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Lien, Soong are trying to save their own hides

`For a leader to react in this way, attempting to annul the election and hide behind his supporters, seems to be resorting to desperate measures.'

President Chen Shui-bian's (陳水扁) successful attempt to hold on to the reins of power in the election is all but fact, and by all appearances the defeat of his opponents, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Lien Chan (連戰) and People First Party (PFP) Chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜), is more or less certain. The most significant outcome of this election, however, is the change that it revealed in the political map, heralding a trend in which the majority support formerly enjoyed by the pan-blue camp seeps over to the pan-green camp. Given this, it is quite understandable how jittery the pan-blue camp has become.

But the question is: Has the pan-blue camp really grasped the crux of the problem? Evidently not. Lien and Soong have responded to their defeat by stirring up protest by their supporters, claiming that the election was unfair and invalid. This appears on the surface to be an attempt to overturn the results of the election, but it would do not to be deceived. The real motive for the protest is to transfer responsibility for the defeat away from Lien and Soong, riding on the wave of an emotional crowd. To put it another way, the pair's stirring up of the masses is designed to ensure their survival as leaders of the pan-blue camp.

It is equally understandable how difficult the defeat was to accept given the miniscule margin of only 0.228 percentage points. But did Lien and Soong really lose by only 29,518 votes? Again, this is far from the case. They went from collectively having 60 percent of the vote in the 2000 elections to a situation where, four years down the road, they are neck and neck with the pan-green camp. Shouldn't Lien and Soong shoulder the blame for this? The two men seem to be blaming the Democratic Progressive Party and Chen for the situation, bearing none of the responsibility for themselves.

This is hardly an isolated case as far as Lien is concerned. Consider his record. Following the 2000 election defeat he placed then-KMT chairman Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) firmly on the sacrificial altar and managed to hold on to his own party chairmanship after the poor results of the 2001 legislative elections.

Now we have seen the loosening of the KMT's hold on their domain. For a leader to react in this way, attempting to annul the election and hide behind his supporters, seems to be resorting to desperate measures.

Despite Lien's ability to wield the loyalty of his supporters to his own advantage like this, politics is both unforgiving and brutal. His much heralded "second transition of power" has proved to be nothing but pie in the sky, but there may be worse to come.

If the pan-blues lose seats in the year-end legislative elections, exacerbating their loss of power, this will be bad news not just for Lien but for the KMT and the PFP. Could it be that there is really an invisible hand acting behind the scenes of Taiwanese history?

Chin Heng-wei is the editor in chief of Contemporary Monthly magazine.

Translated by Paul Cooper
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