President Chen Shui-bian (
Meanwhile, People First Party Chairman James Soong (
Undoubtedly, these four politicians have stolen all the limelight so far in the run-up to the Decem-ber elections for legislators, mayors and county commissioners. These superstars, strong in personal charisma, are in the spotlight and are hyping an otherwise cold and cheerless campaign.
Party candidates, however, have not benefited from this livening-up of the campaign because they are being outshone by the superstars. If the four superstars are viewed as the red blossoms, the candidates do not even qualify as green leaves. The candidates' are largely indistinguishable and their political differences are likewise forgettable. The only thing left is the four superstars' war of words.
Such a "quasi-presidential election campaign" involving a president, former president and former presidential candidates is inimical to the development of Taiwan's political democracy as voters lose perspective on what the election is about -- local issues.
Conflict among Taiwan's various ethnic groups is also being stirred up. The people are easily incited by the cacophony of TV call-in shows and politicians readily stoop to inflammatory rhetoric.
In such circumstances, back-room negotiations and the pointed political packaging of legislation are so common that it is barely possible to control the quality of legislation. This being so, those few legislators who focus on their legislative duties are like a rare, endangered species.
The overwhelming use of political superstars to campaign for the candidates militates not only against improving the quality of the legislature, but also against election results favorable to the parties themselves.
Under the current multi-member district system, winning more votes doesn't necessarily amount to winning more seats, because celebrity candidates may be "vote suckers" (吸票機), reducing the prospects for success of the parties' other candidates running in the same electoral district. Only with an even distribution of votes can the DPP become the majority party in the legislature.
As for the PFP, the scenario can be summed up by the old Chinese saying, "One general achieves renown over the dead bodies of 10,000 soldiers." Soong's cult of personality as a campaign tool is as yet untested by the unforgiving forge of a real election.
As far as the TSU is concerned, voters only know Lee, the party's spiritual leader, but are at a loss to name any of its candidates. It is very difficult for a candidate to stand out in a campaign that solely focuses on the "red blossoms," instead of the "green leaves." As a result, it seems highly improbable that political newcomers or others who are barely known can win.
Those parties that are not good at mobilizing their party machinery depend too much on supporters' desire to do the right thing. If there is a wide disparity between the relative strengths of a party's candidates, the distribution of ballots will be uneven and its number of seats will drop. This is a problem that will most likely afflict the DPP and the PFP.
Analysis of the legislative elections for the Fourth Legislative Yuan in 1998 shows that DPP candidates in three electoral districts were not elected because some of the party's celebrity candidates attracted a disproportionate number of votes. This also happened to the KMT in one electoral district, showing that its nomination strategy was more successful because its candidates were able to share the ballots more evenly. With such experience, the KMT may win more seats in this election, since competition is even tougher this time around.
At a time when the DPP hopes to win 85 legislative seats while other parties are striving to take as many seats as they can, party leaders have to act as mother hens and ensure an even distribution of ballots.
Due to the nature of the election this time, nevertheless, new faces or those with little fame will not likely achieve success without being strongly promoted. Thus, the long-term effect of the four political superstars on the campaign may be that the strong remain strong while the weak remain weak.
Lee Ching-hsiung is a Taiwan Independence Party legislator.
Translated by Eddy Chang
Concerns that the US might abandon Taiwan are often overstated. While US President Donald Trump’s handling of Ukraine raised unease in Taiwan, it is crucial to recognize that Taiwan is not Ukraine. Under Trump, the US views Ukraine largely as a European problem, whereas the Indo-Pacific region remains its primary geopolitical focus. Taipei holds immense strategic value for Washington and is unlikely to be treated as a bargaining chip in US-China relations. Trump’s vision of “making America great again” would be directly undermined by any move to abandon Taiwan. Despite the rhetoric of “America First,” the Trump administration understands the necessity of
US President Donald Trump’s challenge to domestic American economic-political priorities, and abroad to the global balance of power, are not a threat to the security of Taiwan. Trump’s success can go far to contain the real threat — the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) surge to hegemony — while offering expanded defensive opportunities for Taiwan. In a stunning affirmation of the CCP policy of “forceful reunification,” an obscene euphemism for the invasion of Taiwan and the destruction of its democracy, on March 13, 2024, the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) used Chinese social media platforms to show the first-time linkage of three new
If you had a vision of the future where China did not dominate the global car industry, you can kiss those dreams goodbye. That is because US President Donald Trump’s promised 25 percent tariff on auto imports takes an ax to the only bits of the emerging electric vehicle (EV) supply chain that are not already dominated by Beijing. The biggest losers when the levies take effect this week would be Japan and South Korea. They account for one-third of the cars imported into the US, and as much as two-thirds of those imported from outside North America. (Mexico and Canada, while
The military is conducting its annual Han Kuang exercises in phases. The minister of national defense recently said that this year’s scenarios would simulate defending the nation against possible actions the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) might take in an invasion of Taiwan, making the threat of a speculated Chinese invasion in 2027 a heated agenda item again. That year, also referred to as the “Davidson window,” is named after then-US Indo-Pacific Command Admiral Philip Davidson, who in 2021 warned that Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) had instructed the PLA to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027. Xi in 2017
RSS