Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰), a former Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislator who has been described as the "top aide and successor to Kaohsiung Mayor Frank Hsieh (謝長廷)," has been promoted to deputy secretary-general of the Presidential Office, giving Hsieh a boost as he prepares for the 2008 presidential election.
"Because President Chen [Shui-bian (陳水扁)] wanted to maintain competition among heavyweights inside the DPP, Cho, who is Hsieh's most-prominent political star of the middle generation, was invited by Chen after the May 20 inauguration to join the country's top policymaking center, where he must play as the "shadow" of Hsieh to gradually grasp the direction of the president's thinking," said Hu Wen-huei (胡文輝), a senior political columnist.
PHOTO: TAIPEI TIMES
"Another reason why Chen promoted Cho, who did not perform any better than other middle-generation DPP legislators, is [he needed] to return the favor for Hsieh's contributions during the presidential election," Hu said.
Hu said that, among the four stars likely to figure in the 2008 presidential race, Hsieh was not in the best position. Su Tseng-chang (
Cho's promotion, therefore, is important to Hsieh's ambitions for high office.
"Cho's task is to ensure that there is no distance between Chen and Hsieh, and, in the first instance, to transmit Chen's decisions and thinking to Hsieh, who remains in Kaohsiung, southern Taiwan, and to closely watch Su Tseng-chang, so that Hsieh can carefully analyze Su's every word and deed," Hu said.
The 45-year-old Cho graduated from the law department of National Chunghsing University. During the 1980s, he worked as Hsieh's assistant when he served as a Taipei City councilor, taking charge of organizational services and campaign activities.
Always under Hsieh's wing, Cho has served two terms as a Taipei city councilor and two terms as a legislator.
With the transfer of power in 2000, Chen's succession to the chairmanship of the DPP the following year and the reform of party affairs that followed, Cho and some other middle-generation legislators were appointed by Chen to serve as heads of departments at the DPP's headquarters.
Cho, again with Hsieh's recommendation, secured the social development brief, taking responsibility for nationwide grassroots organization, expansion and cooperation with civil society.
In this year's presidential election, Cho served as deputy executive manager of the Chen-Lu campaign headquarters, working to bring local factions together, seeking support from social groups and even attracting supporters from the opposition.
"He accomplished his job with a low profile and high efficiency, which completely met President Chen's expectations. Moreover, he won the trust of Chen's staff," said a close aide to the president. "Therefore, to cultivate more young talent, the president decided to quickly promote Cho."
The Presidential Office has two deputy secretary generals. One is for foreign affairs, such as presidential overseas travel, receiving foreign guests and taking responsibility for communications with ambassadors.
The other secretary general looks after domestic affairs, which involves integrating Presidential Office activities with those of civil society, organizing domestic presidential visits, and liaising with academics and other influential people in society such as business leaders.
Cho replaces Chen Che-nan (
"I have been an elected politician for a long time and am used to fighting on my own, without the formalities associated with interaction within a team. I will have to adapt as quickly as possible to my new role in the Presidential Office," Cho said.
Cho doesn't talk about himself as being a bridge between Hsieh and Chen. He does say, with total confidence, though, that in terms of loyalty, sincerity and mutual trust, he is capable of handling communications between Chen and Hsieh, and that he has long been familiar with the scope of the task.
"No problem," he said when asked about his new job.
To shed his image as a locally rather than nationally based politician, Cho has participated in all policy-making and debating pro-cesses during past few months. These have included the debate on the referendum during the presidential election campaign and participation in all party reform procedures following the election.
He has also joined the discussion among DPP middle-generation legislators on developing new party guidelines for the "new culture discourse" for reconciling ethnic conflicts, and contributed to the discussion of the country's status and to the independence-versus-unification debate.
"I believe that public service is the road the party should travel. The idealism and radicalism of the past must be banished. The DPP must be permanently in power; it must not continue to revolve elusively around the question of national status. It should start by raising the people's aspirations, and it should do that by solving the ethnic problems," Cho said.
For this reason, he hopes that he will be able to plan for Chen to take part in more inter-ethnic activities. One aspect of this is to persuade the Hoklo ethnic community, which constitutes 70 percent of the electorate, to have more faith in the DPP. Another aspect is to defuse accusations that the DPP oppresses Mainlanders.
"President Chen has already secured a simple majority of votes. In the next four years it will not be necessary to spend so much time visiting grassroots organizations as in the first term," he said.
"The important thing is to develop concrete policy and appeals, such as those to hold a large-scale conference on culture and ethnicity and introducing anti-discrimination legislation. This will put the 50 percent of people who had already voted [for Chen] more at ease to place their trust in the DPP, and prompt the other 50 percent to consider changing their views," Cho said.
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