The Sept. 17 deadline for independent candidates to register for next year’s presidential election has passed, and Taiwanese voters can now focus on the narrowed field of candidates and the issues.
And yet, while one admires Taiwan’s steadily maturing democracy, it also demonstrates a potential for strange and surprising swings.
In the past, voters have certainly shown perceptive brilliance in sorting out the wheat from the chaff to protect their democracy. Still, just when things seem normal, they throw caution to the winds and almost search for vague, but dramatic, opportunistic flags to follow.
Multiple factors influence such political drama and swings.
One example is the “I’m here and available factor.” This bit of drama is traditionally favored by candidates who feel that their rank and/or talents should result in obvious acclamation. They might also not want to risk losing a primary.
While it can be a way to test the waters, it also places a burden on their loyal followers to either nominate them by acclamation or beg them to run.
This results in continued and complicated drama, especially when more than one such candidate is in the race, as happened this year with an unusual triumvirate.
Most “available” were Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Wang Jin-pyng (王金平), Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) and Hon Hai Precision Industry Co founder Terry Gou (郭台銘).
Wang indicated he would run if asked. Ko indicated interest and went so far as to form the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), but then stopped short of being its presidential candidate.
Gou ran in the KMT primary and placed second. Yet after losing, he did not support the winner, Kaohsiung Mayor Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜). Instead he lingered in the wings.
Was he waiting to see if the KMT might switch to him as Han began slipping in the polls? Was he hoping the demand would be great enough that he could run as an independent? No one knows, as he dropped out on the last possible day.
Nonetheless, all three kept the media and pundits buzzing for weeks on end and Ko’s parents even caused a stir when they “almost” registered him as a “last-minute” candidate on Sept. 17.
Ironically, together these three would have made a very strong, formidable team, one that could attract many votes and possibly win. However, the question remained how could supporters of each bring them together and who would lead?
None of the three, of course, wanted the thankless job of vice president, which left little room where all three could be a team.
A related factor adding to drama is the “LY factor” — the way that parties strategically secure seats in the Legislative Yuan.
By the two-vote system, 34 of the 113 seats in the legislature are proportionately allotted to political parties that get at least 5 percent of the party vote in a legislative election. After voting for a specific candidate, voters then vote for a party to be represented in the legislature.
This also can create numerous dramatic and strategic entries. James Soong (宋楚瑜) has repeatedly run for president, first as an independent in 2000, after the KMT did not chose him as its candidate, and then for the People First Party (PFP), which he founded after the losing the 2000 election, in the 2012 presidential race — not so much because he anticipated winning, but rather to keep his party in the public eye and so help it gain legislative seats.
In the 2016 elections, the PFP won three legislator-at-large seats.
Nomenclature also has its part in Taiwanese politics and candidates must be selectively careful on how they use the words “unification” and “independence.”
However, those words can take on positive value if the party hopes that they will add to their “party vote.”
Thus, in 2000, the dwindling pro-unification New Party selected outspoken, but nonmember, political commentator Li Ao (李敖) as its presidential candidate hoping he would draw attention to it.
For January’s election, the pro-independence Formosa Alliance chose prominent former vice president Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) as its presidential candidate.
As former president Chen Shui-bian’s (陳水扁) vice president, Lu is clearly pro-Taiwan. Her late entry can be expected to boost that party’s chances of getting seats in the legislature.
These dramatic moves and posturing are what add spice and speculation to Taiwan’s politics.
However, there is another factor, the “amnesia factor,” which is more dangerous. This is seen where voters seem to have no memory of the past, even the past decade.
When Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) was president (2008 to 2016), he pushed very hard for close economic links with China via the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA). The ECFA contained numerous items such as reduced tariffs, “early harvest” selections, jobs created, etc., and was signed into law in 2010.
At that point, several trade deals had already been worked out and Taiwan was benefiting from the early harvest, where it initially was getting the lion’s share. Cross-strait links had been established. Chen Yunlin (陳雲林), then chairman of China’s Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits, had visited several times. Chinese tourists were starting to come in. All in all, things were going smoothly.
Yet, the public protested that the legislature should not give blanket approval to all ECFA items at once, but rather it should go over them one by one. The final chapter for the ECFA was the Sunflower movement protest in 2014.
Fast-forward to the present, where Han runs simply on the vacuous promise that he will make everyone rich. He offers few specifics, while at the same time, China’s “one country, two systems” promise to Hong Kong is proving to be a lie.
How then could voters forget the protest over a well-planned ECFA and somehow believe the vacuous promises of the inexperienced Han, who has a penchant for mahjong?
It is as if they believe that Han can wave a magic wand, pull an economic rabbit out of his hat and everyone will get rich.
This amnesia remains and this is what is most troubling.
Finally, the “lint/gossip factor” adds its bit to the political drama.
The validity of President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) 1984 doctoral degree from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), like former US president Barack Obama’s birth certificate, is being questioned.
Consider the reality of the moment.
Taiwan is an embattled democracy. The enemy, China, is constantly at the gates.
China has shown its true colors in its broken promises with Hong Kong. With impunity, it disrupts the cross-strait “status quo” by “poaching” Taiwan’s allies.
It also continues to insist that Taiwan accept the shackles of the bogus “1992 consensus” where Taiwan is part of either side’s concept of China.
Tsai has served for almost four years as leader against this enemy. She has kept it at bay, while also keeping the economy stable.
However, to some, she does not fit the “purity” of their perception. They would rather turn the nation over to “mahjong” Han than surrender that perception.
Tsai remains on the ramparts. The LSE has repeatedly said that her degree is valid. That does not matter.
Sitting in their comfortable armchairs, and ignoring the mud on the opposition’s jacket, the protesters continue to believe that they have found the “disqualifying” lint on their leader’s sleeve and the gossip goes on.
Such is the drama of Taiwanese politics.
And Gou? He could still technically be drafted by the KMT, which did pull the rug out from under its first 2016 candidate, former KMT chairwoman Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱). Would the KMT do it twice?
No, Taiwan’s democracy is not perfect, but then, if one wishes to make comparisons in perfection, the US has problems with the dystopian universe that US President Donald Trump is creating. And to coin a familiar phrase, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson “bumbles on” in the UK.
Jerome Keating is a writer based in Taipei.
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