While the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) appears to have settled on a candidate for next year’s presidential race, the ruling Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) remains mired in political infighting among its top leaders.
An opposition legislator joked in a political talk show that if the feud between President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) — which started in September 2013 when Ma accused Wang of meddling in judicial affairs while Wang was abroad — were made into a TV drama, it would probably draw record ratings locally and even sell well in other Chinese-speaking areas. It may sound amusing, but the reality is no laughing matter.
Soon after KMT Chairman Eric Chu’s (朱立倫) announcement last week that the party would drop its court case against Wang, Ma released a strongly worded statement denouncing the decision and berated the party for what he labeled hypocrisy. To add to Ma’s dismay, Wang is also rumored to be the KMT’s likely presidential candidate — or at least Chu’s running mate.
The feud appears to be reaching an end, with Ma taking the drubbing. It is doubtful that Wang — now 74 and having spent 40 years in the legislature — would have been on the media’s watch list of potential KMT presidential candidates if Ma had not singled him out in the first place.
The Sunflower movement sprang into being in March last year when the Ma-Wang strife was still deep in controversy. Wang, though not as visible during the course of the protest against the government’s handling of a proposed cross-strait service trade agreement, played a pivotal role in the politics behind the scene. As the legislature’s head, he was under pressure from the executive branch to remove the protesters occupying the legislative chamber.
However, no one in government — even if they approved of it — wanted to bear the responsibility for evicting the protesters. Instead of conforming with the executive’s wishes, Wang caught everybody by surprise by making a promise that no cross-party negotiations about the service trade agreement would be arranged until an oversight mechanism has been instituted. Some KMT legislators billed this a “betrayal” to the party.
It would be hard to say that Wang would have acted differently — and thereby left the movement to end badly — if the political feud between him and Ma did not exist. However, Wang is probably the single major KMT political figure who not only emerged unscathed, but even burnished his political reputation in this storm waged by the younger generation. He did so by challenging Ma — the nation’s and then the party’s leader — which was something that Wang, a cautious, cagey politician who has always restrained himself from stepping into the limelight in the corridors of power, would have been reluctant to do if it were not for his political survival.
It would be ironic for the KMT if Wang were to be nominated as the party’s presidential candidate once the infighting ends, but having the septuagenarian represent the party in a post-Sunflower-movement Taiwan would be as ironic, since the KMT has been struggling to present a younger, more vibrant and positive face to the public since last spring.
Chu has repeatedly stated his disinclination to run in next year’s presidential election, and it is understandable that he — a rising star — would not want to fight a battle in which the party is likely to lose. However, if the political scene has indeed changed with the rising awareness among younger voters, skipping a fight would not ensure victory in the next, unless the party catches up with the nation’s social progress and political consciousness.
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