Recent news reports claim that former president Lee Teng-hui (
Particularly noteworthy is Lee's reputed wish to promote a third presidential ticket in the 2008 presidential election to represent forces outside the pan-green and pan-blue camps.
As the fervor behind the anti-Chen campaign is cooling down, it is clear that Lee still has not given up on Taiwan's democratic project in the post-Chen Shui-bian (
A third presidential ticket will not necessarily have a chance of being elected, but it will influence the capacity to attract votes among the other tickets.
If a pro-localization ticket were to materialize, it would take votes from the DPP. This means that a third force would not necessarily be able to achieve Lee's original goals, but it would certainly wreak havoc on the pro-localization vote.
If Wang were to leave the KMT, he would not become a second Lee.
The pan-blue vote would not reproduce the result of the 1996 presidential election when Lee and his vice presidential candidate Lien Chan (
Rather, there would likely be a repeat of the 2000 election. This terrible humiliation for the pan-blues means that there is little room for Wang to come out and run as an independent. One scenario in which this might happen would be that the KMT suffers a defeat in the Taipei and Kaohsiung mayoral elections that forces KMT Chairman Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) to step down only to be replaced as chairman by Wang who would then be nominated as the party's presidential candidate.
Another possibility would be that the DPP loses in Taipei and Kaohsiung forcing Premier Su Tseng-chang (
Chen could then take the opportunity to shuffle his cards and appoint Wang premier. Bolstered by his newly acquired executive position, Wang might then win the KMT's presidential nomination.
These scenarios show that the upcoming mayoral elections may determine the direction of the future political situation. It is, however, difficult to guess how a third force would develop since the advent of the red-clad campaign did not open up space for a new middle-of-the-road force.
Instead, it led to unrest and an intensified stand-off between the pan-green and pan-blue camps, and the current political atmosphere has reduced the ability of new social forces like the DPP's "new generation forum" and the "six green group" from making an impact.
But the will to punish the DPP certainly coincides with Lee's ideas about a third force. "Middle-of-the-road" is but a phrase, and the important thing is to split the elites.
Grassroots mobilization has become a way to split the vote. Together with Ma's high support ratings in the opinion polls, a third force could only harm the DPP without deconstructing the blue-green framework and may even amplify the trend toward a pan-blue majority.
The so-called third force, then, is more like a second wave of anti-Chen activities that instead of reconfiguring the current two-party dominated system, will return us to a situation with one big party and several smaller ones.
Taking a long term view of political developments, this is a struggle between the post-Chen and post-Lee eras. Both Chen and Lee were directly elected and it seems that they have different views of the political landscape after they step down. A concrete manifestation of these differences is the competing attempts to consolidate or split the green camp.
The result will decide whether the post-Lee era will end with the coming of the post-Chen era, or if the post-Chen era will merely be an extension of Lee's legacy.
Hsu Yung-ming is an assistant research fellow at the Sun Yat-sen Institute for Social Sciences and Philosophy at Academia Sinica.
Translated by Perry Svensson?
Jaw Shaw-kong (趙少康), former chairman of Broadcasting Corp of China and leader of the “blue fighters,” recently announced that he had canned his trip to east Africa, and he would stay in Taiwan for the recall vote on Saturday. He added that he hoped “his friends in the blue camp would follow his lead.” His statement is quite interesting for a few reasons. Jaw had been criticized following media reports that he would be traveling in east Africa during the recall vote. While he decided to stay in Taiwan after drawing a lot of flak, his hesitation says it all: If
When Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) caucus whip Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘) first suggested a mass recall of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislators, the Taipei Times called the idea “not only absurd, but also deeply undemocratic” (“Lai’s speech and legislative chaos,” Jan. 6, page 8). In a subsequent editorial (“Recall chaos plays into KMT hands,” Jan. 9, page 8), the paper wrote that his suggestion was not a solution, and that if it failed, it would exacerbate the enmity between the parties and lead to a cascade of revenge recalls. The danger came from having the DPP orchestrate a mass recall. As it transpired,
Elbridge Colby, America’s Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, is the most influential voice on defense strategy in the Second Trump Administration. For insight into his thinking, one could do no better than read his thoughts on the defense of Taiwan which he gathered in a book he wrote in 2021. The Strategy of Denial, is his contemplation of China’s rising hegemony in Asia and on how to deter China from invading Taiwan. Allowing China to absorb Taiwan, he wrote, would open the entire Indo-Pacific region to Chinese preeminence and result in a power transition that would place America’s prosperity
All 24 Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers and suspended Hsinchu Mayor Ann Kao (高虹安), formerly of the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), survived recall elections against them on Saturday, in a massive loss to the unprecedented mass recall movement, as well as to the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) that backed it. The outcome has surprised many, as most analysts expected that at least a few legislators would be ousted. Over the past few months, dedicated and passionate civic groups gathered more than 1 million signatures to recall KMT lawmakers, an extraordinary achievement that many believed would be enough to remove at