the pan-greens?
Perhaps, because of the many facets of unpleasant history involved with Taiwan's democratization, the political elite is simply terrified by the prospect of having to face up to the sordid past. Quite frankly, many of them should be, whether it is having to acknowledge that they were an informer for the authoritarian regime or that they expediently switched parties so many times they have trouble remembering which side they're currently on.
But if these people are upset by the messy realities of modern politics, then they shouldn't have become politicians. And since candidates for higher office so often refuse to accept the decision of their party elders, why not simply let candidates battle it out?
That is, after all, the point of a primary election.
Politicians in general are like dumb, spoiled children. There is no point in telling one of them that they should or should not do something -- they will only understand that fire is hot because they have stuck their hand in it. So give them all matches, and then let's watch the idiots go up in flames.
May the best candidate win.
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