One of the overriding factors in the race for the Chairmanship of the KMT has been the influence of current chairman Lien Chan. A race which should have been a simple head-to-head between Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou and Legislature speaker Wang Jin-pyng has instead revolved around Lien Chan: will he run again? will he endorse one of the candidates? how will Wang & Ma show their ‘loyalty’ to Lien?

You could put this down to simple megalomania on the part of Lien Chan: if he’s going to give up his position of power, then he wants to go out as the centre of attention – with as much praise and adulation from the KMT faithful as possible. However, a more concrete reason is a nervousness about generational change inside the KMT.

Lien Chan will be the last KMT Chairman who can remember life in mainland China under the KMT; as he and his mainland colleagues slowly lose their grip on the KMT, the question is “Will the next generation have the same commitment to the concept of China?”. The clearest example of this generational friction was seen 2 days ago when Ma Ying-jeou’s father pleaded with his son not to stand:

“If Mayor Ma will not give up his candidacy, I think I will commit suicide,” retired general Ma Ho-ling (馬鶴凌) said in a TV interview yesterday.

If a father can’t trust his son, it’s not surprising that the KMT Chairman is having trouble trusting his successor.

Lien’s plan

So, what could Lien do to ensure his ‘vision’ for the KMT continues? One obvious option is to run again – he’d be almost certain to win in a race against Ma, and could then comfortably control the KMT direction for the next 4 years. The other option is to get a commitment from both candidates to accept his direction for the KMT, and then ensure he retains enough behind-the-scenes control to enfore it.

Yesterday, it looked like Lien was going for the second option:

Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) and Taipei City Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) both pledged to follow Lien’s path on cross-strait relations and other issues if elected to replace him in July.

Presenting their views in a forum ordered by Lien that many saw as a prelude to the battle for the party’s top spot, the two KMT vice chairmen ruled out the island’s formal declaration of independence from China, similar to the view expressed by Lien when he met with Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) in April.

Today, it’s looking increasingly as though Lien will not run, but that the next KMT chairman will have little ability to make true reforms in the KMT, or to change it’s political direction.

Update: Three excellent essays on the KMT election by johnd here (1 2 3):

But the Kuo Min Tang is not most parties. There’s an enormous weight of history, thousands of years deep, of mostly unedifying precedents imported from across the Straits, that keeps this party awake late into the night howling at the moon.