It seems that President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) is incapable of performing his elected duties properly.
Ma’s lack of performance led to Saturday’s demonstration against him and his administration.
The main themes of the demonstration — protecting sovereignty, demanding a full stomach, asking for transparency — were a reflection of the Taiwanese public’s feeling that Ma’s election slogan “care for Taiwan, boost the economy, demand integrity” has turned out to be nothing but an empty one.
After 100 days in office, public dissatisfaction with the Ma administration is running high.
Taking to the streets to protest is part of everyday life in a democracy, but the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) has tried to label Saturday’s demonstration a protest attempting to protect former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁).
This is simply an attempt to taint the public’s right to protest.
After Chen stepped down, and maybe even as early as after Ma’s election on March 20, KMT hardliners who wanted to see the full restoration of the old KMT regime displayed an attitude of revenge and hatred, openly implying that they want to see Chen sent to prison for alleged financial irregularities while he was president.
Chen’s complaint that he and his family are being persecuted probably reflects an idea that really does exist in the minds of many of those who were unhappy that the KMT lost power in 2000.
Ma is not a very capable person, but once the KMT pinned its hopes for regaining power on his incapable head, no one could hold a candle to Ma.
His achievements as mayor of Taipei were mediocre at best, but his popularity remained sky high for the single reason that the KMT wanted his superstar status to help bring the party back to the halls of power.
KMT hardliners talked about a second transfer of power when all they really meant was that they wanted to “wrest power back from the hands of the Democratic Progressive Party,” ostensibly sounding as if they respected the rules of the democratic game.
Now that the KMT is back in power, we’ll have to wait for the next presidential election to see how serious they were, and how serious those KMT voters were who said that “if Ma doesn’t do well, we’ll simply not vote for him again next time around.”
The KMT’s “colonial system and China ideology” will not allow the party to truly face a democratic system built on the idea that governing power should alternate between different parties.
It has co-opted the people under its colonial rule by sharing some of the benefits in order to consolidate “the KMT’s China” and attack national reconstruction and the formation of a new community based on the idea of an independent Taiwan.
Even without Chen’s admitted overseas transfers of huge amounts of money, the KMT would still try to divide and demonize the DPP.
But the situation begs the following questions: Will this “KMT China” be a normal and secure country capable of building a sense of community and belonging? Why does the KMT have the same problems as Chen? Why do pro-China KMT financial experts say that, “after the presidential elections in 2000 and 2004, NT$6 trillion (US$190 billion) flowed out of Taiwan?” How about the issues of US green cards and dual nationality?
Chen’s financial scandal is surely a completely different matter.
Lee Min-yung is a poet.
TRANSLATED BY PERRY SVENSSON
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