In the run-up to Nov. 29 nine-in-one elections last year, many candidates said that Taiwan would never get better until the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) was toppled.
Seeing an end to the autocratic government that the KMT heads is, indeed, a necessary condition for the next stage of democratic reforms.
However, the correct conditions are not yet all in place. If the KMT government is brought down, but the local factions and the dynastic monopolization of politics remain the same, the nation will not improve.
From the election results it is evident that the electorate including Cigu (七股), Jiali (佳里) and Sigang (西港) districts in Greater Tainan’s fifth constituency were in favor of kicking the KMT out in the elections for local councilors.
Independents received 12 percent of the vote, the KMT got 18 percent, while the remaining 70 percent went to the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP).
The three councilors elected — Tsai Chiu-lan (蔡秋蘭), Chen Chao-lai (陳朝來) and Tsai Su Chiu-chin (蔡蘇秋金) — were all DPP candidates.
However, in the Tainan council speakership election, Tsai Chiu-lan and Chen were two of the five councilors who were suspected of voting against party lines and who had their party membership revoked.
Did the fact that the DPP received 70 percent of the vote in the city councilor election contribute to the toppling of the KMT? Does it mean that Taiwan will be better as a result?
On Tsai Chiu-lan’s Facebook page, there are a string of examples of how she had obtained funding for local infrastructure projects, or had otherwise served the electorate in one way or another.
However, according to a news report dated 2010, Tsai Chiu-lan’s husband, Ting Lien-hung (丁連宏), obtained information from police about a debtor’s vehicle and cellphone data to show where they had made calls from.
Ting subsequently had the person apprehended and tried in a kangaroo court, at which point Tsai Chiu-lan intervened “as a public duty” and mediated the situation.
Putting aside questions of legal responsibility, should the DPP have nominated such a person for another term as a city councilor?
Or did her local support trump all, as the DPP just wanted to make sure their nominee was elected?
Will society tolerate councilors who seem to have no concept of the separation of their personal affairs and their official duties?
Or is it that people think it is reasonable to put democracy and human rights on the back burner in their preoccupation with toppling the KMT?
With political dynasties and local factions on one side, and on the other, the patron-client system introduced by the KMT regime when it came to Taiwan after the Chinese Civil War, they are two sides of the same coin.
People vote for candidates they think are able to protect their own interests, and elected representatives are responsible for mobilizing electoral support for the governing party in elections for county commissioners, legislators and other positions.
More recently, the DPP has itself started dabbling with this “localized operation,” following much the same logic.
The solution to this lies in promoting local electoral reform, introducing local-list proportional representation, and allowing the establishment of local political parties.
Such reform would help the pseudo-democracy of voting for personalities, services and vote captains now seen in local elections and transform it into the genuine democracy of voting for political parties, policies and ideas.
This would make political parties more responsible for who they field, as well as help the next generation of candidates and emerging political forces take root in localities throughout the nation.
Lai Chung-chiang is a convener of the Economic Democracy Union.
Translated by Paul Cooper
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