Success brings growing pains for DPP

Lawmaker Chen Chi-mai (陳其邁) is frank about the process: "DPP officials `feed many heads' to compete with their rivals during the nomination process."

But it can be far more complex than that. Kuo told the Taipei Times that in the case of Kaohsiung Mayor Frank Hsieh (謝長廷), several KMT city councilors have actively recruited nominal members for Hsieh as a gesture of "goodwill." As a result Hsieh, who generally has an exceptionally clean record, has been called a "head master" by DPP colleagues.

One person lobbying the party for changes which would curtail the manipulation of nominal members is former DPP national Assembly caucus leader Chen Chin-te (陳金德).

Ilan-based Chen plans to run in the next legislative elections but has recently seen his chances of selection as a candidate plummet as rivals quickly recruited new party members to support their own bids.

"If the DPP doesn't rectify its nomination procedures to avoid influence of nominal members, the quality of the party's makeup will fall just as its administrative skills are improving" said Chen.

Membership quality is not as easy as it sounds. Rather the main concern is to keep out opportunistic KMT renegades seeking new influence, some of whom are likely to have "black gold" (黑金) backgrounds.

Take independent lawmaker Tsai Hau (蔡豪) for example. Tsai is reported to have a vote bank of 4,800 DPP members in Pingtung County and is likely to be actively involved in the nominations for DPP candidates in next year's elections for legislators and county commissioners.

Acknowledging this fact, DPP chairman Lin Yi-Hsiung (林義雄) showed his anxiety at a recent dinner with reporters.

"The situation [of nominal members] is worsening," he said. "but their influence will be diluted if large numbers of independent members join and party membership can exceed one million," he said.

However, how quickly the DPP might reach such a size, if at all, is anyone's guess.

"DPP factions plan to amend party nominating regulations to avoid members with sullied records influencing nomination and internal election procedures," Kuo said.

The plan, Kuo said, would lower the weighting of the voting of party members and increase that of the opinion survey rate in candidate selection.

Another resolution has been advocated by legislator Shen Fu-hsiung (沈富雄), namely to let the government hold the primary election instead of the party, much like the system in the US.