Chang Jung-wei (張榮味), who recently took office as Yunlin County Commissioner, officially returned to the KMT yesterday, after almost three years in the wilderness. This event will not come as as surprise to those who insinuated -- in some cases quite loudly -- before last November's by-election that Chang had cut a private deal with the KMT that, if victorious, he would throw his support to the party in the presidential election. On the contrary, the conspiracy theorists have been roundly vindicated.
We can only speculate on the terms of the deal, and this may not be the forum to do so. However, the case is nonetheless interesting for what it shows about the relationship between the KMT party headquarters and Taiwan's notorious local factions.
In the "good old days" under martial law, the KMT kept the factions rather firmly under its control. In return for accepting the direction of party headquarters, the factions were rewarded with spoils -- public offices, contracts, etc. -- on a rotational basis.
With the coming of democratization, this cozy relationship has been fundamentally altered. First, the KMT simply possesses less raw power at its disposal; it is not nearly as able to coerce local factions to do its bidding. Second, President Lee Teng-hui (李登輝), in order to win the power struggle against the old guard, called on the local factions for support. He was successful, of course, but the price was increasing the self-confidence of the factions, and, not insignificantly, the opening of higher levels of government to their members. It became much more common for faction leaders to become county chiefs, provincial assembly members, and legislators. Third, the creation of a plausible opposition party, especially at the local level, caused the factions to begin to hedge their bets, or to threaten the KMT with the withdrawal of support.
In short, the autonomy of the factions has steadily increased. To date, the primary response of the KMT has been to apply its vast financial resources. As we see, this is usually successful, but involves a more complex process of bargaining.
Chang quit the party in 1997, when the nomination went to the head of a rival faction, Su Wen-hsiung (蘇文雄). He then ran as an independent, and only narrowly lost. When Su's untimely death triggered last year's by-election, he decided to run again as an independent, saving his return to the party until now, when his bargaining power as incumbent commissioner is far greater.
Chang's story is by no means unique. The drama has also played elsewhere. In both Miaoli and Pingtung Counties, former commissioners Ho Chih-hui (何智輝) and Wu Tse-yuan (伍澤元) had both left the KMT in fits of pique, also over nominations, and returned after winning office running as independents.
The local factions are a serious blight on Taiwan's immature democracy. By relying on traditional patron-client relationships, vote-buying, and even in many cases links to organized crime, they bring dishonor and discredit to the political process. By retaining their autonomy from control of either party, they weaken both parties, hindering them from performing the functions expected of modern political parties.
The good news is that this style of politics is fading: it has receded steadily in the face of urbanization, higher education, and affluence. In our major cities, the phenomenon has largely disappeared, as indeed it has done in other countries where it was once prevalent -- notably the notorious machine politics of the US.
The bad news is that there is still a lot of mischief that the factions can perform in the short term. The risk of systemic retardation of Taiwan's democratic development cannot be ruled out. As James Madison wrote over two centuries ago, "the causes of faction cannot be removed, and relief is only to be sought in the means of controlling its effects."
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