Over the past 50 years, each of the two major political parties in the US once nominated a political extremist as its presidential candidate. In both cases, the candidates were defeated.
One case was the 1972 presidential election, when Democrat Senator George McGovern ran against the Republican Party’s Richard Nixon. The situation was unfavorable for McGovern because his running mate, Thomas Eagleton, had suffered several nervous breakdowns and been hospitalized. Thus, the Democrats advised McGovern to withdraw from the race.
The other case was the 1964 presidential election, when Republican Senator Barry Goldwater ran against then-president Lyndon Johnson, a Democrat.
The candidates played the game by the books, even though the results were predictable: Johnson and Nixon won, while Goldwater and McGovern conceded their losses. Even so, neither party flouted the rules and replaced their presidential candidates during the campaigns.
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) has been beset with internal tensions ever since it chose Deputy Legislative Speaker Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱) as its presidential candidate. Through the ongoing confrontation between the KMT’s pro-local and pro-unification camps, the party has exposed its true face: that it is deceitful, afraid of losing and non-democratic.
Late last month, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), Vice President Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) and KMT Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) attended a rally held for Hung by a group of Taiwanese businesses in China. Their intention was to give the impression that the party was united and the electoral campaign had momentum.
However, not six days later, Chu ordered an emergency national congress in preparation for replacing Hung.
Chu had changed the KMT’s nomination mechanism early this year. The outcome, unfortunately for the party, was nomination of Hung, who has failed to increase her popularity since the beginning of the presidential race.
Coming under pressure from many of the party’s legislative candidates, Chu was forced to change the rules of the game. Not only does he plan to hold an emergency national congress to withdraw Hung’s nomination, he is also putting his own name forward as her replacement.
The arguments over supporting Hung has triggered internal tensions and accusations of unfair treatment, and now the party is destined to follow in the footsteps of the Leninist parties in eastern Europe that failed to stand up to the test of free elections.
Former US ambassador to Taiwan Everett Drumright once told the US Department of State that the KMT would undoubtedly lose power if Taiwan moved toward democratization. The KMT has survived democratization and maintained its legislative majority by keeping local factions under its control. The internal tensions that are seen now are an existential threat to the party.
Hung initially said that she entered the KMT’s presidential primary to start the ball rolling and to encourage better candidates to step forward, but now she is refusing to withdraw from the race. This shows how aggressive the party’s pro-unification camp is, of which Hung is a part.
In contrast, the party’s pro-local camp, which dares not introduce a presidential candidate, has revealed something of its inherently submissive nature.
Although the camp’s foremost figure, Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平), originally planned to run for president, he was intimidated by Ma and backed away from the race.
After the pro-local camp forced Chu to remove Hung, he is now set to replace her as the presidential candidate. The camp has shot itself in the foot.
James Wang is a senior journalist.
Translated by Eddy Chang
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