When Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) and the New Power Party (NPP) arrived on the political scene, they were a breath of fresh air in Taiwan’s moribund politics. Many had high hopes for them.
It is all the more unfortunate, then, that media darling Ko, who seems to have absolutely no filter when he has a microphone placed in front of him, has had a little too much exposure over the past three years.
He opens his mouth about social issues he knows nothing about, and he pronounces on national policy that has nothing to do with his duties as Taipei mayor. Meanwhile, on old scandals he is either all bluster and no action, or he throws up his arms and gives up. He also has little to show in the way of converting his campaign promises into action.
Ko seems to have forgotten who he is. He is extremely tolerant of communist or criminal elements espousing pro-Chinese communist propaganda on the streets of Taipei while, during the opening and closing ceremonies for the Summer Universiade, he mercilessly suppressed “pro-Taiwan propaganda” by pan-green camp sympathizers.
He held out open arms to the regime in China, saying that people on either side of the Taiwan Strait were family and that they should work out any grievances they have between them.
Like a chameleon, he has changed colors so often that it is impossible to know what his natural color is.
He was supposed to be untainted by political hue, but he is now such a chaotic muddle of spattered greens, blues and reds that it is difficult to know whether to laugh or cry.
The adoring gaze the media are casting Ko’s way is a real source of envy for the nascent NPP, starved as it is of the limelight that it craves. After all, media attention is free publicity and this would be a real boon for a new political party searching for a way to increase its influence.
It is one thing to keep the government on its toes for legitimate reasons — and if this garners media attention, then all the better — but another thing entirely to play to the gallery and be deliberately provocative, objecting for the sake of opposition and boycotting purely for the sake of obstruction.
In the past, the media were monopolized by a few outlets, and you did not have any of the now ubiquitous filming on smartphones. If politicians wanted to get themselves on TV or into the newspapers, or if they wished to improve their profile, they would have to pull out all the stops.
They would have to occupy the rostrum, cut off the microphones, splash tea everywhere, get into scuffles with other legislators and play the clown — and often the applause that met such behavior would drown out the boos.
Nowadays, the media have banks of microphones hungry for soundbites, paparazzi everywhere firing off their shutters and even citizen reporters are thick on the ground. Politicians no longer have to cast around for a microphone to speak into; they are instantly surrounded by them the minute they open their mouths.
Seeking the limelight is now actively discouraged and must be done sparingly, otherwise criticism will far outweigh approval. This is especially the case for the exaggerated body language in vogue during the early years of the democracy movement, which is seen as excessive even if used only occasionally, and which is below the standards of conduct the electorate has come to expect in the national legislature.
Democratic politics is the politics of responsibility. In a mature democracy, there is no room for constant discord between political parties, whether large or small, in power or in opposition. The ruling party should take responsibility for the success or failure of government policy, just as the diverse parties in the legislature should take responsibility for the creation and revision of laws and regulations.
Election time is when the electorate takes stock of the respective performances of the governing and opposition parties and delivers its verdict.
In view of this, there is no room for the NPP to perform the role of a loyal opposition party. Yet, neither does it need to go along with the governing party on matters it believes should be changed. It is only right to offer strong opposition, within reason, to the trajectory of the governing party’s reforms that it disagrees with, but for the rest it should just let the governing party go ahead with them.
After all, time passes quickly, and the next election will show if the electorate agreed or not.
The NPP leadership needs to change its style and how it goes about the task of holding the government to account, or it risks falling short of the high expectations of the public.
First, it needs to decide if the party’s main battlefield is to be in the national legislature or on Ketagalan Boulevard — indeed out on the street.
Second, it has to decide if it wishes to go on improving the trajectory of reforms by winning over the electorate with the incisive debate and sound arguments with which NPP Executive Chairman Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) has made a name for himself, or if it is to follow the preferred route of NPP Legislator Hsu Yung-ming (徐永明) — who drew attention with an almost 11-hour occupation of the legislative rostrum on Nov. 20 and the hackneyed confrontational approach of chaining himself to a tent erected along Ketagalan Boulevard.
Chang Kuo-tsai is a retired associate professor at National Hsinchu University of Education and a former deputy secretary-general of the Taiwan Association of University Professors.
Translated by Paul Cooper
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