The question of whether Presi-dent Chen Shui-bian (
So what has happened? There are a number of possibilities.
The first possibility is that the party chairman is restraining the president, or the party leadership doesn't listen to Chen's orders. This explanation doesn't hold up, however, since DPP Chairman Frank Hsieh (
The second possibility is that factional struggles within the party leadership have led to interference with government policy and turned the party into a millstone around the necks of the president and the government. There have been some issues in the past two years that have led to the occasional round being fired at the party leadership. How-ever, none have ricocheted in Chen's direction and most of the issues have proven to be small prob-lems. So this view of the situation would also seem to be somewhat wide of the mark.
The third possibility centers on the lack of a formal mechanism for integrated decision-making involving the president, the Cabinet, the party and the DPP's legislative caucus. This means that the leadership doesn't communicate, the lower echelons are obstructed, information isn't shared and the exchange of ideas becomes impossible. So party members are not only not talking with one voice, they are creating problems for colleagues.
In addition, the decisions of Chen's nine-person policy-making group are not very clear and it is obvious the group has yet to agree on its raison d'etre, much less its operational style. This view, however, mistakenly assumes a relationship between the issues of the president doubling as party chairman and whether or not decision-making can be integrated. These two issues have nothing to do with each other. If they did, it would also seem logical to have the president take on the premiership as well in order to achieve integration. Clearly, this opinion is also flawed.
The fourth possibility revolves around speculation that internecine power struggles and turf wars between factions have lead to incursions into Chen's own brief, damaging his prestige and possibly impeding his re-election bid. Chen, therefore, would have no choice but to take over the party leadership and command the troops from there. Before he was elected, however, Chen was the leader of all the party factions. Now that he is president, who would dare to stand in his way? This possibility lacks merit.
Since all of the above hypo-theses are invalid, we are left with possibility that the experience of the last two years has led Chen to the mistaken conclusion that if he does take on the chairmanship, the Cabinet and the party will suddenly begin to display heretofore unseen levels of efficiency and competence. Or maybe he simply thinks that the advantages of the move outweigh the disadvantages.
If this is what Chen thinks, however, then he does not recognize the negative impact not only to himself but to the DPP and Taiwan politics in general.
Even before the DPP was founded, those who are now its leaders called for the party to be flexible and "internally created" -- meaning a party created by legislators who work together in the legislature and jointly organize election campaigns. Policy-making power lies largely with the legislators rather than the party headquarters. This idea was a key weapon in the fight against the KMT for over a decade and it remains a core political ideal of the party.
There are historical reasons for the way the KMT developed, but it is rather surprising that the DPP ended up imitating the organizational structure of a group it so soundly denigrated. How will the DPP differ from the KMT if it gives up its collective leadership model for a single party leader?
If DPP members persist in defending the idea of the president's doubling as party chair-man, presumably those of us who have studied political science will have done so for nothing, and that the definitions of different types of party will have to be rewritten.
Power is both ephemeral and limited. Many politicians, however, nurture the dream of absolute power. Chen has administrative power, and, thanks to the DPP's position as the largest party in the Legislative Yuan, legislative power. Now he also wants power over his party. Under the logic of power, this is both inevitable and acceptable.
While power is ephemeral, however, political culture is en-during. Even though the question of Chen's taking on the party chairmanship will ultimately come down to considerations of realism and power, it risks causing Taiwan to backtrack in its political development to the standards of the past.
The answer to the question of whether Chen, Taiwan's reformer, should choose temporary, real power or enduring political culture could not be more obvious.
Wang Chien-chuang is president of The Journalist magazine.
Translated by Perry Svensson
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