Print

Mail

wiki links

Editorial: Elections going off the rails

Senior Presidential Adviser Koo Kwang-min (辜寬敏) has used his own money to place an ad under his own name in some local newspapers. In the ad, he stresses that the Dec. 3 elections are local government elections, not a presidential election. He also called on voters not to see the poll as a confidence vote in the government or as having any other political meaning; voters should only vote for the best and most capable candidate. In placing this ad, Koo drew attention to the main problem with campaigning thus far: Far too much significance is being bestowed on these elections.

The elections have even been portrayed as a confidence vote in the president and the prelude to Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Ma Ying-jeou's (馬英九) 2008 presidential campaign. The local government elections are being used to score points for the next presidential election, and the government and opposition will stop at nothing to beat their opponent in a war that is damaging to political parties as well as the legislature. The candidates are relegated to the sidelines and political opinions go up in smoke. This is not how local government elections should be fought.

Taiwan has been holding democratic elections for decades. The form of these elections may have changed, but there have been no major changes in election culture -- vote-buying and mudslinging still rule the day. The government's rapid and forceful crackdown on vote-buying has not rooted out the practice, but only forced it further underground, making those involved ever more sneaky. The mudslinging war waged by politicians and the media has become the focus of the Dec. 3 elections.

On the surface, the pan-blue camp is still hell-bent on exposing government scandals and claims of corruption. In response, President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) has apologized to the public on a number of occasions, and any Democratic Progressive Party members suspected of involvement in the scandals have been expelled from the party. But the pan-blue camp continues to pursue the matter, even after Kaohsiung prosecutors on Monday indicted former Presidential Office deputy secretary-general Chen Che-nan (陳哲男), former Kaohsiung Rapid Transit Corp (KRTC) vice chairman Chen Min-hsien (陳敏賢) and several Kaohsiung City Government officials on charges of corruption and breach of trust.

This mudslinging has blurred the focus of the elections and made middle-of-the-road voters reluctant to vote, which may result in a low overall turnout. This is simply a repeat of what happened during the last National Assembly elections, when middle-of-the-road voters did not show up because of the pan-green and pan-blue camps' ideological warring. Such fighting is diametrically opposed to what middle-of-the-road voters expect. The exposure of scandals and smear tactics has no impact on die-hard loyalists, but is rather a catalyst for stronger animosity. More animosity and irrational behavior will only strengthen the political fanaticism of diehard loyalists. We have already seen how the poet Tu shi-san (杜十三) threatened to kill Premier Frank Hsieh (謝長廷), and both Government Information Office Minister Pasuya Yao (姚文智) and KMT Legislator Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱) have received telephone threats. These are indications that politicians have gone overboard in their electioneering.

Mudslinging is off-putting to most of us. If we do not get the election campaign back on track and make candidates tell us where the real beef is, too many voters will regularly refuse to vote.

The election is, after all, about choosing the wisest and the most capable candidate. Mudslinging is no way to prove superiority. The only result will be that people lose interest in the election.
This story has been viewed 1837 times.