Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) emerged on Monday afternoon from a meeting with Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) Chairman and presidential candidate Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) with news that the two have reached a partial agreement on cooperation for January’s presidential election.
The two parties have agreed to work together to maximize their legislative seats, but their drawn-out horse trading has yet to bear fruit on how to decide who becomes the proposed alliance’s presidential candidate.
Only Chu knows exactly what his end game is, while Ko is looking for assurances that no one party would end up with more than half of the legislative seats. The TPP has no chance of achieving that, and Chu could only promise that the KMT would work constructively with other opposition parties.
It is clear that Ko and New Taipei City Mayor Hou You-yi (侯友宜), the KMT’s presidential candidate, need each other if they are going to have a chance to beat Vice President William Lai (賴清德), the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) presidential candidate. According to the latest poll by online news outlet my-formosa.com, Lai has maintained his healthy lead, although it has slipped 6.3 percentage points to 33.7 percent in a race with Hou, who is now at 24.6 percent, up 2.2 percentage points from last month, and Ko has gone up 2.3 percentage points to 23.9 percent.
Things could change if Hou and Ko get their act together and share a ticket. A Ko-Hou or a Hou-Ko pairing would beat a prospective ticket of Lai and Representative to the US Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) with 47.4 percent to 35.3 percent and 46.1 percent to 36.8 percent respectively.
The election is still months away, and it is by no means clear that a blue-white alliance could beat Lai. When it comes to politics, one plus one does not necessarily equal two. While some swing voters might think that a TPP-KMT ticket would be stronger, others might be turned off by the horse trading. That said, Lai also needs to take a look at how his figures have fallen.
Ko and Hou have said that they are not overly concerned about who is first on the ticket, and yet they are quibbling and playing a game of brinkmanship.
So why quibble? If it is true that neither is overly concerned who is top of the ticket, and realizing that they need to cooperate to win, insisting on the correct method for choosing the candidate must be a principled stand. Principled stands are rare in party politics. It can therefore be assumed that they are very much concerned who is on top.
Chu does not care whether Hou leads the ticket or not. Chu thinks he has Ko under his thumb, and might be content with being able to jettison either man whatever the outcome. Hou would be weakened by only being vice president and the KMT could let go of him in the next election, while Ko could be a scapegoat and let go with little cost to Chu or the KMT.
On the other hand, Ko would get power, despite being less experienced than Chu. However, he would be a hostage to a KMT legislative majority.
Ko might want to show that he offers something beyond the blue-green dichotomy of pro-China/pro-Taiwan politics, but this drawn-out horse trading has revealed his true colors.
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