If the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) wishes to win the presidential election next year, it should nominate former premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) for president.
First, Su is the DPP’s most outstandingly successful electoral politician. In 1989, he won the county commissionership in Pingtung County and was twice elected as Taipei County commissioner, in 1997 and 2001. Su was also elected twice as a provincial assemblyman and in 1995 as a legislator.
Even in his failed campaign for Taipei City mayor last year, Su obtained the second highest percentage of the vote ever obtained by a DPP candidate in Taiwan’s capital, where the DPP has never won an absolute majority of the votes.
PROVEN ADMINISTRATOR
Second, Su is a proven administrator. His re-election in 2001 as Taipei County commissioner demonstrated that the voters in Taiwan’s most populous and most complex local administrative unit approved of his administrative and political skills. Taiwanese as well as foreign observers of Taiwan’s government agree that he was undoubtedly the most successful of the five premiers under former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁).
Thus, Su has by far the most successful administrative experience in large-scale governmental organizations, where most observers comment favorably about the excellence of his leadership and skill.
Third, as many as one-fifth to one-fourth of Taiwan’s voters are swing voters. This means that a very large proportion of the electorate choose their candidate on the basis of the candidate him/herself and the candidate’s platform, rather than their party.
This is one reason the DPP, which won over 50 percent of the presidential vote in 2004, slumped to less than 42 percent in 2008.
Many people who had voted twice for Chen voted for Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) in 2008. And, they said, if Ma did not do a good job, they would vote DPP in the next election.
WIDE SUPPORT
Both public and private polls show that Su is both the strongest challenger to Ma and the one DPP candidate who can definitely defeat Ma. This is because Su appeals to swing voters. To win the presidency, a candidate in Taiwan must win the support of swing voters. Without this essential part of the electorate, a candidate will lose.
Fourth, Su appeals across both gender and generation lines. He has support among men and women as well as among young and old.
He also has support across all educational backgrounds and in all geographic areas of Taiwan.
His interest in and promotion of a wide variety of Taiwanese popular music, for example, has won strong support among the young.
KNOWLEDGEABLE
Fifth, Su has demonstrated a clear perception of problems as well as strategic analytical abilities in dealing with domestic politics and foreign relations. He is extraordinarily knowledgeable in international affairs. I know that several foreign correspondents, in addition to this writer, have been very impressed after extended interviews.
Su came into politics as a lawyer for the defendants in the Kaohsiung Incident trial of 1980. In 1986, he became a co-founder of the DPP and since then has made many contributions to both Taiwan and the DPP.
If the DPP wishes to win next year’s presidential election, it should nominate Su Tseng-chang.
Bruce Jacobs is a professor of Asian languages and studies and director of the Taiwan Research Unit at Monash University in Australia.
From the Iran war and nuclear weapons to tariffs and artificial intelligence, the agenda for this week’s Beijing summit between US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is packed. Xi would almost certainly bring up Taiwan, if only to demonstrate his inflexibility on the matter. However, no one needs to meet with Xi face-to-face to understand his stance. A visit to the National Museum of China in Beijing — in particular, the “Road to Rejuvenation” exhibition, which chronicles the rise and rule of the Chinese Communist Party — might be even more revealing. Xi took the members
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) on Friday used their legislative majority to push their version of a special defense budget bill to fund the purchase of US military equipment, with the combined spending capped at NT$780 billion (US$24.78 billion). The bill, which fell short of the Executive Yuan’s NT$1.25 trillion request, was passed by a 59-0 margin with 48 abstentions in the 113-seat legislature. KMT Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文), who reportedly met with TPP Chairman Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) for a private meeting before holding a joint post-vote news conference, was said to have mobilized her
The inter-Korean relationship, long defined by national division, offers the clearest mirror within East Asia for cross-strait relations. Yet even there, reunification language is breaking down. The South Korean government disclosed on Wednesday last week that North Korea’s constitutional revision in March had deleted references to reunification and added a territorial clause defining its border with South Korea. South Korea is also seriously debating whether national reunification with North Korea is still necessary. On April 27, South Korean President Lee Jae-myung marked the eighth anniversary of the Panmunjom Declaration, the 2018 inter-Korean agreement in which the two Koreas pledged to
As artificial intelligence (AI) becomes increasingly widespread in workplaces, some people stand to benefit from the technology while others face lower wages and fewer job opportunities. However, from a longer-term perspective, as AI is applied more extensively to business operations, the personnel issue is not just about changes in job opportunities, but also about a structural mismatch between skills and demand. This is precisely the most pressing issue in the current labor market. Tai Wei-chun (戴偉峻), director-general of the Institute of Artificial Intelligence Innovation at the Institute for Information Industry, said in a recent interview with the Chinese-language Liberty Times
RSS