As Taiwan’s next presidential election campaign is heating up, the hottest issue of debate and speculation is whom President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) will choose as their vice presidential running mates.
According to the Constitution of the Republic of China, the vice president has no powers except to serve as successor to the president if the latter is unable to execute their presidential powers.
In practice, former vice presidents have played silent roles or been delegated certain powers by their presidents. Former DPP vice president Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) enjoyed greater authority under former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) than her predecessors. Vice President Vincent Siew (蕭萬長), who has announced he will not run for re-election, has been delegated by Ma to handle the administration’s economic policy.
In theory, a presidential candidate needs a running mate to supplement his or her shortcomings to garner more votes. However, in Taiwan’s electoral politics, presidential candidates often choose a running mate based largely on intra-party calculations.
Chen revealed recently that the key reason for him to team up again with Lu in 2004 was largely to balance against potential competitors within the DPP, notably former premiers Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) and Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌). Hsieh told Chen that he would accept any person as the president’s running mate except Su. Therefore, the main consideration was to minimize the internal split, even though Lu was seen as representing Chen’s attempt to attract female voters. Because of such potential internal competition, Chen said the DPP’s decision to team Hsieh and Su as presidential and vice presidential candidates in 2008 was doomed to failure because of their personal rivalry.
When Ma selected Siew as his running mate in 2008, there was an understanding that the latter would only serve one term. For the sake of cultivating a potential successor and paving the way for the younger generation of leadership, Siew agreed to step down by May 20 next year.
The most likely vice presidential candidate now seems to be Premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義). Ethnicity is no doubt the main concern. Both Siew and Wu are native Taiwanese. Most importantly, their political careers started in southern Taiwan, which happens to be the stronghold of the DPP. Therefore, for reasons of ethnicity, regional support and internal power succession, Ma will likely pick Wu as his running mate, if there is no other dark horse candidate.
For the DPP, since Tsai is running for president for the first time, the selection of her running mate requires more thought.
Several approaches have been taken into consideration. For example, some suggest that because Tsai lacks local administrative experience, she might need a DPP elite who can make up for this weakness.
Furthermore, since Tsai has only run for election once in her political life — in November’s special municipality election in New Taipei City — she would benefit from having a running mate who possesses sufficient electoral experience.
Former premier Su, who lost to Tsai in the DPP’s presidential primary in April, is the perfect candidate in that regard. Regretfully, Su pledged during the primary that he would not accept an offer from Tsai to run as vice president.
Now the most discussed potential candidate is DPP Secretary-General Su Jia-chyuan (蘇嘉全). Su Jia-chyuan also meets the above criteria, as he has accumulated political experience during two terms as Pingtung County commissioner and as a Cabinet minister. Born and raised in a grassroots culture, Su Jia-chyuan has both the energy and the explosiveness to garner votes. He could have won the mayoral election in last year’s Greater Taichung special municipality election if it hadn’t been for the last-minute shooting incident that arguably prompted the pan-blue supporters to come out and cast their votes.
Another line of strategic thinking for Tsai would be to search for a running mate outside the DPP.
The major calculation here would be to find a person who could attract more support from middle-of-the-road voters. Since the DPP enjoys a solid support base of between 42 percent and 45 percent of voters, it might help the DPP to add another 5 percent to 7 percent to reach the majority threshold if the potential vice presidential candidate were seen as non-partisan.
Moreover, it is expected that Tsai’s camp will highlight the historical significance of electing the first female president of Taiwan. The gender effect will no doubt have some influence on the presidential election and could even lead to the ruling party finding a well-known female “wild card” candidate to serve as Ma’s running mate.
In any case, a running mate only serves a purpose if he or she can effectively compensate for their presidential candidate’s defects.
Nevertheless, most voters care more about a presidential candidate’s policies and ability to implement his or her electoral agenda than they do about the person who happens to be running beside them.
Liu Shih-chung is a senior research fellow at the Taipei-based Taiwan Brain Trust.
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