Negotiations over electoral cooperation between the “blue” Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the “white” Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) are ongoing, but is “blue-white cooperation” a real issue or a bogus one? Is it mainly about the two parties’ presidential candidates joining forces before the election takes place, or is it more about how much say each of the opposition parties would have after the election?
The latter aspect is becoming more important, so it might be more accurate to say it is about cooperation between TPP Chairman Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) and KMT Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫), rather than between Ko, in his capacity as the TPP’s presidential nominee, and the KMT’s nominee, New Taipei City Mayor Hou You-yi (侯友宜).
Looking back at the issues that have come up this year in the build-up to January’s elections, the first person to propose the idea of an “opposition grand alliance” was Chu, speaking at the KMT’s National Congress on July 23.
Chu said that before the elections the KMT should strive to build a “non-green opposition alliance,” and that after winning the elections it should establish a “grand governing coalition.”
Chu’s proposal was at first coolly received inside and outside the KMT. Ko said that “blue-white cooperation” was not about who gets what powerful position, and that no one had asked him to discuss it. King Pu-tsung (金溥聰), manager of Hou’s campaign headquarters, was also very firm, saying during an interview that he did not know what this was all about.
Having traced the origin of this idea, let us consider the situation three months on. The much-vaunted “blue-white cooperation” has come to the forefront, as indicated by a series of three meetings.
The first was a preliminary meeting on Oct. 14 between Hou’s campaign manager, King, and Ko’s campaign manager, Vivian Huang (黃珊珊). This was followed by inter-party consultations between Chu and Ko on Oct. 30 and a confidential late-night meeting between Chu, Ko and Hou on Oct. 31. The first of these three meetings was a clash between hawks from either side, with each side speaking for itself in the seven-point record of the three-hour meeting.
The second meeting, which was held behind closed doors, lasted for an hour and a half and resulted in the announcement of a four-point joint declaration. As symbolized by the matching suits and ties that Ko and Chu wore to the meeting, it was the happiest of the three occasions.
The third meeting, attended by Chu, Ko and Hou, took place at night behind the steel shutter of a shop in Taipei’s Wenshan District (文山). This meeting appeared to have been convened on the spur of the moment, and news reports said it lasted just 53 minutes. Ko did not seem very happy about this meeting.
The circumstances of these three meetings show that Ko’s side did not have much to talk about.
Only at the inter-party consultation between Chu and Ko, where the presidential election was not the main focus, did the desire to win the maximum number of legislative seats emerge as a clear consensus between the two party chairmen.
This is the result that Ko and Chu are really after, and it will involve some post-election maneuvers. It also reveals that the two parties have plenty to talk about if they want to, so why have they delayed until little more than two months before election day to start laying the groundwork? The reason is that Ko has no room for compromise with regard to the presidential election, while Chu is not a player in that contest, so the two sides have little to talk about in that regard.
It is very clear what Ko and the TPP have in mind. Ko is determined to run for president and to not make do with aiming for vice-president. He wants to lead the TPP’s drive to win eight to 10 district and legislator-at-large seats, in the hope of becoming a key force in the legislature. If Ko were to stand for vice president, it would conflict with this plan. Besides, opinion polls conducted privately by Ko’s campaign team have consistently placed Ko some distance ahead of Hou. This gives Ko further reason to think that he does not need to yield to Hou, and is why Ko insists on using opinion polls alone to decide which out of himself and Hou should be the presidential candidate if the two of them ran on a joint ticket.
Although the two sides have nothing to talk about with regard to the presidential game, Ko and Chu do have a lot to discuss when it comes to the legislative election. If the two parties can really maximize their shares of legislative seats, it would mean that successful cooperation between Ko and Chu could result in the formation of the largest political force after the election. Even if Ko is not elected president, he could still use the KMT’s organizational base to become leader of the opposition, while Chu could prolong his political life. If, on the other hand, Ko is elected president, that would allow the two parties to share out the dividends of a coalition government.
By putting ourselves in the shoes of Ko and Chu, we can deduce what they are trying to achieve. Is the KMT willing to arrange such a “marriage”? Is Hou willing to be cast aside? That is another question, and one that would require further observation.
Tzou Jiing-wen is editor-in-chief of the Liberty Times, sister paper of the Taipei Times.
Translated by Julian Clegg
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