A lot has changed in the week since this series of columns began looking at the intense jostling and jockeying for position by politicians to put themselves in prime position to run for office in 2026.
In the first column, we looked at the northern cities of Taipei, New Taipei and Taoyuan. In bombshell news, Cheng Wen-tsan (鄭文燦), one of the leading candidates for mayor of New Taipei City, former vice premier, Taoyuan mayor and, now that he just resigned, former head of the Straits Exchange Foundation, was arrested and interrogated for 16 hours on corruption charges on his birthday, and then released on NT$5 million bail.
Though of course the principle of innocent until proven guilty must be kept in mind, it appears that the court may have made up its mind on some of the charges already, noting when commenting on his release on bail, as CNA reported it: “The court said although Cheng denied any involvement in the alleged corruption case during the interview, the evidence showed he played a critical role in taking a bribe and leaking information to other suspects in the case.”
Photo: Lin Je-yuan, Taipei Times
Cheng had been a popular mayor of Taoyuan, who even survived the catastrophic “Han wave” that saw the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) sweep most of the country in local elections in 2018, propelled by the charismatic Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜), who inspired high turnout for his party nationally.
Cheng had been damaged in late 2022 when National Taiwan University revoked his master’s degree for plagiarism in the writing of his thesis, but he apologized for mistakes made involving citations in the thesis and probably would have been largely forgiven by 2026.
NEW TAIPEI AND TAOYUAN RACES IMPACTED
Photo courtesy of Su Chiao-hui
If he is found guilty, Cheng’s fall will have two consequences. First, this puts lawmaker Su Chiao-hui (蘇巧慧) out front as the favorite to represent the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in New Taipei City. She is of the Su Tseng-chang faction (蘇貞昌系, usually abbreviated 蘇系), and is the daughter Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌), a former premier. Su has been having a bit of a moment recently, with a RW News poll finding her the second highest legislator in the country for “leaving a good impression” with voters.
Of course, it is still possible that former interior minister and current DPP secretary-general Lin Yu-chang (林右昌) could challenge Su and win in a primary. However, Su also now leads the DPP’s New Taipei chapter after entertainer and former lawmaker Yu Tien (余天) of the Taiwan Normal Country Promotion Association (TNCPA, 正常國家促進會, usually abbreviated to 正國會) faction dropped out of the running. Yu dropping out was widely viewed as a blow to Lin’s chances, as Lin is considered the leader of the TNCPA in northern Taiwan.
Though a lot can change between now and 2016, as things stand now on the DPP side, Su would be the best bet for New Taipei City and Lin for Taoyuan.
THE LAI NEW TIDE JUGGERNAUT
The second area of fallout if Cheng is found guilty is the impact on the New Tide (新潮流系統, usually abbreviated to 新系) faction. In a recent column we examined how newly elected President William Lai (賴清德) has been packing the administration and the heads of state-owned enterprises with people from his personal New Tide subfaction as well as Lai loyalists who may or may not be New Tide.
Under former president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) she had a carefully thought out formula for appointing important government and party positions by faction in order to preserve the peace among them. Already the most powerful faction that got 40 percent of key positions under Tsai, Lai has thrown away any pretense of balancing the factions.
Within New Tide there are three widely known subfactions, including Lai’s own, one dedicated to former Kaohsiung mayor and current head of the Control Yuan Chen Chu (陳菊) and the third being Cheng Wen-tsan’s. Chen Chu is 74 years old and has been taking more of a back seat in politics recently because she is expected to remain non-partisan and impartial as head of the Control Yuan, the branch of government in charge of investigating and potentially impeaching government officials.
In recent years it has been clear that Lai’s subfaction was the most powerful, but with Chen largely out of the picture, what happens to Cheng’s subfaction if he is found guilty?
None of the members of his subfaction has national name recognition to anywhere the degree Cheng has, so it seems unlikely — though possible — that they will regroup behind someone else in their subfaction. More likely, they become generic New Tide members unaffiliated with a specific politician if Cheng is found guilty.
Already having moved to consolidate power in the government and party around himself, this would cement Lai as by far the most powerful figure within the New Tide faction as well.
KEELUNG’S POTENTIAL IMPACT ON TAIPEI
As of a week ago, former legislator Kao Chia-yu (高嘉瑜) was the only one on the DPP side expressing some interest in running for Taipei mayor, in spite of it being an uphill climb against the popular incumbent Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) of the KMT. However, news that the recall campaign against Keelung Mayor George Hsieh (謝國樑) claimed to have reached enough signatures to initiate a recall vote may have changed Kao’s mind.
The signatures are being tallied, and if the number is indeed certified, that means there will be a vote held on whether or not to recall Hsieh between 20 and 60 days after certification. While looking at past recalls, my suspicion is that this one will fail by not meeting the turnout threshold.
Kao has announced plans to run for Keelung mayor if Hsieh is indeed recalled. Keelung is Kao’s hometown. Presumably, if the recall fails, she will go back to planning her run in Taipei, but we will not know that for a couple of months or so, leaving the DPP without a clear candidate in Taipei in the meantime.
TURMOIL IN TAINAN
The Taiwan Normal Country Promotion Association (TNCPA) faction may be the second most powerful in the DPP, but it still fears William Lai and has joined the “have faith in Lai team” (信賴團隊). The “have faith in Lai team” is actually the kind of clever play on words that Sinitic languages are so wonderful for and play a big role in Taiwan politics, as the two-character term “have faith in” or “have trust in” includes Lai’s surname as the second character, giving the phrase a double-meaning of “faith team” or “have faith in Lai team.”
It turns out that the TNCPA’s Fifi Chen (陳亭妃), considered the leader of the faction in south Taiwan, has no faith in Lai and bucking her faction’s orders submitted the paperwork to run for a seat on the DPP’s powerful Central Standing Committee in order to ensure she has a seat at the table when the primaries roll around. She explicitly mentioned concerns about the primary rules being changed, presumably out of fear they will rig it to block her from running for Tainan mayor.
Chen and Lai both come out of the Tainan political scene and are very familiar with each other, including having both served in the legislature representing the city from different districts at the same time. It is widely speculated that Lai was behind blocking her from running for mayor in 2018.
Changing the rules to favor certain candidates in primaries is something that both the DPP and KMT have engaged in, most publicly and spectacularly in the 2019 presidential primaries to favor the two candidates that ended up representing each party in the end.
Lai was at the losing end of those changes after he had broken his promise to Tsai Ing-wen that he would not challenge her in the primary, then waited until about one week or so prior to the date of the primary and dropped a new book he had authored (showing he had actually been planning this for some time and had lied to Tsai) and announced he was in the running. This left Tsai, whose opinion polling was very low at the time, no time to campaign or fight back. The party changed the rules multiple times to allow her to rally support, and eventually beat back Lai’s challenge.
No wonder Fifi Chen is suspicious of Lai and the party’s primary process.
GETTING THE BOOT
The TNCPA has now officially kicked Chen and two of her supporters out of the faction. This must have been a hard decision, as for years it was always said that Lin Yu-chang was the faction leader in the north, former Taichung mayor and current foreign minister Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) the leader in central Taiwan and Chen the leader of the south.
Clearly, the TNCPA buckled to pressure from Lai and New Tide and threw out one of their very best, significantly weakening their own faction in the process. Lai now holds almost all the cards, Chen was the only one standing up to his taking over the party.
Chen remains a party member, for now at least. She has long been a highly partisan and passionate supporter of DPP positions, but it is easy to see pathways where the party tries to block her and she leaves, or the party kicks her out.
It is unlikely she is going to give up easily on her ambition to become Tainan mayor, and clearly thinks it is her due after being patient for so long. It is possible that she will join, or ally with, the Ing Faction, which she is known to get along with and they have so far not joined the “trust in Lai team.”
TAICHUNG ON THE WAY
This had intended to be the final column in a three-part series (the first examined the north; the second examined the south) examining the Taichung race, which has some interesting internal politics going on within all three main parties, giving this race an unusual vibe and unlike the northern or southern races. Stick around, that should be out this week.
Donovan’s Deep Dives is a regular column by Courtney Donovan Smith (石東文) who writes in-depth analysis on everything about Taiwan’s political scene and geopolitics. Donovan is also the central Taiwan correspondent at ICRT FM100 Radio News, co-publisher of Compass Magazine, co-founder Taiwan Report (report.tw) and former chair of the Taichung American Chamber of Commerce. Follow him on X: @donovan_smith.
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