"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.
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