Former Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) is expected to take over the chairpersonship again next month. In response to the disconnect between the DPP and social movements, she has said that in the end, the student-led protesters still need the party. This may be over-confident, for three reasons.
First, the protesters only need temporary help from the DPP, as they are likely to nominate their own candidates in future elections.
Second, their demands are more radical than those of the DPP, such as their opposition to China, free-trade agreements, the cross-strait service trade agreement and free economic pilot zones. It would be difficult for the party to meet all their demands.
Third, former DPP chairman Lin I-hsiung (林義雄) has become the overall leader of the civic movements and his moves toward forming a party are becoming increasingly clear. Regardless of how much goodwill the DPP tries to show him, it is very likely that the two will end up going their separate ways.
That being so, the primary task facing the new DPP chair might not be to integrate outgoing Chairman Su Tseng-chang’s (蘇貞昌) and former chairman Frank Hsieh’s (謝長廷) political forces. Instead, it will be to prove the intrinsic value of the party in the face of the challenge posed by an association of civic groups under the leadership of Lin.
If it is writing an act to regulate oversight of cross-strait agreements, reviewing the service trade agreement or legislation regulating free economic pilot zones, this association of civic groups will accentuate any differences from the DPP to convince voters that forming a new party is a necessity.
Although many students supported Tsai in the 2012 presidential election, they are likely to show their support for the association of civic groups and keep their distance from Tsai once she takes up the role as chairperson simply because she will be the head of the DPP.
Tsai has already stated that she will follow a “civic line.” The problem is that if the association of civic groups manages to represent this civic line better, while the DPP continues to repeatedly pledge to adopt a civic line, the result might be that the party will be perceived as promoting the civic groups while failing to promote the value of a DPP government.
Even more seriously, if the civic groups enter the mainstream of the nation’s opposition movement, they might not support Tsai in the 2016 presidential election. Rather, the group might ally itself with certain DPP members to push Lin to run for president, calling on the opposition camp to nominate only one ticket by following the DPP’s handling of independent Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) in the Taipei mayoral election this year.
It may aim for a Lin-Tsai ticket while stressing that the former will serve for just one term if he is elected president to emphasise the pure intentions of his bid.
In other words, if Tsai after taking the chairpersonship is unable to establish the core values of a DPP government enabling the party to set a political forum, she will repeat Su’s mistake of becoming trapped in an impotent position, and the association of civic groups will dominate the opposition camp through constant street demonstrations.
If this is the case, the association of civic groups may outshine the party and become the leaders of the opposition camp, while actively participating in the 2016 presidential election by nominating “a more suitable presidential candidate” than the DPP does.
Julian Kuo is a former Democratic Progressive Party legislator.
Translated by Eddy Chang
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