The blast at Formosa Fun Coast (八仙海岸) is being treated as a national crisis. At a recent news conference, People First Party Chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜) criticized the central and local governments for leaders’ lack of integration in crisis management and resource control. Soong said that while people on the front line work tirelessly around the clock, government ineptitude leads to inefficient disaster relief.
The problems in President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) administration are not new: Its handling of relief efforts after Typhoon Morakot was simply chaotic. By comparison, the response to the 921 Earthquake was orderly and efficient. The administration is still controlled by the same Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), so how is it that efficiency has changed so much?
Previous KMT-led administrations transitioned from dictatorship to democracy and officials who excelled were promoted. Therefore, relations between managers and their subordinates were very good and administrative systems formed a network structure. The distinguishing feature of this network was that managers at each level were responsible for one aspect of operations and bureaucrats exerted high levels of efficiency. After the 921 Earthquake, the government bureaucracy and the military took the initiative without waiting for orders from political appointees. When the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) took over, the bureaucratic network was shaken up, but because DPP political appointees kept a close eye on civil servants, they were still able to maintain efficiency.
Since Ma took office, the so-called democratic politics have essentially been controlled by Ma and those close to him. Anyone not a member of Ma’s faction has been excluded, which has resulted in the bureaucracy waiting for orders instead of acting more proactively. As the job of political appointees is to integrate the duties of the permanent bureaucracy, common sense is more important than knowledge. However, political appointees under Ma, while full of knowledge, fall short when it comes to common sense.
Economically speaking, the Ma administration has made Taiwan’s economy ever more dependent on China, creating a situation where, if China’s economy shows signs of a cold, Taiwan’s economy comes down with a fever.
The KMT is on the brink of breaking up, and provided that no unexpected turn of events takes place, Democratic Progressive Party Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) victory in next year’s presidential election should be assured. However, after becoming president, Tsai will be confronted with major challenges: Saving Taiwan’s economy and normalizing the operating procedures of the bureaucracy are not an easy task.
Another critical situation that Tsai will have on her hands is that the green camp does not command a majority in the legislature. One problem is that there is an unfair legislative election system in which the value of each vote is unequal, while another problem is the large number of pan-green political parties, meaning that some parties may obtain tens of thousands of votes, but still not gain a single seat in the legislature.
Based on these reasons, even if the pan-green camp were to win a majority of the nation’s votes over the pan-blue camp, there is still a chance that they would have less than 50 percent of legislative seats.
In a situation where the opposition holds a legislative majority, the pan-blue camp would be able to paralyze the government, making the president a lame duck immediately upon taking office.
Chen Mao-hsiung is an adjunct professor at National Sun Yat-sen University and chairman of the Society for the Promotion of Taiwanese Security.
Translated by Zane Kheir
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