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Confirmation amounted to surrender: Observers

The Legislative Yuan's confirmation of Wu Rong-ming (吳容明) as vice president of the Examination Yuan on Friday was a victory for President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) -- but it also served to weaken the opposition's ability to stand in the way of Chen and his administration.

"The People First Party's (PFP) decision not to oppose Wu's nomination has weakened the party's strategy of treating Chen's administration as a `false authority,' and deepened disagreements in the pan-blue alliance," said Hu Wen-huei (胡文輝), a political columnist.

Hu said that the president's decision to promote Wu -- who served as deputy governor of Taiwan Province while PFP Chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜) was governor -- not only created serious divisions within the PFP but also sparked conflict between the PFP and its ally, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT).

Hu said that the opposition had in effect surrendered to Chen.

"Since the PFP and the KMT both endorsed the nomination, opposition legislators have to temporarily tone down their attacks on the legitimacy of the Democratic Progressive Party's (DPP) government," Hu said.

Suggesting that the DPP committed election fraud and might have staged the election-eve assassination attempt against Chen, the opposition parties have refused to accept their defeat in the presidential election and have strongly protested Chen's new Cabinet.

Lin Chin-chang (林錦昌), who led the team that prepared Chen's inauguration address, and who has been appointed as a senior advisor to the National Security Council, said that the nomination was a gesture of peace and reconciliation from rational opposition politicians -- and it also showed the president' sincerity about wanting to move past disputes associated with the election.

"The president can seize this opportunity to allow his Cabinet to move forward with its policies, which have been shunted aside for a long time in the Legislative Yuan," Lin said.

Saying that the Examination Yuan is actually a "ready-to-be-abolished" organization, DPP legislative caucus whip Tsai Huang-liang (蔡煌瑯) said that Chen had expended very little capital to win a large political reward.

"In the future, when Chen tries to express goodwill to KMT members, especially members of the so-called `localization faction,' and even seeks cooperation with certain KMT heavyweights, the PFP will have no excuse for opposing him," Tsai said.

"Such a situation would benefit the DPP in the year-end legislative elections," Tsai said.

Lin Chin-chang said that the confirmation also reflected the president's view on how to exercise his duty in his second term.

"Because of the pressure he was under to win re-election, Chen during his first term devoted a lot of time to grassroots politics and attended a great number of public events," Lin said, going on to explain that Chen will devote himself more to international affairs in his second term.
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