Independent presidential candidate James Soong (
As a result, he said, many human rights violations and regrettable incidents had taken place.
According to Soong, under the KMT's monopolization of political resources, the state machinery and even the media could not remain neutral and objective; and the appropriation of funds was used as a tool for commanding KMT party mem-bers.
He went on to say that not only did these practices violate the transparency and equitable principles of democratic parties, but the inability to legitimately regulate the use of public funds further shaped a culture under which the power of the wealthy defeated the established system.
Soong said this is why past reform efforts had always ended up running counter to reform.
His comments made great sense. If Soong had believed this 20 years ago and had the courage to make it public, he could have become a hero of reform.
Instead he is unable to clear up suspicions that he embezzled funds and wired large sums of money to the US.
Under the circumstances, it is hard to believe either in his sincerity or in his ability to engage in self-examination and reform.
The public has long known of the problems within the KMT pointed out by Soong.
Soong, who worked in the government's and the KMT's information offices and served as the KMT's Secretary-general and Taiwan provincial governor, was himself in charge of sup-pressing freedom of speech and organizing vote buying for a long period of time.
If Soong was not aware at the time of all the problems he has now innumerated, then he is clearly quite unobservant and lacks the ability to engage in self-examination.
If Soong did know about these problems all along but did not demand reforms, does that mean if he had continued to occupy high government office, he would not have had any reasons to demand reform?
Soong waited until he was out of office to talk about reform.
Why should people believe he is sincere about reform, rather than simply seeking a greater and more powerful office?
Even if he truly wants to reform, his ability and methods are questionable.
He said that the state machinery, swayed by the ruling party, is incapable of remaining neutral and therefore he, as someone without a political party, is the most capable of completing the reforms.
In essence he says a group of people such as the KMT is incapable of doing a good job in running the state -- that a sage leader such as himself, alone, can do a better job.
There are indeed many problems with political parties.
However, each country minimizes these problems with a balance of power between the different branches of government, periodic elections, alternations of the ruling party and the rule of law.
Instead of giving thought to how these mechanisms should be improved or installed, Soong wants to deal with the problems through a one-man leadership which could be characterized as virtually totalitarian.
Power corrupts.
Even if power does not corrupt a dictator, a man is limited in his ability in any event.
In view of Soong's problematic performance in terms of self-examination, observation, sincerity for reforms and dealing with money, it is just not going to work if we put him in charge of the reform process.
Chen Po-chi is a professor of economics at the National Taiwan University.
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