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Editorial: The KMT holds a gun to its head

Several KMT lawmakers flouted party orders and went their own way during last week's vote on nominees for the Council of Grand Justices and other high-level officials. The KMT caucus has turned over the names of 10 lawmakers to party headquarters, whose disciplinary committee is likely to mete out punishments this week. It is rare to see the KMT moving so quickly on disciplinary matters, and that is part of the dilemma now confronting the party. Dishing out severe punishment to the errant lawmakers could have a major impact on the party's position in the legislature. But a slap on the wrist would only encourage other KMT lawmakers to flout the party's orders. How to slit your wrist without killing yourself is always a conundrum.

Since it became an opposition party, the KMT has boycotted the government's policies at every turn. Its losses in last December's legislative elections did little to dim its ardor for blocking the government's plans -- even if it did require the party to team up with the PFP to continue to mount a blockade.

The fact that Yao Chia-wen (姚嘉文) won the legislature's approval to be president of the Examination Yuan with 113 votes showed the "pan blue" camp no longer controls a majority in the legislature. After the KMT dishes out punishments to those who voted against its preferences, the "pan blue" camp will simply become the opposition.

A party can't survive without discipline. But the KMT has been having difficulty enforcing discipline for years, even when it was still in power. It has become so desperate that it had to resort to physically restraining its lawmakers from voting last week. Such a blatant abuse of democratic procedures was a major loss of face for the KMT. The fact that a few lawmakers still managed to break through the blockade to cast their ballots showed just how marginalized from society the party has become.

Voters should be asking those lawmakers who didn't even try to cast ballots some tough questions -- such as why the party's interests should outweigh those of the nation and whether the legislators were simply more concerned about access to the KMT's treasury than they were about the interests of their constituents.

Of course, the KMT can accuse the DPP of using gimmicks, threats or even bribes to entice its lawmakers to cross party lines. Such accusations are more proof that the KMT is incapable of either self-analysis or reform. If it had the slightest capacity for self-reflection, it would be reviewing the "pan blue" camp's policy of opposing the government just to be contrary. Why should KMT legislators -- or any lawmaker -- disregard the wishes of their constituents in order to follow orders from party headquarters? The KMT should question the appropriateness of the party's will overriding public opinion. Even if all its lawmakers had obeyed party orders, what would the public reaction have been to the results of last week's votes?

The KMT can no longer afford to follow the Leninist model on which it was based. Its decades of experience in running an authoritarian government left it ill-prepared for the advent of democracy and out of touch with the majority of people in Taiwan. More and more, it resembles its one-time rival across the Taiwan Strait. Practicing democracy instead of preaching it offers the KMT its only hope for survival. But it is a lesson the party looks increasingly unable to comprehend, since those in command have the most to lose in any internal reform.
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