New paradigm demands flexibility

`Previous talk of "dashing forward," "working hard," "winning a majority," "sustainable government" and so on, has fallen out of fashion. Current hopes for the new Cabinet are giving birth to a new political paradigm.'

The Yu Shyi-kun Cabinet, which had defined itself as a "combat Cabinet," has reached its end. The expectations that have been expressed for the next Cabinet include negotiation, communication, reconciliation and cooperation. These words represent a new model for political work and a change from hostility toward compromise and negotiation. Previous talk of "dashing forward," "working hard," "winning a majority," "sustainable government" and so on, has fallen out of fashion. Current hopes for the new Cabinet are giving birth to a new political paradigm.

Last year's legislative elections could be regarded as a turning point. Ahead of the elections, the pan-green camp seemed to hold the upper hand, and a vocabulary of subjugation was used, eg, "terminating" the party-state system, "winning a majority" of legislative seats and the campaign to rectify the national title, all implying the rise of a new force to replace the old. The unexpected outcome of the elections was that the pan-greens did not win a majority.

While we were still busy looking for the reasons behind the pan-green camp's defeat, reconciliation and cooperation between political parties were already becoming part of the political debate, and everything is now being done to turn the confrontational atmosphere into one of harmony and cooperation. This is an expression of the Democratic Progressive Party's (DPP) flexibility, and it is also the reason why everyone remains suspicious.

The strategic result of cross-party reconciliation has indeed been the dissipation of the pressure for allowing the legislature's majority parties to form the Cabinet. The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the People First Party (PFP) are presently consolidating support for their candidates for the positions of legislative speaker and deputy speaker. Parties are trying to deceive each other on the question of whether party discipline will be used to control how legislators vote, so there has been little time to launch criticism against the formation of a minority Cabinet, not to mention conditions for the selection of the premier.

There will of course be no threats of overturning the Cabinet. It is only too obvious that there will be no immediate cooperation between the DPP and the PFP, which are already hiding their agendas from each other. The PFP already has its hands on the deputy speaker's seat, and the DPP can think about the formation of the next Cabinet.

This is the result of the parties thinking about cross-party reconciliation. As the divisions between the pan-blue and pan-green camps disappeared, the reconciliation between the DPP and the PFP offered the possibility that the political deadlock may be resolved. Although positions in the legislature are distributed as a result of cooperation between the KMT and the PFP, that cooperation was motivated by the possibility of cooperation between the PFP and the DPP. Such is the logic of cross-party reconciliation.

The possibility of reconciliation between the DPP and the PFP was a catalyst that opened up space for PFP development. The action that made it possible to avoid a reaction from pan-blue voters, however, was the KMT's involuntary backing down. The significance of this, however, is far reaching, and the blue/green camp dichotomy is being replaced by multiparty interaction.

The new premier must be a politician who can respond to this new political paradigm, which explains why incoming DPP chairman Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌), who enjoyed a lot of support, was bypassed for the premier's seat.

Because "dashing forward" still constitutes language of subjugation displaying a unilateral approach, Su's road toward the presidential seat must, in addition to dominating the year-end county commissioner's election, take into careful consideration the effects of this new political paradigm, as well as the public's opinion of our politicians' new style.

This is also why the chances of Yu continuing as premier diminished. As the premier best able to meet President Chen Shui-bian's (陳水扁) wishes, his staying on would do away with the necessary period of friction between the two top leaders, and it would avoid the risk of having the president and the premier compete for power. Yu, however, as the leader of the old political paradigm, should necessarily lose his position as this new paradigm appears.

The transitive role of this political paradigm also lets us understand that the replacement of Cabinet members might become the focus when exploring the next stage of political development in Taiwan.

In contrast to Chen's and Su's tough style, former Kaohsiung mayor Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) is resilient but gentle. Although the Kaohsiung City Government doesn't lack its fundamentalists, his political style has meant that the struggle between him and Chen for political power was kept within bounds, and it has also meant that Hsieh, the vice presidential candidate in 1996, has been able to move to Kaohsiung and shrug off the commotion surrounding the Song Chi-li (宋七力) case, develop a new political career and lay the foundation for the political map on which the south is green and the north blue.

Particularly when it comes to presidential aspirations, Hsieh is in a better position than Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), who is dragged down by the city's political crises outside the KMT, while inside the party he is dominated by KMT Chairman Lien Chan (連戰) and Deputy Chairman Wang Jin-pyng (王金平), and thus has to take both these factors into consideration when thinking about running for the presidency.

However, a Cabinet that is amenable to negotiation has been a rare thing in Taiwan's political development. Not only does the DPP lack this experience, but the KMT and the PFP are also feeling their way through unknown territory. This way of dealing with problems as they appear enhances politicians' understanding and abilities. Short-term cooperation over certain positions is not the main point, and the real test is instituting a new political setup.

Once the logic of cross-party reconciliation has been established, the possibilities for cross-party cooperation will multiply. The new premier must succeed not only in getting the support of a majority of the legislature, but also has to establish a platform for steadily advancing political negotiations amid cross-party conflict. This should be the focus of the candidates in the 2008 presidential election.

Hsu Yung-ming is an assistant research fellow of the Sun Yat-sen Institute for Social Sciences and Philosophy at Academia Sinica.

Translated by Perry Svensson