05.08.06
Taipei Mayoral Elections: Farce and Democracy
If you want a snapshot of the current status of the two main political parties, you don’t have to look much further than the upcoming election for Mayor of Taipei. Both parties are busy trying to select their candidate for the election later in the year, and boy what a contrast!
The DPP: Chaos Reigns
For a long time, it looked like there would be only one possible candidate: Shen Fu-hsiung (沈富雄). Shen has made no secret of his desire to become mayor for years. Up until a couple of years ago, Shen would have been a shoo-in for the DPP candidacy; he has been the DPPs premier Taipei-based legislator for 4 consecutive elections. However, a falling out with the DPP leadership during the 2004 presidential campaign, and an attempt to find middle ground between the DPP and KMT resulted in a loss of support within the DPP, which ultimately resulted in him losing his seat in the 2004 Legislative elections.
Shen picked up an application form for the DPP candidacy early on, but delayed handing in his application. At the last moment, he announced that he wouldn’t apply:
Shen later told local media that it would be foolish for him to still register for the DPP mayoral primary election when “the entire DPP treats me like an outsider and views me as a nothing,” which showed that previous resistance to his candidacy by DPP members had not been forgotten.
However, you can’t take this at face value, because it comes hot on the heels of Frank Hsieh (who has been under heavy DPP pressure to apply for the job) announcing that he wouldn’t apply, but would be willing to be drafted if noone else applied. Given that Shen received a phone call from DPP Chairman Yu Shyi-kun (游錫堃) before deciding not to apply (and got lavisly praised by Yu for doing so), you’ve got to wonder exactly how much pressure was applied to stop Shen standing.
When it became clear that noone was going to stand for the DPP candidacy DPP Legislator You Ching (尤清) realised he had a chance to sneak in when noone was looking. By picking up an application form and applying right at the last minute You nearly threw a huge spanner into the DPPs machinations. After a very frantic inspection of the form, the DPP managed to find a minor mistake in the application, and (with a huge sigh of relief) threw out the application.
So, after pressurizing a candidate who wanted to stand to stop him, and throwing out the candidacy of another on a technicality, the DPP is left with no candidate. This leaves them free to draft a candidate who has publicly stated that he has no interest in the position. In other words, the DPP are in a complete mess - and their process can be called neither particularly democratic nor progressive.
The KMT: Democracy in action
Meanwhile, the KMT machine is humming along in serene manner. After Ma Ying-jeou explicitly ruled out pulling strings to engineer a KMT nomination for James Soong, the process has been shockingly open. Twelve candidates announced their candidacy - and this was later culled down to the three most popular candidates: Yeh Chin-chuan (葉金川), Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌), and Ting Shou-chung (丁守中) . Hau is the highest profile politician of the three: the ex-New Party member, ex-government minister (or DPP ‘collaborator’ to some), Hau has consistently topped opinion polls, and is favourite to win the candidacy. Meanwhile, Yeh is running as ‘mini-Ma’: he was Ma Ying-jeou’s deputy and so is hoping some of Ma’s glamour can rub off on him. Finally, Ting hopes his status as a veteran Legislator will swing things his way.
The three candidates recently had a televised debate to promote their candidacies, and although there have been some accusations of favouritism within the KMT, it’s looking like a fair and open race at the moment. Whoever would have thought that you could make that claim about an internal KMT selection process? Wonders will never cease.
Update: To complete the comparison, I should mention the PFP. Unsurprisingly, Soong is treating this as his personal fiefdom, and even the thought of primaries (i.e. anyone standing against Soong) hasn’t been mentioned. Soong will do what he wants, and expect total support and obedience from his party.
Update II: To add to the DPPs woes, the favourite for DPP candidacy for the Kaohsiung mayoral elections is acting Mayor Yeh Chu-lan (葉菊蘭) - who hasn’t applied for the job. I’m looking forward to seeing if (or how) the two people who have stood for the position (former CLA Chairwoman Chen Chu (陳菊) and Legislator Kuan Pi-ling (管碧玲)) will be pushed aside.
James said,
May 9, 2006 at 4:17 am
Wow, two great posts quick.
Well, while the DPP’s current system is retarded, I’ve always thought the primary system is somewhat broken. It seems to encourage extremists doesn’t it?
On the other hand, because of the primary system, I wouldn’t be surprised if the Taipei KMT candidate beats anyone who runs. There is news report after news report on the candidates in the primary and there was even more free publicity in the TVBS debate over the weekend. While it is possible to name actual things the KMT candidates stand for (i.e. direct flights from Songshan to China), there is no way to know what any of the other parties stand for, besides big names–Frank Hsieh, James Soong, etc. Plus, from my point of view, there seems nothing bruising about the primary competition at all; they even talk about how in the end, whoever wins, it’s better than the drafting system that the DPP is using.
Jerome said,
May 13, 2006 at 10:42 pm
Shen Fu-hsiung’s problems are in many ways self-created; he either does not know where he stands or he is afraid to vocalize it. He has not shown much loyalty to the DPP recently and the KMT would not trust him, so where can he go. Yet he tries to hang in there. So far, Ma Ying-jeou has been the only one who can manage to keep his feet in two boats and not make any career threatening statements.
I have been watching Shen’s statements for the past two years after I heard him present his “silver bullet” theory after the 2004 presidential election and the assassination attempt the day before. All I have heard is a man that is trying to either say what is the cute or the clever thing that he hopes the media will pick up. While Shen does not have the desire to be the top leader as Hsu Hsin-liang had (and still has), Shen does desire to stay in the limelight but he can offer no platform to warrant that. He can easily follow Hsu Hsin-liang down the road to obscurity, while desperately doing anything to keep the media’s attention.
Taiwan's Other Side said,
June 15, 2006 at 2:27 pm
s popularity in a nosedive, both sides of the political divide in Taiwan are looking to the future for some sign of hope. Unfortunately, the silver lining in this cloud is proving hard to find. The DPP’s seemingly endless Taipei mayoral electionproblems point to stormy waters ahead. Former 謝長廷 Premier Frank Hsieh has been the expected candidate since nearly the beginning. The problem is that Hsieh keeps saying over and over that he does’t want it. The pressure is on from ROC Premier