In an effort to prepare for next year's presidential election, President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) recently appointed National Security Council Secretary-General Chiou I-jen (邱義仁) to be secretary-general to the president. That will make Chiou responsible for Chen's campaign affairs. Chen has also vowed to promote reforms and boost the economy. Since the personnel reshuffle and national policies have been set, the success or failure of his reelection bid will lie in Chen's administrative performance.
If his efforts are ineffective, he won't be able to repeat his victory in the 2000 presidential election. Chen was elected with less than 40 percent of the vote thanks to the split in the pan-blue camp, which could be best described by the old Chinese saying, "If two parties fight, only the third party will benefit." Thus, he will be defeated even before the election begins if his administrative performance is poor.
KMT Chairman Lien Chan (
Chen should not pin his re-election hopes on another split between the two men. He should squarely face the likely opposition integration and wage an all-out election battle, striving to win more than 50 percent of the vote.
Of course, Chen enjoys certain advantages that come from being the incumbent president. The momentum and influence of both Lien and Soong, especially the latter, have significantly dropped over the past three years. It will be difficult for them to cause the kind of sensations they used to do.
More importantly, in terms of the people's thirst for crackdowns on organized crime and "black gold" politics, Soong has not resolved the controversial Chung Hsing Bills Finance case, while Lien has not returned the KMT's illegally obtained assets. In addition, the two parties' use of "black gold" politics during the election for Kaohsiung City Council speaker was hideous.
However, Chen cannot take the moral high ground in the "black-gold" battle -- since the pan-green camp is not very clean either -- but he does have an absolute advantage and several trump cards that can help him to beat Lien and Soong.
The KMT's dictatorial regime produced far too many corrupt government officials over the past half century -- such as Wu Tzer-yuan (
The pan-blue camp has almost become almost hysterical with their "It's the economy, stupid" rants. It believes that the economy is Chen's Achilles' heel and that it will win next year's election by repeatedly attacking Chen on this front.
Chen does bear a great responsibility for the economic downturn during his administration. But he was clearly handicapped in his efforts to carry out economic reforms because of the pan-blue camp's frequent obstructions in the legislature.
And there is little that he can do to reverse the downturn affecting the world economy. The nation's prosperity is in fact much better than that of Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore and Germany.
Unfortunately, many Taiwan-ese are unable to think with enough deepth and breadth on the matter. They only see the high unemployment rate and complain that they have lost fortunes and can no longer make a good living. They blame all these woes on the president.
The pan-blue camp works hard to conjure up images of "the good old days." It wants them to think that they had a good life before but a bad one now. It wants them to believe that the KMT was capable of boosting the economy while the DPP is incapable of doing so. Such a simple comparison is of course unfair and unreasonable -- but it is an easy statement to sell to the electorate.
But don't underestimate the people, whose bright eyes can read real emotions and help them make wise and rational decisions. Over the past two decades, the electorate has time and again displayed their wisdom and bravery at the ballot box.
Chen should take pains to note that while the KMT took the economy to the peak in 1980s and 1990s, this does not mean that it can achieve the same in this decade. He could cite Singapore's People's Action Party as an example of such a failure. Moreover, he should stress that it was the late Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國) and former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝), not Lien and Soong, who led the nation through its economic miracle.
In an effort to eliminate KMT's legacy of corruption and "black gold" politics, Lien decided to place the party's assets into trust. That move helped shed some light not only on the party's finances but also the great losses it has had to chalk up in the past three years.
Its assets plunged from between NT$170 billion and NT$200 billion in 2000 to just NT$71.9 billion. The party has debts of NT$40 billion.
Chang Che-chen (
The party has lost nearly all of its wealth in the three years the Lien has been its leader. He could be termed the world's No. 1 spendthrift -- only he has not accepted any responsibility for the losses. How could anyone believe him if he vows to win next year's presidential election and then boost the economy into performing another miracle?
Chen should ask where the KMT's assets originally came from -- and where they have gone under Lien's chairmanship. He should challenge the KMT to return its wealth back to people since most of it was stolen from the public. This simple question would pop Lien's self-inflated image of a man who can salvage the economy.
Another main issue in the next year's election will undoubtedly be the unification-independence dispute. Chen and the pan-green camp advocates "one country on either side" and Taiwan's sovereignty, whereas the pan-blue camp champions "one China" and the "1992 consensus." The battle line separating the two has become clearer over the past three years.
The people will use their ballots to choose one side in next year's poll. Chen will have to put up a bitter fight against a Lien-Soong ticket on either the economic front or unification-independence battle. Either way, this is a war worth fighting.
Chiou Chwei-liang is a visiting professor in the Graduate Institute of Southeast Asia Studies at Tamkang University.
TRANSLATED BY EDDY CHANG AND JACKIE LIN
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