Cooperation between the KMT and People First Party (PFP) seems to be underway following a recent secret meeting between their chairmen -- Lien Chan
The PFP is a hollow party, despite the 4.6 million votes Soong garnered in last year's presidential election. It needs the KMT's resources and talent to maintain the facade of being Taiwan's third-largest party during the year-end elections and to avoid the embarrassment of not having a candidate in many constituencies -- thereby becoming a national laughing stock. The KMT has the most solid local power base of any political party, but it was totally defeated by Lien's sorry tally of less than 3 million votes in the 2000 election. The KMT therefore has to cooperate with the PFP in order to prevent a hemorrhage of votes and a repeat of its supporters voting for Soong. The KMT will also need to ally with the PFP to fight against the DPP's rule even after the elections. Because each need the other's warmth, these two parties have no choice but to grin and bear each other's quills.
Still, there are many areas in which cooperation will prove very difficult -- unless the parties merge. For example, there is room for cooperation in the county/city elections, but when it comes to legislative elections, the voter bases of the two parties seriously overlap. In this sense, they are each other's arch-enemy -- a bigger threat than even the DPP. Any attempt at KMT-PFP cooperation in the county/city elections is sure to bog down both parties' bids in the legislative elections.
The DPP isn't worried by the apparent love-fest, and in fact would like to see it happen. The farther the KMT floats away from Lee Teng-hui's (李登輝) path and cooperates with the staunchly pro-unificationist Soong, the more it alienates Lee's old supporters. A confrontation between the pro-China opposition alliance and the pro-Taiwan DPP will simply help split the vote to the DPP's advantage. Even if the DPP cannot gain an absolute majority in the legislature, a clear-cut ethnic divide in the polls will help it lure pro-Taiwan legislators from the KMT later on -- which in turn could lead to the building of a ruling alliance.
To facilitate partisan cooperation, the KMT and PFP want to amend the Law on Local Government Systems
This may be good for the KMT-PFP alliance, but it will be bad for local government. When a commissioner or mayor and his deputy hail from different parties or different local factions, Taiwan politics will become little more than a division of political spoils. For their own political future, strong and ambitious deputies will only work to build their own power bases and prepare to unseat their boss, who will be biting his or her nails every day and wondering when the end will come. Local politics will then fall into a state of endless underhanded dealings and power struggles -- certainly not a happy scenario.
The leaders of the KMT, PFP and New Party are set to hold a summit this week to talk about cooperation. But unless the three can merge into one, they will be left licking their wounds once they are done using each other. The three are united solely by their desire to fight the DPP. Such a one-night stand -- far from being a union of political ideas -- will only bring further political chaos to Taiwan.
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