One Year On: Politics - Chen looks to new alliances to break year-long stalemate

After a year of clashes with the opposition-led legislature, President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) confirmed last Friday an aggressive strategy switch that will entail forming a coalition government and a majority alliance in the Legislative Yuan. Insiders say key players in the alliance will be pro-Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) members of the KMT.

Facing the predicament that opposition parties have dominated the political situation despite the DPP's position as the ruling party, Chen intends to form the alliances after the year-end legislative elections.

Reflecting on the new administration's first year in office, many have charged that Taiwan's political turmoil has seriously thwarted economic development.

Legislator and former DPP chairman Shih Ming-teh (施明德) said the root of the problem has been Chen's failure to cooperate with the opposition, instead insisting that the minority DPP counterbalance the combined majority of the three opposition parties in the legislature.

Shih has stressed several times that "continuing to stir up confrontation will only accelerate cooperation between the opposition parties, and further cause DPP policies to face repeated setbacks."

Political impasse

After recognizing their inability to break the political impasse, Chen and DPP party leaders recently began to express their willingness to team up with opposition parties. DPP Secretary General Wu Nai-jen (吳乃仁) said in April that the DPP "is willing to discuss the possibility of a coalition Cabinet with the KMT after the legislative elections."

Chen also announced at the DPP's National Party Congress on May 6 that "the DPP will unite with those from opposition parties who harbor similar ideas to compose a stable majority force." The president's comments on Friday were the first time that Chen said he will seek a coalition government.

Close aides to the president privately revealed that Chen Che-nan (陳哲男), deputy secretary-general of the Presidential Office, and some DPP faction leaders in the legislature have already made arrangements for some KMT and independent legislators to meet the president privately in an effort to seek possible models of cooperation.

A source from the Presidential Office told the Taipei Times that the DPP is primarily concentrating on some Taiwanese KMT legislators based in central and southern Taiwan, as well as some independent legislators who currently enjoy strong approval ratings.

"A coalition Cabinet is only one of the possibilities of the future cooperation between the ruling and opposition parties," said the aide, who refused to be identified.

"Especially during party-to-party negotiations, it will be difficult to reach a consensus on how to allocate Cabinet seats and whether or not [they] should sign a written agreement to jointly govern the country. [Such a move would] be a tremendous price for the DPP to pay in exchange for the alliance with opposition parties."

A senior advisor from the National Security Council told the Taipei Times that none of the three main parties will have a majority after the year-end elections. The KMT may even lose to the DPP and become the second-largest party. In such a scenario, the advisor said the KMT would inevitably face internal strife, with some factions continuing to cooperate with the People First Party's (PFP) James Soong (宋楚瑜), thereby clashing with those who might join with the DPP. This may even bring about a third split inside the KMT, the advisor speculated.