Former independent legislator Li Ao (李敖) might have dropped a bombshell when he predicted on Wednesday that the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) could lose four out of the five mayoral seats up for grabs in November’s special municipality elections.
Li might be exaggerating the plight of the KMT in a bid to gain more media exposure, but his nightmare scenario could become reality as Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) struggles on a daily basis to stop the controversy surrounding the procurements of plants, flowers and facilities for the Taipei International Flora Expo and the Xinsheng Overpass from escalating.
Hau probably never anticipated that the flora expo — an event he thought would lift the city’s international profile and serve as a major boost to his re-election bid — could become a roadblock to his ambitions.
While Hau, the Taipei City Government and KMT politicians defended the city’s procurement process, arguing that the unreasonably high prices for the items were actually reasonable because of the species obtained or the aesthetic appeal, they failed to address the core problem behind the controversy.
The shocking discrepancies in the prices exposed city officials’ inability to be responsible caretakers of the public’s interests. The issue was never how much a single sweet potato leaf or cabbage cost, but why the city government allowed the discrepancies to happen in the first place.
Instead of calling a press conference to say that some of the prices for the exposition were incredibly high because the items were being used to create works of art, the city government should have asked itself why it did not purchase more reasonably priced creations from other artists if the procurement was simply meant to showcase local creativity.
The fact that the items might be art does not justify the city government’s obvious over-spending, and its inane defence only demonstrated how obliviousness it is to the public’s feelings.
Taiwan Thinktank’s latest survey showed close to 60 percent of those polled did not accept the city government’s attempt to rationalize the price discrepancies, while up to 86 percent of the respondents believed the flora expo controversy would cost Hau his re-election. In addition, as many as 78 percent of the respondents said Hau’s handling of the crisis showed that the mayor did not understand the feelings of ordinary people.
The Chinese-language China Times’ latest opinion poll also showed that Hau has fallen behind his Democratic Progressive Party rival Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) — for the first time — by 2 percentage points, with the election just 68 days away.
The city government and KMT politicians should have considered these sentiments as warning signals, and instead of accusing the opposition of trying to stir-up trouble, they should have humbly admitted the city government’s negligence and pledged serious reform.
At the end of the day, what matters to residents of the city, and the public at large, is whether Hau, as supervisor of every branch of the city government, and his team care enough to spend every penny of taxpayers’ hard-earned money wisely and on projects that really matter.
The KMT pledged after winning the presidency and a majority of legislative seats in 2008 to be humble and “have empathy for the pain of the people.”
The KMT should never forget that all eyes have been on it since the day it made that promise.
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