Those in favor of the Forward-looking Infrastructure Development Program are in a great rush, while its opponents are flip-flopping and unable to agree on a strategy. The result is an ongoing melee and regardless of whether they support or oppose the program, the majority of the public have no idea what they are actually fighting for. All they see is fights in the Legislative Yuan broadcast worldwide by CNN and the BBC.
Fighting is another way to cheat; physical conflict is just a way to dispose of the issue and keep boycotting; it is a way to keep playing the game until the end.
This is the state of political culture in Taiwan — this might seem absurd, but it is not as serious as the democratic crisis that foreign media worry about.
The infrastructure program has been controversial since the beginning — opposition parties blocked it whenever they could and non-governmental organizations expressed their disapproval.
The government failed to properly prepare and rushed the bill without clarifying the program’s content, defending its policy and offering sufficient explanation to the public.
The government’s loss of control over the issue, its ability to set the policy agenda and the continuous criticism were predictable. The government has resorted to the same tactics that the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) has used in the past — taking advantage of its legislative majority to force the bill through.
The Executive Yuan, the National Development Council and the Ministry of Transportation and Communications cannot escape blame.
People who are opposed to the program are unable to agree or decide on a strategy and they attack the government from all angles, which is part of what makes it so difficult to come up with a policy defense.
Opposition to expropriation comes from the left, while from the right, which believes in the supremacy of markets and mainly opposes the program on those grounds, demand that public construction should be self-liquidating and that the cost-benefit analysis should show that the benefits are greater than the cost.
The largest opposition party, the KMT, has no strategy to follow up on its opposition to the plan, so it has resorted to fighting and conflict to dispose of the matter. It is not doing it because it wants to show taxpayers that it is looking after their money, but because it wants show those who are opposed to pension reform that it is doing a good job.
For example, KMT legislators called on Premier Lin Chuan (林全) to attend a question-and-answer session at the legislature, but they did not ask any questions and did not let him take the podium.
They never intended to ask him any questions, they only wanted a background to the conflict, fighting and show of muscle.
Not daring to, not being able to and not wanting to debate the policy — this sort of opposition party is both depraved and irresponsible.
Hu Wen-hui is a media commentator.
Translated by Lin Lee-kai
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