With the year-end local-government elections approaching, the idea of a "new Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) movement" could be interpreted as campaign rhetoric by the party's younger generation, but it also reflects the party's growing internal divisions since taking power, a problem that needs a timely cure, political analysts said.
While responding to voters' questions about the DPP forfeiting its ideals and the government's barely satisfactory performance, the party's candidate for Taipei County commissioner, Luo Wen-jia (羅文嘉), and former legislator Tuan Yi-kang (段宜康), last week proposed the party launch a "new DPP movement." They argued the party should closely examine problems that have developed over the past six years.
Spirit
Luo and Tuan said the DPP has to rekindle its founding spirit and passion, which they claimed has waned since the DPP came to power in 2000.
Both urged President Chen Shui-bian (
"It is apparent that Luo's proposal is made out of campaign considerations, with Luo aiming to highlight his reform image within the DPP and win more neutral voters," Hsu Yung-ming (
Hsu noted that, according to recent polls, Luo and his opponent, Chou Hsi-wei (
"Luo's new DPP movement might help differentiate him from the DPP's older generation and increase voter recognition to a certain degree," Hsu said. "Bringing up reform issues will inevitably trigger a series of conflicts within the DPP's factions; whether the movement will be effective remains to be seen," Hsu said.
Although Luo has faced vehement criticism from DPP lawmakers and senior members over his comments, the idea of the "new DPP movement" shows that the DPP is at a point where it needs to look at its political stances and governing policies, Hsu said.
DPP Legislator Wang Tuoh (王拓), who on Monday announced he would withdraw from the Keelung mayoral election, agreed with Hsu's points. He said he felt deeply that the party has been in need of a profound self-examination since taking power.
Internal reform
"To be frank, I think the DPP has to reform itself first if it really wants to conduct reform within the governmental departments," Wang said.
Wang said he had withdrawn from the Keelung race partly because he saw that DPP supporters' passion was flagging, because the government failed once again to fulfill public expectations. He had a hard time arousing people's enthusiasm for the party, he said.
"Some of the government's inappropriate policy-making and inadequate distribution of resources has let our supporters down and made them distrustful of the government," Wang said.
Chin Heng-wei (金恆煒), editor-in-chief of Contemporary Monthly magazine, said that the biggest problem for the DPP is that it has failed to meet public expectations that it would eradicate the party-state system left behind by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT). Additionally, many old government injustices have not been corrected since the DPP became the ruling party, he said.
"The DPP did not transform its structure and it seems to have maintained the mindset of an opposition party," Chin said.
"The new DPP movement might be a chance for the DPP to scrutinize its problems and find a cure for them," Chin added.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods