As expected, calls are being heard among the grassroots of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) for President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) to double as party chairman. The Presidential Office may say that this will not happen and deny that they want Taoyuan County Commissioner Chu Li-lun (朱立倫) to take the job, but we should remember that once upon a time Ma frequently denied that he was going to run for Taipei mayor.
The time may not yet be ripe, but the atmosphere within the KMT implies that the party may be ready for a minor “coup.” When the Ma-for-chairman rumor circulated at the time of his inauguration, he was coy, saying that a government led by the party would not be acceptable to the public and expressing fears that people would accuse him of restoring the party-state. “A government led by the party” was a swipe at former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), but the same concept has now been repackaged as a “party-assisted” government. Ma has also set up a “state policy forum,” a party-government platform for “chatting” that is said to have no other particular use. So why set it up in the first place?
Opinion poll ratings for the Ma administration have dropped sharply in the month since he took office and the TAIEX has lost NT$3.5 trillion (US$115.2 billion). The Cabinet has committed innumerable mistakes, and even the appointments of Examination Yuan and Control Yuan members have been criticized. Party elders, factional leaders, legislators, local representatives and even People First Party Chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜) have complained.
The government appears incapable of properly allocating political resources or remembering its grassroots supporters and workers, except for the New Party.
Ma hid behind his talk about “dual leadership” and claims that he would “take the back seat.” This sounded nice, but in the end we get a president with power but no responsibilities, while KMT Chairman Wu Poh-hsiung (吳伯雄) has been given responsibilities but no power.
Someone is in charge of the legislature and someone else is in charge of the Cabinet, but the party chairman can’t even participate in the nomination of Control or Examination yuan members, which is all in the hands of the “master economic planner,” Vice President Vincent Siew (蕭萬長).
In other words, the KMT chairman has been reduced to an errand boy, while the president can make sure that if something goes wrong, someone is always there to take the blame. This is why it is so difficult to be an official these days, while the president has an easy job of it.
If it wasn’t for the pro-China cross-strait and direct links policies having gone too far, the debate about Ma doubling as party chairman probably wouldn’t have surfaced so soon. A lot of people want to share in the spoils and are close to attacking each other.
Amid the KMT infighting, the Cabinet looks on from a distance, the party chairman is unable to mediate and Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) announced plans to set up a cross-strait supervisory team and he wants legislators to participate in talks. In this situation, the president is the only possible mediator.
If he were also KMT chairman, it would be easy to settle these problems. He would also be able to meet with Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) and Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait Chairman Chen Yunlin (陳雲林) in his capacity as party chairman.
I don’t think it will be very long before Ma can add another title to his name.
Lu I-ming is the former publisher and president of the Taiwan Shin Sheng Daily News.
Translated by Perry Svensson
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