The long-awaited first televised debate between three of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) presidential aspirants came to a successful close last Sunday. The debate could be seen as a milestone in breaking the chain of traditional court politics and political trickery that have been rife in the Chinese-speaking world. In one stroke it elevated the DPP to the status of a truly healthy and steadily improving democratic political party.
From the format to the content, the debate could compete with those held in other first-rate democratic countries.
When the three DPP presidential hopefuls -- Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌), former premier Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) and party Chairman Yu Shyi-kun -- shook hands, greeted each other and stood on the stage at their respective podiums, they created some semblance of a US presidential debate.
What is even more commendable is that almost all of the questions from the moderators were good and incisive ones, and each presidential hopeful was compelled to explain his political views. There were four moderators in this debate, which was more comprehensive and fair than in US presidential debates, which usually have only one moderator from the media.
The three presidential candidates engaged in gentlemanly competition throughout the debate. In addition, President Chen Shui-bian (
All in all, this was a successful debate, about which the DPP and the nation should be proud.
Political commentators as well as pan-green and pan-blue media outlets generally agreed on the candidates' approach: Su concentrated on looking back at what Taiwan and the DPP had achieved over the past few years, while Hsieh primarily talked about Taiwan's current status and the restrictions imposed on the nation, as well as how his political policies were best suited to the conditions. Yu presented his vision for the future, pledging to reform the nation's political system and setting a goal of improving on the current administration.
With regard to a new constitution and changing Taiwan's official name, issues of great importance to the pan-green camp, the three candidates agreed that Taiwan should seek to become a "normal" country. But while Su and Hsieh said that they would wait until Taiwanese society reaches a consensus, at which point Taiwan will naturally become a normal country, Yu favored a more proactive approach, saying he would do his best to promote the normalization of Taiwan, no matter what.
In terms of polemics, Su and Hsieh treated the DPP's presidential primary like a presidential election, emphasizing how different they are from former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chairman Ma Ying-jeou (
The debate was not only a very good opportunity for the candidates to demonstrate their political views to pan-green supporters, but also a big step toward ensuring that public opinion determines the final presidential candidate.
Most importantly, it also proved that no DPP faction or legislator can prevent public opinion from becoming the most potent force for the support that the DPP's presidential candidate will enjoy.
Cao Changqing is a Chinese writer based in the US.
Translated by Daniel Cheng
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