The jostling between the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the People First Party (PFP) last week over the review of two critical bills -- one that would impact on the ability of former KMT chairman Ma Ying-jeou (
"Political extortion" encapsulates what transpired between the PFP and KMT last week. Members of the PFP would do well to sit down and try to remember the founding ideals of their party.
It does not seem so long ago that the PFP was in serious competition with the KMT for leadership of the pan-blue camp. However, with the decline in the charisma of PFP Chairman James Soong (
In view of this, it is not hard to see why the PFP is so concerned about suffering a further decline in its number of legislative seats after the next election. The election will be a battle for survival for the party. Under these circumstances, and since the KMT remains the biggest competitor for the PFP among traditional pan-blue supporters, the PFP's ability to work out a nomination mechanism with the KMT that will work in its favor has become extremely important for the party.
The KMT leadership is under a lot of pressure, too. If it gives too much ground to the PFP when working out a mutually acceptable mechanism, an open revolt by KMT lawmakers against the party's leadership cannot be ruled out.
The KMT, therefore, has been playing dumb to the PFP's needs -- claiming that the consensus reached by Soong and Ma last year before the Taipei mayoral election was a general one under which the two sides agreed to a joint nomination mechanism.
In other words, the KMT refused to acknowledge that there had been any commitment on its part to give the PFP precedence in particular voting districts.
However, right after that, a number of PFP lawmakers mysteriously failed to show up during last Tuesday's Procedure Committee meeting, effectively allowing the pan-green camp to place the two contentious bills on the committee's agenda. But on Friday, things began to change.
The two pan-blue parties negotiated until dawn on Friday morning in order to reach an agreement on a nomination mechanism, which presumably was satisfactory and acceptable to the PFP. Afterwards, obviously as a pay-back, the PFP worked with the KMT to kill off the pan-green camp's bills on the legislative floor.
Such are the shenanigans that occur when a party's life is on the line. Time will tell what the deal that was thrashed out behind closed doors entails.
The real question is: Why is the KMT giving so much ground to a party heading for the grave?
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