The plan for cooperation between the KMT and the PFP in the Kaohsiung mayoral election as devised by the two party chairmen, Lien Chan (
There was to have been an integration of the pan-blue ranks, carried out between the two parties. But in the end, the KMT's Huang Jun-ying (
The problem is that nobody in the two parties is willing to play the game. So how can the entire electorate of Kaohsiung be expected to play it? Even if it is just a matter of calling upon the "anti-green" KMT and PFP supporters to sacrifice one candidate and support another, the difficulty of the plan is greater than mere "integration." It is not a matter that the two party chairmen can mend easily.
There exists only one precedent for the pan-blue camp in this situation. That was in the 1998 election for the mayor of Taipei City. The New Party's Wang Chien-hsien (
So will we see the the same thing happen in Kaohsiung? In other words, among the three pan-blue candidates, is there anyone willing to lay down their own candidacy to promote another? Chang Po-ya publicly resigned from her post as a national policy advisor to make clear her determination to campaign to the bitter end. Obviously, she won't be backing down. As for Huang Jun-ying, with the full weight of the KMT behind him, he has been rising in the polls. Not even KMT Chairman Lien Chan would dare to sacrifice him for the sake of "integration." The only one left is Shih Ming-teh (
With no takers in sight, I fear that a sacrificial move is even more of a fairy tale than KMT-PFP integration.
Chin Heng-wei is editor-in-chief of Contemporary Monthly magazine.
Translated by Ethan Harkness
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