And so the recount is to begin today. At last, many will say, thinking that this means an end to the disputes and accusations and prevalent air of uncertainty about the election and the legitimacy of the inauguration which is to take place in 10 days. But from the behavior of the pan-blues so far, this seems an unlikely outcome.
The pan-blues' aim is the delegitimation of Taiwan's political settlement -- its constitutional, political and administrative mechanisms that decide how things get done. How far do they want to take this delegitimation, and do they understand its potential costs?
What has become clear since the election. -- actually since Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Lien Chan (連戰), within minutes of finding out he had lost, denounced the election as unfair and "illegal" -- is that the post-election protests and uproar were never about establishing whether the election had in fact been carried out fairly. After two months during which the pan-blues have been offering cash rewards for people to come forward with vote-fraud stories, they still could not produce a cogent enough argument to allow the courts to start hearing their case for the election's annulment last week.
But the tactics the pan-blues are using here reveal deftness and audacity in equal measure. Given the pan-blues' expertise in the dark arts of vote-rigging during their half-century of power, this perhaps should not surprise us. To see them boxing clever now is only perhaps a surprise after watching the vicious stupidity of their election campaign, as exemplified by its equation of Chen with Osama bin Laden.
Consider how the pan-blues have deliberately drawn out the legal process surrounding the recount to make it possible that it will not be complete by the inauguration date, thus giving them the possibility of refusing to recognize the validity of the president or what he does, promulgating laws for example, after May 20.
Even if the recount confirms a Chen victory, if the result is produced after the inauguration there will be enough of a question mark over the event for the pan-blues to manipulate into an image of the administration riding roughshod over democratic processes, however unjustified this image may be.
That the recount is going to be difficult is just about assured. The pan-blues have primed their observers with a booklet on how to dispute ballots. The first tactic is to ensure that previously invalid ballots that show pan-blue voter intention are re-categorized as valid and counted accordingly. The second is to make sure that there are enough disputed ballots left after the recount -- ie, more disputed ballots than the margin of victory -- to claim that the recount itself cannot resolve the election dispute. Which tactic they concentrate on will depend on the degree to which the judiciary administering the count bends to their wishes.
But the most audacious tactic of all has to be the attempt to get hold of voter registration lists and compare these with who actually voted, in the hope of finding enough examples of illegal "proxy" voting.
Of course, this is a tactic widely used by the pan-blues themselves -- "here's NT$2,000, lend us your ID card and we will vote for you." As they know who they did this for, they want the voter registration lists to be able to compile evidence acceptable in court that doesn't shine a light on their own role in the fraud.
Can any of our well-informed readers recall an election in which a party attempts to use evidence of its own fraudulent practices to invalidate the result?
All we can do is to remind the pan-blues that any tactics they use now will almost certainly be used against them, perhaps four years from now. How far in their attempted dissolution of the political machinery do they want to go?
As strategic tensions escalate across the vast Indo-Pacific region, Taiwan has emerged as more than a potential flashpoint. It is the fulcrum upon which the credibility of the evolving American-led strategy of integrated deterrence now rests. How the US and regional powers like Japan respond to Taiwan’s defense, and how credible the deterrent against Chinese aggression proves to be, will profoundly shape the Indo-Pacific security architecture for years to come. A successful defense of Taiwan through strengthened deterrence in the Indo-Pacific would enhance the credibility of the US-led alliance system and underpin America’s global preeminence, while a failure of integrated deterrence would
The Executive Yuan recently revised a page of its Web site on ethnic groups in Taiwan, replacing the term “Han” (漢族) with “the rest of the population.” The page, which was updated on March 24, describes the composition of Taiwan’s registered households as indigenous (2.5 percent), foreign origin (1.2 percent) and the rest of the population (96.2 percent). The change was picked up by a social media user and amplified by local media, sparking heated discussion over the weekend. The pan-blue and pro-China camp called it a politically motivated desinicization attempt to obscure the Han Chinese ethnicity of most Taiwanese.
On Wednesday last week, the Rossiyskaya Gazeta published an article by Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) asserting the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) territorial claim over Taiwan effective 1945, predicated upon instruments such as the 1943 Cairo Declaration and the 1945 Potsdam Proclamation. The article further contended that this de jure and de facto status was subsequently reaffirmed by UN General Assembly Resolution 2758 of 1971. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs promptly issued a statement categorically repudiating these assertions. In addition to the reasons put forward by the ministry, I believe that China’s assertions are open to questions in international
The Legislative Yuan passed an amendment on Friday last week to add four national holidays and make Workers’ Day a national holiday for all sectors — a move referred to as “four plus one.” The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), who used their combined legislative majority to push the bill through its third reading, claim the holidays were chosen based on their inherent significance and social relevance. However, in passing the amendment, they have stuck to the traditional mindset of taking a holiday just for the sake of it, failing to make good use of
RSS