Representatives of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) met on Saturday to discuss a possible “blue-white alliance” to defeat the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in January’s presidential election.
Former Taipei deputy mayor Vivian Huang (黃珊珊), representing the TPP, and former KMT secretary-general King Pu-tsung (金溥聰), the campaign manager of KMT presidential candidate New Taipei City Mayor Hou You-yi (侯友宜), discussed how the potential alliance could decide which candidate would be at the top of the ticket, and which would be the vice presidential candidate: Hou or TPP Chairman Ko Wen-je (柯文哲).
Neither side was going to go into the negotiations in good faith. For observers it was simply a game of unraveling exactly how one side was trying to take advantage of the other. This was not about discovering what voters wanted — it was about skewing the game.
The TPP wanted the decision to be made based on telephone opinion polls, conducted by five agencies, half to landline numbers and half to mobile phones; the KMT favored primary ballots throughout the nation. It was no surprise that they were unable to reach an agreement.
Transparency is a good thing, and the two sides were certainly being transparent about their intentions.
Given the respective resources available to the two parties, the TPP’s suggestion is the more reasonable, although it does have a hidden bias with the stipulation of mobile phone interviews, ensuring that young voters are included, as this is the demographic among which polls have shown Ko’s support is strongest.
The KMT’s proposal plays to its own strengths of organizational depth and national distribution, and against the TPP’s weaknesses as a new party still finding its organizational feet.
The KMT would in no way countenance a deal in which it would go into the process at a disadvantage; this is no “gentleman’s game.” Indeed, it has far more to lose in this than the TPP.
If the TPP loses the election with Ko at the top of the ticket, he would still have made an impact and will have whipped up some support, and the party might even pick up a few legislative seats.
If Ko plays second fiddle to Hou, he risks alienating the voters who had been keen to support him because he represented a non-major party option — he was not aligned with the DPP, but he was not aligned with the KMT, either.
His party stands to gain more legislative seats, and therefore political influence, if he makes a moral stand as an independent candidate.
Moreover, he would have few guarantees that he would not be sidelined entirely as vice president, shown to be an ineffectual player and wounded for the next election.
Accepting second place on the ticket, Ko would be betting big, but if Hou is not at the top, the KMT would be betting the family heirlooms.
If Hou is the vice presidential candidate, the KMT would have become the third party, a corroboration of its terminal decline.
For the KMT, Ko taking the presidential ticket is a non-starter; it would almost certainly prefer to walk away from the alliance.
The lack of good faith is clear given the rush this has turned out to be. The idea of an anti-green alliance has been floated ever since the very early stages of the race showed Hou stumbling at the starting blocks and only recently, ploddingly, gain ground, not because of his own successes, but because of Ko’s errors and political clumsiness.
The idea of the alliance is not yet dead, but if the two parties do go ahead, it would be interesting to see what swing voters make of their transparent opportunism.
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