The campaign for January’s presidential election is turning out be very different from previous ones. The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) is still arguing over who its presidential candidate should be just three months ahead of the election. This is not only unprecedented, it should be unthinkable. Given the utter abnormality of the situation, most people would probably agree that the destructive force of President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) eight years in office is historically unique.
At a meeting of the KMT Central Standing Committee on Wednesday, it was decided that an extraordinary congress should be called to decide whether to remove Deputy Legislative Speaker Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱) as the party’s presidential candidate.
It seems that the KMT is buckling under the weight of its poor electoral prospects and that the party’s legislative candidates are reaching breaking point.
Noting the calls for Hung’s replacement, her rivals made their views public. Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) said that whether Hung should be replaced is a matter for the KMT and that voters would not care whether the party changed its candidate. Tsai also said that she will strive to rally the largest possible support base by proposing the best policies and introducing the best team.
People First Party (PFP) Chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜) criticized the situation surrounding Hung’s replacement, saying that the KMT is all about old wine in new bottles. He said that the party still did not propose any new policies, but continued to talk about replacing Hung, while the KMT-led central government has remained indifferent to local issues such as the Kaohsiung gas explosions, turbid drinking water in Taipei and the dengue fever outbreak in Tainan. He added that the nation would do just as well without this kind of central government.
The statements have one thing in common: policy.
However, this is also precisely the thing that has been missing from the competing parties since the launch of their election campaigns.
Considering that the January election is the sixth direct presidential election to take place in Taiwan, why is there such a dearth of policy discussion?
The media and voters cannot be blamed for this situation, the candidates themselves must also shoulder the blame.
Judging from the questions asked of the KMT’s candidate about policy and the proposals that she has made, people in general place a lot of importance on policy. Since everyone feels that policy is such an important issue and since the candidates themselves have proposed quite a few policies, why is it that policy discussion has not become the main theme of the presidential election?
It is necessary to discuss why the candidates have taken such a passive approach to policy discussion. They have all spent time on building local support. They have done this to win the support of the KMT’s local leaders — who are adept organizers — as reflected in the frequency of their campaign activities. It seems that whenever candidates want to make policy announcements, they do so at campaign activities. This means that not only do they provide insufficient explanations of their policies, but the announcement is drowned out by all the other events in their busy campaign schedules. Policy announcements are often followed by a less-than-stellar reception and a lot of squabbling that results in a lack of focus.
How could there be any fruitful policy debate in this climate?
Any issue that does not become the subject of an organized, coordinated debate and does not address challenges turns into a dud. So far, this is one of the greatest shortcomings of the presidential election campaigns.
What changes should be made in the next three months to correct the situation?
Over the past eight years, people have had enough of politicians following Ma’s lead, randomly issuing pledge after deceitful pledge — Ma’s “6-3-3” presidential campaign pledge was one of them. That is why there is concern about policy feasibility and effectiveness.
All three current presidential candidates have pledged to reform the pension system, using the military personnel, civil servant and public school teacher pensions as an example, but none of them has dared to propose concrete measures, because they are afraid that doing so would be a mistake that later have to pay for in votes.
Voters should take the initiative to create a policy platform and demand that the candidates explain their suggested policies, so that they can illustrate their points without arguing.
A very important duty of Ma has been to prevent disaster. Because national policy has been neglected for so long, the public must be allowed to analyze candidates’ abilities to govern and review their plans for national governance and compare them. For example, it was suggested that 50,000 housing units need to be built. One of the parties then increased the number to 200,000 units, while another party asked where the money was going to come from, and a third said that providing housing only for rent and not for purchase does not take the customs of the Taiwanese into consideration, and that such housing would remain empty.
Other issues, such as the long-term care policy, are to be decided behind closed doors by a small group of elites. How are voters, who want to gain a better understanding of the procedures, going to learn about the policies?
Since different candidates propose different policies, they should be questioned more than once — in fact, the more questioning, the better — because the one televised debate that was held toward the end of the campaign during past elections is not sufficient.
It is also necessary to create a way to discuss the overall national policy direction, in which candidates would be prepared to ask and answer questions, and give voters the opportunity to make an informed choice.
As Tsai said: Voters do not care about individuals — policies and governing teams are more important. Soong hit the nail on the head when he said that what is needed is not old wine in new bottles — which is what the KMT would be doing by replacing Hung.
Taiwanese should start to ask presidential candidates about their political, social and economic policies so that the nation can finally get that rare thing — new wine in new bottles.
Translated by Perry Svensson
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