Since the rancorous and histrionic breakup of the planned “blue-white alliance,” polls have shown a massive drop in support for Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) Chairman and presidential candidate Ko Wen-je (柯文哲), whose support rate has dropped to 20 percent. Young people and pan-blue supporters seem to be ditching him.
Within a few weeks, Ko has gone from being the most sought after candidate to seeking a comeback.
A few months ago, he was the one holding all the cards and calling the shots, with everything in place for a rise to stardom. The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) was still dealing with doubts from its terrible performance in last year’s local elections, while the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) presidential candidate, New Taipei City Mayor Hou You-yi (侯友宜), has proved to be a relatively weak character who could not generate excitement. As long as Ko stayed ahead of Hou, he had a good chance of winning the three-horse race.
For Ko, winning the presidency would be a bonus. As the chairman of a third party that is just starting to expand its influence and power, he has his eyes set on boosting his party’s share of legislative seats. By characterizing the DPP as being in dereliction of duty, among other issues, he sparked a sense of deprivation and exploitation among the public, and established himself as the champion of an anti-DPP coalition.
As a master strategist, he has been careful not to cross the line or offend KMT supporters, because he is relying on strategic voting.
If he finishes second in the presidential election and the TPP emerges as the biggest opposition party ahead of the KMT, that would satisfy him.
However, Ko’s capriciousness and duplicity have come back to bite him. His flirtation with the KMT culminated in a joint statement by both parties last week, but being unable to bear the pressure from his party, supporters and his sobbing family, Ko broke the deal.
At the last-ditch meeting at the Grand Hyatt Taipei, Hou threw Ko under the bus by reading aloud text messages, resulting in the two parties going their separate ways.
Ko’s act of self-defeat — being open to run as second fiddle to Hou, whether out of fear of losing or due to a moment of frailty — awakened his supporters and TPP members to his true nature: The leader who vowed to bring reform and “return the country to young people” betrayed their trust by being willing to be vice president on a combined ticket.
While he might be seen as a master plotter, playing politicians against each another, perhaps the real Ko is one who seeks to “fake it until he makes it” while hoping people do not see through him.
Without a vision for the nation, he improvises on the campaign trail when he faces trouble.
It is ironic that Ko pleads for his supporters to not write him off when it was he who initiated the planned alliance with the KMT, showing that he does not have the spine for responsibility, and needs his wife and mother to save him.
With Broadcasting Corp of China chairman Jaw Shaw-kong (趙少康) joining Hou on the KMT ticket, Hou’s support has spiked, with deep-blue supporters rallying behind him. Ko, on the other hand, seems to have been abandoned, lacking allies and financial aid.
Even though he is not out of the game yet, Ko faces an uphill battle, just as Hou did a few months ago.
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In their New York Times bestseller How Democracies Die, Harvard political scientists Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt said that democracies today “may die at the hands not of generals but of elected leaders. Many government efforts to subvert democracy are ‘legal,’ in the sense that they are approved by the legislature or accepted by the courts. They may even be portrayed as efforts to improve democracy — making the judiciary more efficient, combating corruption, or cleaning up the electoral process.” Moreover, the two authors observe that those who denounce such legal threats to democracy are often “dismissed as exaggerating or
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