The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) is at a crossroads. Senior party members have kept quiet since its defeat in Saturday's presidential election, but calls for an autopsy of the result and reform have been rife.
President Chen Shui-bian (
Vice President Annette Lu (
One of the immediate changes the party will see is the election of a new leader. Since it is customary for the party chairman to bear responsibility for an election loss by resigning, the DPP is expected to elect an acting chairman today to replace Hsieh. That person will lead the party through a tough time, and the task will be passed on to a new leader on May 25 when the party will select a new chairman.
The party has been losing ground since Chen and Lu won re-election in 2004. The party has lost almost every major election, except for the mayorship of Kaohsiung City, the DPP-controlled area with the highest administrative status.
Following the DPP's losses in the legislative elections in January, the political miracle Hsieh had wished for failed to materialize. The people of Taiwan cast an apparent vote of no confidence in the Chen administration, which was marred by corruption scandals and lackluster performance.
Worried about the party's future, DPP Legislator Lee Chun-yee (
Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chu (
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) triumphed in the election, not because it staged a successful reform program, but because the DPP had failed the public, she said.
While the party is still divided over who should take over at its helm, Chao Yung-mau (
To assist the new party chief in the reform process, Chao proposed creating a reform commission to study the performance of the Chen administration, the successes and failures of past elections, effective measures to keep the KMT administration in check and strategies for winning the next election.
Hwang Shiow-duan (黃秀端), a political science professor at Soochow University, said the new party chief did not necessarily have to be the DPP's candidate for the next presidential election, but had to be able to listen to all sides, integrate different opinions and implement reforms.
Allen Houng (洪裕宏), an executive member of the Taipei Society, said that the DPP's new leader should be able to lead it to victory in next year's local government elections, or the party would be doomed.
It is important for the party to examine why it lost the presidential election and set a new course, he said.
"Over the past eight years, the DPP united under a particular person rather than a political ideal," Houng said. "That's one thing that the party must work on."
In addition to a new party leadership, there is talk about a generational shift: retiring the "Formosa generation" and "lawyer generation" and handing over power to the student movement generation.
Chao said that it was not a bad idea to pass the torch to the next generation, as this might help to create a new image for the DPP and turn a crisis into an opportunity.
Next year's local government elections would be a sound testing ground for the party's greenhorns, he said.
Hwang agreed that next year's elections would be a good opportunity for the DPP to regain its political influence, but said it was not necessary to put the older generation out to pasture, because the DPP leadership was younger than that of the KMT.
Houng questioned the relevance of a generational shift, saying the party should rather focus on looking for someone with leadership skills and charisma.
There are also calls for an adjustment of the party's path, with some trumpeting the idea of moving the DPP to the middle ground.
Chao said a course correction was worth considering, because voters have used their ballots in recent elections to show their displeasure with the DPP's manipulation of political ideology and stoking of ethnic tension.
However, Chao emphasized that the DPP should not forsake its insistence on Taiwan-centered consciousness.
Hwang expressed the same opinion, saying that the DPP could be more practical in its cross-strait economic policy in an era characterized by globalization.
Houng said he was disappointed that the DPP did not make any progress in its discourse on the identity issue.
He said he would like to see the DPP develop a newer and more sophisticated theory about how Taiwan can protect its sovereignty and position itself in a world that is more complicated than it was in the Cold War era.
A year-long renovation of Taipei’s Bangka Park (艋舺公園) began yesterday, as city workers fenced off the site and cleared out belongings left by homeless residents who had been living there. Despite protests from displaced residents, a city official defended the government’s relocation efforts, saying transitional housing has been offered. The renovation of the park in Taipei’s Wanhua District (萬華), near Longshan Temple (龍山寺), began at 9am yesterday, as about 20 homeless people packed their belongings and left after being asked to move by city personnel. Among them was a 90-year-old woman surnamed Wang (王), who last week said that she had no plans
TO BE APPEALED: The environment ministry said coal reduction goals had to be reached within two months, which was against the principle of legitimate expectation The Taipei High Administrative Court on Thursday ruled in favor of the Taichung Environmental Protection Bureau in its administrative litigation against the Ministry of Environment for the rescission of a NT$18 million fine (US$609,570) imposed by the bureau on the Taichung Power Plant in 2019 for alleged excess coal power generation. The bureau in November 2019 revised what it said was a “slip of the pen” in the text of the operating permit granted to the plant — which is run by Taiwan Power Co (Taipower) — in October 2017. The permit originally read: “reduce coal use by 40 percent from Jan.
China might accelerate its strategic actions toward Taiwan, the South China Sea and across the first island chain, after the US officially entered a military conflict with Iran, as Beijing would perceive Washington as incapable of fighting a two-front war, a military expert said yesterday. The US’ ongoing conflict with Iran is not merely an act of retaliation or a “delaying tactic,” but a strategic military campaign aimed at dismantling Tehran’s nuclear capabilities and reshaping the regional order in the Middle East, said National Defense University distinguished adjunct lecturer Holmes Liao (廖宏祥), former McDonnell Douglas Aerospace representative in Taiwan. If
‘SPEY’ REACTION: Beijing said its Eastern Theater Command ‘organized troops to monitor and guard the entire process’ of a Taiwan Strait transit China sent 74 warplanes toward Taiwan between late Thursday and early yesterday, 61 of which crossed the median line in the Taiwan Strait. It was not clear why so many planes were scrambled, said the Ministry of National Defense, which tabulated the flights. The aircraft were sent in two separate tranches, the ministry said. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Thursday “confirmed and welcomed” a transit by the British Royal Navy’s HMS Spey, a River-class offshore patrol vessel, through the Taiwan Strait a day earlier. The ship’s transit “once again [reaffirmed the Strait’s] status as international waters,” the foreign ministry said. “Such transits by
RSS