With the DPP's success in last year's legislative elections, Premier Yu Shyi-kun's accession to power and the current economic upturn, the two-year-old DPP government has achieved a modicum of stability and with it an opportunity to strive for continued national development. Despite these favorable circumstances, however, the government's top policymakers are creating a new political crisis with a series of actions that shows a disregard for public opinion.
The DPP leadership has reached a consensus on the president serving as party chairman and on March 31, President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) during a public Internet chat session said, "I am also a party member and I also have the responsibility to revive the party's spirit." The statement was probably made in preparation for his assumption of the party chairmanship.
Such talk of "reviving the party spirit" brings the authoritarian era all too vividly to mind.
In practice, it is unthinkable that a party should control government at this stage in Taiwan's democratization process.
How can we possibly have a situation in which presidential policies must secure prior party approval? If the president's decisions are endorsed by the party because of the power of the party chairman, then the DPP's word becomes law and this should not be possible.
What the president says is also what the party chairman says, no more discussion allowed. Is this what is meant by the synchronization of party and government? Let's assume, for the sake of argument, that it is. Why then, did Hong Chi-chang (
It seems inevitable now that the DPP will indeed merge the presidency with the party
chairmanship and totally disregard dissenting voices. Two opinion polls conducted early last month showed simple majorities were opposed to the move. One showed that 42 percent of respon-dents were against the move, while 35 percent were in favor. The other showed 48 percent against and 25 percent approval.
The question of the president doubling as DPP chairman should not be decided by the party alone. The decision should take full account of the nation's opinion.
If the president doesn't consider public opinion as a whole, conflict will inevitably result, especially since it will bring the president into violation of the election promise that he made in public on March 17, 2000, when he said that he would take no part in party affairs during his presidency.
I am given to understand that the prosecutors' recent search of the Next magazine offices and the seizure of copies of the magazines in connection with the National Security Bureau's secret funds scandal, have yielded nothing to support criminal charges. Even if journalists and media organizations are charged with criminal offenses in the case, therefore, the courts may well acquit them.
If they convict them, however, then more serious protest is inevitable. The government's image has already been seriously tarnished. The president keeps repeating that neither press freedom nor national security are unlimited. He has recently even tried to stress the importance of freedom of the press, but without allaying either domestic or international concerns about the state of the nation's press.
Government intervention in media activities is doomed to fail, but amounts to a big step backwards for a liberal democracy.
The DPP, the Cabinet and the Legislative Yuan are all protecting former president Lee Teng-hui (
On the other hand, if Lee really did break the law, the DPP may be able to protect him for a while, but it may not succeed in making the issue disappear. This issue also has a bearing on the current dispute between the ruling and opposition parties, but respect for legal and rational procedures should be the only way to solve this complex political conflict.
The opposition has continually criticized the DPP for appointing its own people, out of party political concerns, to the leadership of state-run enterprises. Even though some of these claims have been exaggerated, some appointments have, with good reason, raised eyebrows.
In the past, party loyalty was not overly emphasized among people taking up leadership positions in state-run enterprises, and most such appointees were not DPP members or officials. But now the government has appointed DPP Secretary-General Wu Nai-jen (吳乃仁) to the post of chairman of Taiwan Sugar Corp (台糖) and ex-legislator Cheng Pao-ching (鄭寶清) as chairman of Taiwan Salt Industrial Corp (臺鹽).
They also want to appoint the very controversial former KMT legislator Tseng Chen-nung (
It seems that the DPP leadership isn't concerned about the use of such old-style political rewards, when to do so is both unreasonable and dishonest.
After experiencing a difficult first year in power, the government was finally presented with an opportunity for change with the convening of the Economic Development Advisory Conference. Even more unexpectedly, it even received legitimate support for government reform.
Successful government reform would without doubt be the DPP's most important contribution to the nation and it would also bring to Taiwan an opportunity for aggressive overall development. The drafting of the government reform plan, which is nearing completion, however, is causing increasing controversy, with even DPP legislators freely criticizing it.
Looking closer, it is obvious that there is insufficient impetus for reform, leading to compromises, and the final draft proposal will therefore be incomplete and lacking in vision.
All of this gives great cause for concern for the development of the political situation in general. There are, of course, reasons why all these things happen, the main one being the problems with decision-making mechanisms inside the DPP government. The leadership has to date not planned any reasonable and effective mechanisms for the initiation of reform.
The stumbling blocks on the political road have already been cleared away by the public, but the government is actually put-ting them back, blocking their own way. The public has in fact given Chen and the DPP opportunity upon opportunity, and they basically still believe that the DPP is a party with the will and ability to reform.
A public opinion poll conducted early last month shows that a majority of people still believe that the DPP places importance on reform, social justice and public opinion, that it is the party with the most vitality, and that it far exceeds the other parties in these respects.
But the DPP government's recent actions fly in the face of public opinion, and may soon disappoint its supporters and an absolute majority of the general public.
Chiu Hei-yuan is a research fellow at the Institute of Socio-logy of the Academia Sinica.
Translated by Perry Svensson
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