DPP has not betrayed its charter

Since construction of the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant (核四) resumed, the policy gap between the DPP and the Executive Yuan has triggered a variety of disputes, all of which have been centered around the party's anti-nuclear charter. One common theory is that the DPP should implement its charter now that it has become the ruling party and that those in power will be betraying their party and supporters if they do not do so. But we need to understand that the resumption of construction reflects the political reality of a minority government shackled by the opposition's legislative majority. It has nothing to do with whether or not the ruling party wants to implement its charter.

For the DPP, therefore, the best approach is to return to basic political principles, which means looking at the question from the fundamental perspective of the government's formation and its power base.

There are three models for the formation of a government; one is a single-party majority government. When the ruling party single-handedly controls a majority in the legislature, it undoubtedly has the full power and responsibility to implement its party charter. If the party does not implement its charter under circumstances that allow full implementation, then it will be punished by its supporters.

The second model is a minority government. When the ruling party cannot win a legislative majority, then implementation of its charter will be considerably compromised. The compromise takes place within the Legislative Yuan. At this time, we cannot put all the blame on the government lock, stock and barrel for the gap between the DPP charter and government policy.

The third model is a coalition government, in which the ruling party will have to make policy compromises to find coalition partners because it lacks a majority. Implementation of the party charter is not only compromised, the charter suffers further compromises in the ministries to pre-empt disputes and enable the ruling party to maintain power.

Obviously, the DPP government is a minority one. The power plant dispute illustrates a simple rule of the game in the legislature: the opposition alliance enjoys a larger head count and the ruling party simply has to admit defeat. Equating the resumption of construction with a betrayal of the party charter, therefore, not only overlooks the limitations facing the government, it also isolates the party's implementation of its charter from political reality. Such a judgement is neither fair nor equitable.

Naturally, the fact that a minority government is forced to scale down the implementation of its party charter is not a question of betrayal. I would argue that the DPP's implementation of its charter has only suffered a "quantitative contraction" -- not a "qualitative change." We can explain this with examples from the British Labour party and Germany's Green Party.

Long shackled by its left-leaning ideology, the Labour Party was unable to win political power. In particular, Clause 4 of the party's charter -- the so-called "communist clause" -- created a rigid public image for the party. After Tony Blair took over as party leader, he actively pushed for the abolition of that clause and for redefining the "New Labour Party" as a social democratic political party. After abandoning dogmatism, New Labour defeated the ruling Conservatives in the next parliamentary elections. To win support from a majority of the electorate, the Labour Party changed the overall direction of its charter -- which is a "qualitative change." Or we could say that it was a betrayal of the existing party charter.