The question of a realignment of political parties (
First, all political science textbooks tell us that a political party is an organization formed by a group of people sharing common political beliefs for the purpose of gaining political power and putting their political ideals into practice. Under Taiwan's past single-party political system, politicians had to follow the leadership of the KMT and exercise the utmost self-discipline in this regard for the good of their own political interests. Thus, politicians representing different positions would nevertheless coalesce behind the same banner. Since Taiwan became a multi-party political system, however, the glue that used to bring people with different viewpoints together inevitably seems to have melted away. The New Party's split from the KMT as a result of irreconcilable political differences in 1993 was an early illustration of this fact.
During the campaign leading to the presidential election in March, many politicians were forced to take sides. Since losing the election and becoming an opposition party, the KMT has lost much of its ability to attract politicians. From the angles of political and social reality, therefore, a realignment of political parties in Taiwan is indeed possible.
Next, in the event of a realignment of political parties, politicians' different ideologies, especially their pro and anti-independence stances, would be the most important internal driving force for the realignment, while winning more seats in next year's legislative election would be perhaps the most important external force.
Lastly, although the possibility of a realignment of political parties does exist, whether it will actually happen depends on the politicians' final evaluation of both the political risks inherent in and the political benefits likely to accrue from a realignment. Meanwhile, even though the high degree of political uncertainty before the next legislative election makes a realignment before the election unlikely, the fact that no party is expected to win more than half the seats in the Legislative Yuan may just drive lawmakers to form political alliances. Alliances of this nature may in the future become a norm in Taiwan's party politics.
This discussion is based on an assumption about a future split in the KMT. Before people engage in further serious discussion about a reshuffle, I strongly recommend that attention first be paid to the possibility of a future KMT split.
Wang Yeh-lih is the chairman of the political science department at Tunghai University.
Translated by Eddy Chang
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