Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) is highly proficient at political calculations. Chu used underhanded tactics to block Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) from entering the presidential race, while removing former KMT presidential candidate Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱). He calls for unity within the party on one hand, while wielding a knife in the other.
Chu is facing a situation far graver than that faced by former premier and Democratic Progressive Party chairman Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) when he ran against President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) in the 2008 presidential election.
A divided party cannot win, but if Chu had not disposed of Hung, the KMT would certainly have lost the Jan. 16 election. While decapitating Hung makes it harder to unite the party, it would be difficult for Chu to knife Hung if the party were fully united. They are two sides of the same coin and so the KMT is fighting a losing battle.
In the minds of the electorate, voting for Chu would feel like a third term of Ma’s administration. Corruption and abuse of power have come to define his rotten and incompetent administration — which has caused the public to endure untold suffering.
Taiwanese are not so foolish that they will choose to prolong their agony. Chu must therefore distance himself completely from Ma’s regime. The problem is, Ma and Chu are partners in crime, politically conjoined twins. If they are not separated, they will die; but once separated, their chances of survival are slim.
Chu hopes he can selectively sever aspects of Ma’s administration and so has opted to gently criticize Ma for what he has called “three big policy mistakes.”
Ma wants Wang’s tenure as legislative speaker to end, but Chu has given Wang the impression that he would be able to stay on as speaker, on the proviso that he is loyal to Chu. It should not be forgotten that when Ma hatched a plot to remove Wang from the position of speaker, he had previously professed his absolute loyalty to Wang and supported his re-election as legislative speaker.
Chu “knifed” Hung by rejecting her “one China, same interpretation” policy, and knifed his own wife for failing to support his presidential bid. Chu also frightened off Wang — because Ma did not agree to Wang entering the presidential race — and went back on his promise to New Taipei City residents to serve a second full term as mayor. The only person Chu has yet to stab in the back is his father-in-law, Kao Yu-jen (高育仁).
The problem for Chu is that Ma’s administration has been so poorly run — and the KMT is so full of internal tensions — that it is no longer possible to deceive the public. Chu lacks the ability to operate on the KMT without botching the procedure: He has opened a wound, which has now turned septic.
If Chu continues to block Wang, there will be a backlash from the KMT’s localist faction, while his ousting of Hung has provoked outrage within the rejuvenated deep blues. However, if Chu gives Wang a consolation prize of a fourth term as legislative speaker, the two factions will cross swords as they battle for dominance. Chu does not know which way to turn.
When Lu San-lang (呂三郎), the director of Hsieh Tien Temple in Hualien County, came out in support of Democratic Progressive Party presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), he proposed a fair and simple method of voting. Instead of talking of honor and justice in politics, voters should simply support politicians who have done a good job and get rid of those who have performed badly, Lu said.
Having now been through two transitions of power, the public has become shrewder and is now better able to judge who should run the nation.
James Wang is a media commentator.
Translated by Edward Jones
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