It’s official: President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) has launched his election campaign for chairmanship of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT).
A quick glance at the history of KMT chairmanship polls since the first direct election for the position in 2001 shows an increasingly democratic process. In March 2001, Lien Chan (連戰), the sole candidate, won with 97 percent of the vote. Successive elections involved at least two candidates. In 2005, Ma won the race against Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) with 72.4 percent of the vote, while the current chairman, Wu Poh-hsiung (吳伯雄), defeated KMT Legislator Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱) in April 2007 with 90 percent of the vote.
Before 2001, only two chairmen — Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) and before him Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國) — held that position via undemocratic means, that is, by appointment.
On the Democratic Progressive Party side, the list of chairpersons — 17 altogether — tells a similar story, albeit one that was democratic from the very beginning (1986). The only question marks were certain periods of the presidency of Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) — from 2002 until 2004, and from 2007 until last year — when the president held the party chairmanship concurrently.
For short periods of time, both parties have had acting chairpersons who were not elected.
It is fair to say, then, that Taiwan’s democratization — from direct presidential elections to those at the county and legislative levels — has been accompanied by similar conduct within political parties.
But this season’s election for KMT chairmanship is odd. It harkens back to a period in the nation’s history when an individual did not become chairperson through a democratic process. The party’s eighth transition in chairmanship is a one-candidate affair, with Ma campaigning for an election that needs no campaign.
Arguably, the precedent of concurrency set by the Chen administration set a bad example. But at least the dual position of chairman-president occurred at a time when the country’s democracy was unquestionably healthier and when the legislature was dominated by the pan-blue camp, serving as a counterbalance to the executive. Not so today, where both are firmly under the control of the same camp.
Ma can say what he wants about wanting to reduce friction between the executive and the legislature, or between government and party, but in the end, his is a power play that runs against more than two decades of democratization. At best, it takes us back eight years to when Lien’s election was a foregone conclusion. At its worst, it takes us back to the appointment system that was in place when the KMT was an authoritarian party.
It is immaterial whether Ma is the single candidate in the “race” as a result of behind-the-scenes pressure or simply because nobody thought they stood a chance against him. What matters is that in a one-man race, time and money are being wasted for nothing more than kabuki theater.
That Ma has the gall to pretend to be in an electoral race when he does not have an opponent is an affront to the public’s intelligence. Worse, it dovetails with the regression in Taiwan’s democracy since he became president.
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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