Despite the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) ability to talk black into white, its justification of presidential candidate Eric Chu’s (朱立倫) reneging on his oft-stated pledges to serve out his second term as New Taipei City mayor and his decision to run for the presidency without quitting his mayoral post has still stirred up a wave of criticism.
At an expedient party congress on Saturday last week, the KMT staged an apparently rigged show where Chu was portrayed as the much-anticipated savior to rescue the party, which was rapidly sinking in the polls with Deputy Legislative Speaker Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱) as its candidate.
The swap was carried out exactly as had been rumored, with absolutely no element of surprise.
The party started by forcing Hung out of January’s election in a seemingly democratic manner — voting by a show of hands instead of a secret vote, as proposed by a party representative.
After Hung was out of the picture, Chu was then welcomed like a hero to re-enter the stage against the backdrop of rapturous applause from attendees to deliver his nomination speech, in which he appealed to voters to help maintain the KMT’s rule and its legislative majority.
Like every KMT presidential candidate before him, Chu then resorted to the party’s old tactic of threatening voters with dreadful consequences if the party were to fall from power: an even more monstrous Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), a democracy without checks and balances, and the very existence of the Republic of China (ROC) and cross-strait stability at risk.
He went on to justify his broken pledges by hinting that his presidential bid was people’s last best hope to salvage the country.
Once done glorifying his undemocratic and unethical move to force out a candidate selected through the KMT’s primary mechanism, Chu moved on to defend himself against the DPP’s reproaches.
Chu, along with many KMT lawmakers and the state-owned Central News Agency, cited several influential political figures in the US and other nations to back claims that running for a second post without resigning from the first is common practice.
They also singled out several DPP members who had made similar choices to undercut criticism of Chu for “wanting it all.”
These outdated deflection tactics and far-fetched justifications might still work on staunch pan-blue supporters, but any voters in their right mind can easily decipher the KMT’s hidden agenda and motives.
Another reason these approaches are doomed to failure is because what really set voters off were Chu’s lies and broken promises, not his craving for more power.
Hardly anyone would care about his presidential bid and three-month leave of absence from his mayoral post had he not made those pledges — not just once, but more than 20 times.
Moreover, since Chu’s warning of the consequences of a defeated KMT reminds Taiwanese more of the ruling party than the DPP, it could be the last nail in the coffin of the party’s campaign prospects.
It has further heightened voters’ perception of the KMT as a party out of sync with the public and incapable of self-reflection.
The KMT might have succeeded in its plot to remove Hung, but without a serious change of mindset, the next to change would most likely be the party’s number of seats in the legislature and its status as the nation’s oldest party.
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