Time is running short for a proposed coalition between the Social Democratic Party (SDP), the New Power Party (NPP) and the Green Party Taiwan (GPT), but further negotiations do not appear to be on the agenda in the near term, given the key players’ travel schedules.
GPT co-convener Lee Ken-cheng (李根政) said he hopes the three parties could discuss the terms of cooperation item by item, adding that there will be a definite result by the end of this month and that communication with the NPP would not be abandoned.
If the three parties intend to form a coalition to offer a list of legislator-at-large candidates under the same banner and increase their chances of reaching a stipulated 5 percent support threshold for legislator-at-large seats, they must do so by the end of this month to complete the administrative process of party registration — which generally takes two to three months — before the legislative nomination deadline in November.
However, the campaign schedules of the three parties apparently clash with each other.
NPP acting president Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) is to visit western US cities to deliver speeches and raise funds for the NPP starting on Thursday, while NPP founder and legislative candidate Freddy Lim (林昶佐) and SDP founder and legislative candidate Fan Yun (范雲) are in Pennsylvania addressing Taiwanese-American communities.
Lee plans to visit Taiwan’s outlying islands in the near future, he said.
The SDP and the GPT met to discuss a coalition last month and said in a joint statement that they hoped to form a coalition with the NPP, but many NPP members said they were not aware of the meeting in advance or of the meeting’s proceedings.
“We would like to come up with a definite conclusion by the end of July, be it coalition or not. Procrastination is not the way out,” Lee said.
A consensus must be reached about whether the parties would form a coalition or campaign separately, which would also provide voters with a clearer understanding, Lee added.
“The three parties would not be united simply for one single goal, and the parties must negotiate over the terms of cooperation item by item, including priority bills and legislator-at-large nominations,” he said.
“The GPT and SDP have reached a cooperation framework, but have not excluded possible collaboration with the NPP,” he said.
Lim said that the NPP had just finished its first round of campaigning to publicize the party’s platform, and its district legislator candidates are on tight schedules, but the NPP would continue discussing the potential partnerships with other parties, including the Democratic Progressive Party.
Huang echoed Lim’s words, saying that the NPP would exert utmost sincerity in negotiating with friendly parties.
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