The PFP has been promoting cooperation with the KMT, suggesting possibilities of a shadow Cabinet, a joint ticket of KMT Chair-man Lien Chan (連戰) and PFP Chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜) in the 2004 presidential election, or a coalition government. The proposals have been welcomed by the KMT. Party realignments, mergers or reshuffles prompted by some form of cooperation may now come to influence the development of party politics.
There is indeed a foundation for such cooperation. First of all, coming from the same family tree, the two parties have no major ideological differences. A reunion after a separation is nothing difficult, as the French Right has shown. In addition to the deft timing of such talk and the compatibility of ideology, the two parties' experience of cooperation in the legislature has also laid the foundation for their further integration.
If gaining political power is the primary aim of the cooperation, there is every chance that the two parties will come to blows over the spoils, reducing "cooperation" to sheer empty talk -- an illusion. If they want to team up for the upcoming presidential election, should they field a Lien-Soong ticket (with Lien as the presidential candidate), a Soong-Lien ticket (Soong as the presidential candidate), or nominate candidates from a new generation? Furthermore, how should the two parties handle a crisis in the distribution of resources, since cooperation is sure to reduce their internal power resources?
If the two parties propose a merger, fears about which one will subsume the other might aggravate matters. The elusiveness of formal cooperation between the two so far reflects the difficulty of achieving integration in multi-party politics. We know from the experience of other countries that party alignments and reshuffles result mostly from strong power-driven motives and the desire to assume power. Cross-party cooperation will wither if power is not properly distributed and policies are not integrated.
The same problem also faces the "pan-green" camp -- the DPP and the TSU. Even though the TSU acts as a defender of the DPP's left-wing groups (Taiwan independence advocates) and the two parties are frequently on the same side on the legislative floor, their stances clash on many issues, such as allowing eight-inch wafer fabs to move to China.
To avoid becoming a satellite of the DPP, the TSU has constantly asserted its autonomy, even to the extent of proposing its own candidates for the upcoming Taipei and Kaohsiung mayoral elections, placing great pressure on the DPP. All this reflects the internal contradictions of the "pan green" alliance.
Many uncertainties surround the prospects for political realignment in Taiwan. But we can still predict several possible development models.
The first model is one of repetitive party alignments. After 1994, Japan first saw New Party Sakigake break from the Liberal Democratic Party and later split into six small parties. Then the Democratic Party was established and several opposition parties merged to become the New Democratic Party. Due to uneven distribution of power, lack of mutual trust or factionalism within each party, Japan's party politics has been subject to constant splits and mergers, instead of stable development.
Whether Taiwan's four major parties will experience reorganization in the future depends on whether the new legislative electoral system will encourage more disagreements and splits within the parties, whether internal debates on a party's path (especially in the KMT) will deteriorate, and whether the 2004 presidential election will promote party mergers. TSU lawmakers recently proposed an amendment that would require a presidential candidate and his or her running mate to come from the same party. If the draft bill is passed, it will facilitate party integration.
The second model is one of unstable party alignments, frequently seen in nations with multi-party systems.
Take Italy, for instance. With a large number of parties in the parliament, the largest party can, at most, capture one-third of the total number of seats. The formation of a multi-party coalition is unavoidable as a result. The parties with widely different platforms can only become "bedfellows" in a bid to strive for a legislative majority. Italy has seen a center-left coalition, a center-right coalition, a left-right coalition, and even a coalition formed by ultra right-wing and ultra left-wing parties. Party alignments are conducted in a very unstable manner.
The ideal model is one of stable party alignments, as exemplified by France and Germany. With the two-round voting system in France, parties belonging to the left and the right naturally integrate their votes in the second-round and form a coalition government after the parliamentary election. Left-wing parties set up left-wing coalition governments and right-wing parties establish right-wing coalition governments, with a line clearly drawn between left and right.
In Germany, where a proportional representation voting system operates, the number of parties on the legislative floor has been capped to around five. The country used to be, for a long period of time, jointly ruled by right-wing Christian Democrats, the Christian-Social Union and Liberal Democrats. Now it has a left-wing coalition made up of Social Democrats and Greens.
Factors favorable to stable party alignment do exist in both the "pan blue" and "pan green" camps, since parties in each camp share similar ideologies, appropriate party sizes (each accounts for half of the legislative seats) and compatible leaderships. Vertical or horizontal alliances in the legislature, changes in each party's organization and attributes, reforms in the electoral system and the results of the next few elections will all have a critical impact on political development.
Legislator Shen Fu-hsiung is director of the DPP's policy committee.
Translated by Jackie Lin
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