The scandal-ridden, controversial independent councilor Chu An-hsiung (朱安雄), who has been described as a "black gold" politician, was elected speaker of Kaohsiung City Council, Wed-nesday, thanks to the all-out support of KMT and PFP councilors.
Ever since the DPP caucus in the city council decided to support Chu, it has been criticized from just about every direction. Some of its party members even burned their party IDs to protest and not a few lawmakers denounced the caucus' decision. Internal and external moral pressure forced the DPP's Central Standing Committee to withdraw the caucus' resolution and field its own candidate.
How many votes Chu could garner in this speakership election became an indicator to examine whether the governing DPP still holds on to its ideals. Although it was just a local race, I believe all DPP supporters closely observed whether the party, founded to oppose black gold, would shoot itself in the foot.
The election results showed that the DPP's nominee Kao Tzeng-ying (高宗英) got 14 votes, all from his party colleagues. To supporters' relief, the DPP has not lost its soul-searching ability after all.
But an analysis of Chu's votes shockingly revealed that the biggest contribution to Chu's victory came from KMT and PFP councilors, who claim to have cut ties with black gold or boast about their clean images.
The Kaohsiung City Council is composed of 14 DPP, 12 KMT, 7 PFP, 2 TSU and 9 independent seats. The poll results showed that all the DPP councilors voted for their candidate Kao. The two TSU councilors voted for the TSU's Yeh Chin-ling (葉津鈴).
But among the 12 KMT and 7 PFP councilors, only the KMT's Lee Fu-hsing (李復興) and the PFP's Wu Yi-cheng (吳益政) voted for themselves. This means that in the 25 votes the independent Chu received, the KMT and the PFP contributed 11 and 6 votes respectively, with the remaining 8 votes coming from other independents.
If the pan-blue camp, with 19 seats combined, could have cooperated for the speakership, they would have been only four seats short of winning. Even if the camp had been unable to attract more votes from outside, it might have been able to win the speakership and deputy speakership by a relative majority in the second round of voting. But the two opposition parties seemed to lack interest in taking the helm of the council and instead jointly supported an independent councilor.
The DPP caucus' decision to support Chu is worth discussing, but so is that made by the party to, in the end, meet the expectations of society.
This reminds me of former US president Richard Nixon's TV speech when he was questioned about bribe-taking. He ran for the US vice presidency on the same ticket with Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1952. As the election campaign turned white-hot, rumors were spread that Nixon had received US$18,000 in bribes. To clear his name, he defended his integrity on TV. What touched the audience the most was his words about his wife Pat. He said, "Pat doesn't have a mink coat. But she does have a respectable Republican cloth coat."
Although the DPP lost the mink coat of the council speakership and deputy speakership, it does have a respectable cloth coat woven of the threads of its core values of anti-corruption and opposing black gold.
Despite a secret ballot, the votes Chu received have laid bare the parties backing him, allowing people to recognize which party sides with black-gold politics. Since the KMT and the PFP, like Faust, did not hesitate to sell their souls, it is hoped that the media can use the same standards to examine these two parties as it does the DPP.
Chiu Li-li is a Tainan City councilor.
Translated by Jackie Lin
Saudi Arabian largesse is flooding Egypt’s cultural scene, but the reception is mixed. Some welcome new “cooperation” between two regional powerhouses, while others fear a hostile takeover by Riyadh. In Cairo, historically the cultural capital of the Arab world, Egyptian Minister of Culture Nevine al-Kilany recently hosted Saudi Arabian General Entertainment Authority chairman Turki al-Sheikh. The deep-pocketed al-Sheikh has emerged as a Medici-like patron for Egypt’s cultural elite, courted by Cairo’s top talent to produce a slew of forthcoming films. A new three-way agreement between al-Sheikh, Kilany and United Media Services — a multi-media conglomerate linked to state intelligence that owns much of
The US and other countries should take concrete steps to confront the threats from Beijing to avoid war, US Representative Mario Diaz-Balart said in an interview with Voice of America on March 13. The US should use “every diplomatic economic tool at our disposal to treat China as what it is... to avoid war,” Diaz-Balart said. Giving an example of what the US could do, he said that it has to be more aggressive in its military sales to Taiwan. Actions by cross-party US lawmakers in the past few years such as meeting with Taiwanese officials in Washington and Taipei, and
Denmark’s “one China” policy more and more resembles Beijing’s “one China” principle. At least, this is how things appear. In recent interactions with the Danish state, such as applying for residency permits, a Taiwanese’s nationality would be listed as “China.” That designation occurs for a Taiwanese student coming to Denmark or a Danish citizen arriving in Denmark with, for example, their Taiwanese partner. Details of this were published on Sunday in an article in the Danish daily Berlingske written by Alexander Sjoberg and Tobias Reinwald. The pretext for this new practice is that Denmark does not recognize Taiwan as a state under
The Republic of China (ROC) on Taiwan has no official diplomatic allies in the EU. With the exception of the Vatican, it has no official allies in Europe at all. This does not prevent the ROC — Taiwan — from having close relations with EU member states and other European countries. The exact nature of the relationship does bear revisiting, if only to clarify what is a very complicated and sensitive idea, the details of which leave considerable room for misunderstanding, misrepresentation and disagreement. Only this week, President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) received members of the European Parliament’s Delegation for Relations