Old habits die hard, it seems.
After five decades of party-state rule, the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) vice-like grip on state institutions finally began to loosen in the 1990s before they were dramatically wrenched free following the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) shock victory in the 2000 presidential election.
Never again would one party be able to control the executive and abuse power for its own benefit, or so people thought.
Over the past few months, however, this premise has begun to look increasingly shaky, as the longer this KMT administration stays in power, the harder it becomes to distinguish between the party and the state.
It started innocently enough, when in October President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) — following in the footsteps of former presidents Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) and Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) — took up the reins of his party claiming he had a “sense of responsibility for the nation’s competitiveness and government performance.”
Although Ma’s move flew in the face of his previous statement that “the president should be devoted full-time to government affairs,” it was understandable given the executive’s trouble pushing its agenda through a legislature dominated by people supposedly on its side.
Then in December, following a relatively poor showing in local elections and with Ma’s approval rating continuing to slide, King Pu-tsung (金溥聰) — Ma’s hatchet man from his Taipei mayor days — was installed as party secretary-general in a bid to halt the slide.
King’s powers appear to be unlimited if his recent plundering of Cabinet and Government Information Office Spokesman Su Jun-pin (蘇俊賓) for a party job is any indication. Speculation that Vice Premier Eric Chu (朱立倫) is to be pulled to contest one of the five municipal elections the party fears it may lose is further proof of party taking precedence over government.
Another sign of the increasingly blurred dividing line is the tendency of reporters to ask for, and Premier and former KMT secretary-general Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) to give, comment on the KMT’s internal affairs, even though he is supposed to be busy with more important things — like running the country.
Meanwhile, the last few weeks have seen Ma and an increasing number of government officials spending their time campaigning for KMT candidates ahead of tomorrow’s legislative by-elections.
All this makes it pretty clear that the KMT is devoting all of its (and, when needed, the government’s) resources to the party and Ma’s re-election campaign at the expense of the country.
Of course it would be unfair to criticize the KMT without mentioning the DPP, which was also guilty of using state resources for its own pet projects, but the KMT has taken things to the next level over the last few weeks, focusing entirely on upcoming local elections.
Ma and the KMT must realize that the key to his re-election is whether people believe he is running the country well, something he doesn’t seem to be doing at the moment, given his approval ratings.
A major concern for many is that the KMT is trying to take Taiwan back to the bad old days, and the more Ma devotes his time to party affairs at the expense of the nation, the more their fears appear justified.
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