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Editorial: Not so fast

In the wake of the election, speculation is now rife as to how President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) is going to build his "cross party alliance for national stabilization" (國家安定聯盟). The answer to this is unlikely to be forthcoming this week and perhaps not even this month. Now that the election has taken place there is a rush to predict what changes will result from the realignment of political forces that it involves. But remember that these changes do not actually take place until February and the old "do nothing" legislature still has a couple of months to run. This gives a lot of time for the kind of back-room horse trading that is the stuff of minority government.

What is the government's position? From February it can rely on 100 votes in the new legislature. A majority is 113, which is why Chen wants 120 to provide a margin of safety. Can the government find these extra votes? It would be extremely inept if it couldn't. After all, there are 10 independent legislators, who can usually be wooed by largess. And there are a number of KMT legislators who are less than thrilled by their party's current leadership or ideological thrust. Chen is probably optimistic if he really believes that there is likely to be any kind of formal coalition between these various groups. What is far more likely is that independents and KMT turncoats will have to be mustered on an issue-by-issue basis to get the government's legislative program through. This will involve a great deal of skill on the part of the DPP legislative caucus chiefs and probably the president's acquiring a taste for humble pie. Former president Lee Teng-hui's (李登輝) "Taiwan Advocates" (群策會) group might be a useful umbrella in which lawmakers from non-green camp parties but sympathetic to the green camp's Taiwan-first ideology might usefully come together.

Another major factor in shaping the new political landscape will of course be what happens to the KMT. And here let us remark that Lien Chan's (連戰) behavior on Saturday night was both footling and contemptible in even measures. To say that the election result was "not so ideal" as Lien did Saturday night was to contemptibly try to cloak the party's poor performance, for which he, as a party leader directly responsible for instituting a 180-degree ideological about-turn from the work of his predecessor, must take responsibility, to save his own worthless political skin. Any party leader with any sense of honorable behavior whatsoever, after having led his party into such a dire political humiliation, should have resigned as part of his concession speech. We have seen DPP leaders do this several times after election disappointment. That Lien instead let party Secretary-General Lin Fong-cheng (林豐正) fall on his sword instead shows him up as the morally vacuous political opportunist that this newspaper has always believed him to be.

And remember, this is the second time that Lien has been rejected by the people of Taiwan. Last time, after his presidential-race debacle, not only did he not take responsibility for his failure, he and his mainlander cronies, with the resolute support of Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), led a coup against Lee, whose popular policies Lien's campaign had done everything it could to minimize or repudiate. This time Lien cannot evade responsibility for his actions. That he has so far refused to do the decent thing simply shows how little about decency he knows.
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