Late last month, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) announced that it would nominate former New Power Party (NPP) spokesman Wu Cheng (吳崢), former DPP New Taipei City councilor Tseng Po-yu (曾柏瑜) and independent political commentator Lee Cheng-hao (李正皓) to run for “difficult electoral districts” in next year’s legislative elections.
The nomination of outsiders — dubbed “assassins” — has been somewhat controversial within the party.
The party had originally planned to nominate entertainer Ili Cheng (鄭佳純), known as “Chicken Cutlet Girl,” Social Democratic Party (SDP) Taipei City Councilor Miao Po-ya (苗博雅) and independent Taipei City Councilor Chiu Wei-chieh (邱威傑), a YouTuber known as “Froggy.”
These nominations might be a stretch too far for DPP members: They would almost certainly cause an uproar within the party.
Vice President and DPP Chairman William Lai (賴清德) has said that “the DPP values young people and gives them opportunities,” but does he only intend to provide these opportunities to young people outside the party?
That would be difficult for young DPP members to accept, especially those willing to run for tough electoral districts.
VOTERS’ TRUST
Lai has proposed a “Y plus DPP” campaign strategy. The “Y” stands for Generation Y or millennials — people born from 1980 to 1996.
Aside from empty campaign slogans from the three principles of the campaign strategy revealed by the party, all nominees must win Lai’s trust.
Media reports have said that the people he trusts are to be prioritized in the nomination process.
Lai might trust the so-called “assassins,” but do they have a similar level of trust from his staff and supporters, or the electorate?
How will the “assassins” as outsiders choose campaign managers or form campaign teams? Will the nominees mobilize long-term local supporters just because Lai trusts them?
UNKNOWN ENTITIES
Politics is a matter of trust, and relying on Internet and television exposure to win public trust is not going to cut it. This kind of exposure is mostly used to create a “persona,” while voters have little understanding of these people and might only know some of them through published photographs.
Such “assassins” from outside the DPP would find it difficult to establish a foothold in local communities, and their political assistants would likely lack the experience to help them. The candidates and their assistants would falter at the first hurdle, and the cycle would be repeated in the next election.
The party chairman can be replaced, but a lost generation of assistants cannot.
Pretty packaging aside, “assassins” would not pass their experience on when participating in political affairs.
PREDICTABLE OUTCOME
Those from generation Y that the DPP wants to attract are watching the party gradually lose its good traditions, while many political assistants who handle municipal and national affairs are the first to be disappointed, wondering whether the party can continue to uphold the banner of reform.
The DPP is struggling to appeal to younger voters, but the party leadership’s solution is to find outsider “assassins.”
By giving opportunities to people who lack core values, the election results in those districts are only too predictable.
Chen Kuan-fu is a graduate student at National Taipei University.
Translated by Eddy Chang
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