Lawmaker Fong Ting-kuo (馮定國) has declared that he will join the People First Party (PFP) before the party's registration deadline for the year-end elections, as well as seek nomination by the PFP in that election. Fong said he had to sacrifice his love for the New Party for greater and more important causes. In addition, Fong said his supporters feel that if he is to fight for their interests in the parliament, his only choice is to join the PFP which holds similar ideologies to his.
However, the New Party's elders seem unable to accept Fong's defection. The Fong incident has apparently ignited a premature battle among political parties. As the parties get closer to completing nominations for the year-end elections, more and more politicians will be defecting from weaker parties to stronger ones.
The reason behind Fong's decision is none other than his hope to enjoy an election victory. Taichung County has 11 seats in the Legislative Yuan. Among them, the DPP could win two. Besides a possible seat for Fong, all other ones belong to the KMT's local factions.
In the presidential election, PFP chairman James Soong (
If we further take into consideration the small number of at-large district seats (the number of seats given to each party is calculated according to the percentage of total votes it receives in the election) the PFP is likely to enjoy, it's not surprising Fong decided to leave the New Party.
The rise of the New Party began in the 1994 Taipei mayoral election. By the 1996 legislative elections, it had garnered 12.95 percent of the total vote, and 21 seats. However, by the following legislative poll, its percentage of votes had declined to 7.06.
Although the total number of seats in the Legislative Yuan had increased by 60, the New Party won only 7 seats despite 36 nominations, making their success rate less than 2 percent. In comparison with the DPP's success rate of 67 percent and the KMT's 84 percent, it was obvious the New Party was no longer competitive.
In last year's presidential election, Soong won approximately 4,660,000 votes, constituting 36 percent of the votes cast. It is not far off to say that in the absence of the so-called "dumping effect" (棄保效應) under which many voters "dumped" the KMT's Lien Chan (連戰) to save Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) and therefore prevent Soong from winning, Soong could have won.
In order to grow, the PFP has to recruit from the existing supporters of other political parties. As a result, the KMT will likely suffer some injuries, while the New Party will likely lose its elbow room.
While Soong may have won a large percentage of votes in the presidential election, the PFP does not appear to target the same number of votes for the upcoming legislative election.
Apart from the uncertainty over the transferability of votes for Soong, winning a percentage of votes does not guarantee a great number of seats for a party in Taiwan's multi-seat voting districts. Having a superstar candidate may simply suck up the votes of other candidates.
The PFP must be particularly cautious with its first elections. Therefore, recruiting from other parties and inviting the incumbent lawmakers of other parties is necessary for PFP election success.
Furthermore, the New Party and the PFP are similar in many respects. During the presidential election, the entire New Party campaigned for Soong. New Party Chairman Lee Ching-hua (
Why can't New Party lawmakers join the PFP to ensure an election win now? It is inevitable that the New Party will merge with the PFP. Similarly, the Taiwan Independence Party had virtually no elbow room under the shadow of the DPP. The marginalization of the New Party has been caused by no less cruel political realities.
People care a lot about politicians' party loyalty and the splits and mergers of parties. Therefore, the defection of one party's elders to another party before elections is often seen as interest- and election-motivated. However, in a genuine democracy, people should get used to the restructuring of ideologies and interests among parties.
After the upcoming election, none of the three major parties, the DPP, KMT and PFP will have a legislative majority. Under the circumstances, the intricate web of alliances formed between parties to ensure leadership of the parliament will probably be quite astonishing. Unless personal feelings for ideologies are left behind, we will find it hard to adjust to future inter-party cooperation and new political developments.
Lee Ching-hsiung is a Taiwan Independence Party lawmaker.
Weeks into the craze, nobody quite knows what to make of the OpenClaw mania sweeping China, marked by viral photos of retirees lining up for installation events and users gathering in red claw hats. The queues and cosplay inspired by the “raising a lobster” trend make for irresistible China clickbait. However, the West is fixating on the least important part of the story. As a consumer craze, OpenClaw — the AI agent designed to do tasks on a user’s behalf — would likely burn out. Without some developer background, it is too glitchy and technically awkward for true mainstream adoption,
On Monday, a group of bipartisan US senators arrived in Taiwan to support the nation’s special defense bill to counter Chinese threats. At the same time, Beijing announced that Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) had invited Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) to visit China, a move to make the KMT a pawn in its proxy warfare against Taiwan and the US. Since her inauguration as KMT chair last year, Cheng, widely seen as a pro-China figure, has made no secret of her desire to interact with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and meet with Xi, naming it a
A delegation of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) officials led by Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) is to travel to China tomorrow for a six-day visit to Jiangsu, Shanghai and Beijing, which might end with a meeting between Cheng and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平). The trip was announced by Xinhua news agency on Monday last week, which cited China’s Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO) Director Song Tao (宋濤) as saying that Cheng has repeatedly expressed willingness to visit China, and that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Central Committee and Xi have extended an invitation. Although some people have been speculating about a potential Xi-Cheng
No state has ever formally recognized the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA) as a legal entity. The reason is not a lack of legitimacy — the CTA is a functioning exile government with democratic elections and institutions — but the iron grip of realpolitik. To recognize the CTA would be to challenge the People’s Republic of China’s territorial claims, a step no government has been willing to take given Beijing’s economic leverage and geopolitical weight. Under international law, recognition of governments-in-exile has precedent — from the Polish government during World War II to Kuwait’s exile government in 1990 — but such recognition
RSS