Every time an election is around the corner, politicians go crazy. On the battlefield, politicians of every shade — blue, green, white and orange — wave their political banners and shout their slogans.
In the past few years, many media outlets have given up on neutrality and good manners, rolled up their sleeves and thrown themselves into the brawl as invective, fake news and false accounts fly.
This year, pro-China media also want to be part of it all. It is not very strange that the public is going crazy, or that the word “chaos” (亂) has been named Taiwan’s word of the year.
A look at the diehard fans of the candidates makes one wonder if even “chaos” is enough to describe what is going on: They are emotional and righteous while going out of their way to highlight the special abilities of their political idol and protect them.
Every day, they follow in the steps of their “master” or promote them on Facebook. They do not even care if they breach Facebook rules and have their posts deleted — they can always open up a new account to promote their “love interest.”
If only they could drink a forgetfulness potion and calm down.
Then again, perhaps this die-hard fan and media outlet free-for-all is just an exciting stage in the democratization process. The one thing that makes me uneasy are the non-governmental organizations (NGO) that continue to maintain an air of neutrality.
Surely the civic organizations that have kept a distance from politics and claimed not to have a political position over the past 20 or 30 years because they do not want to make their position known are an odd Taiwanese post-democratization phenomenon?
Is it that Taiwan’s democracy still is not mature enough or that NGOs do not want to offend the die-hard fans of any candidate?
I still remember how NGOs or civic organizations failed to be liberated, despite martial law being lifted in 1987. With the memory of the Kaohsiung Incident, also known as the Formosa Incident, and the White Terror era still vivid in their minds, they continued to avoid politics and initiatives, and only talked about helping people.
As democracy continued to progress, civic organizations have, over the past 10 or 20 years, begun to use elections to bring up the issues they care about, such as gender equality among the grand justices, women voting for women, public kindergartens, signature drives against nuclear power, social welfare budgets, social housing and so on, and they have even asked candidates for political office to issue pledges and sign their petitions.
Still, not a single civic organization has declared which party or candidate it supports.
In elections over the past few years, civic organizations have gradually come to understand the importance of participating in politics and have begun to promote their own members as candidates for political office, for example by being included as nominations for legislator-at-large lists.
They have also thrown their support behind candidates from small political parties, such as those on the combined list of candidates promoted by the Green Party Taiwan and the Social Democratic Party.
The good thing is that several young leaders of civic groups have entered the fray ahead of the legislative elections next month. Whether or not they have discussed it with their organizations, people — such as Cheng Ling-fang (成令方) for the Taiwan Statebuilding Party, Chen Chiao-hua (陳椒華) for the New Power Party, Wu Yu-chin (吳玉琴) for the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), Teng Hui-wen (鄧惠文) and Kao Cheng-yan (高成炎) of the Green Party Taiwan, Chen Wan-hui (陳琬惠) for the Taiwan People’s Party, Shen Tsai-ying (沈采穎) of the New Party, Eva Teng (滕西華) of the People First Party (PFP) and Yeh Yu-lan (葉毓蘭) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) — are joining the legislator-at-large lists and expressing their own long-held beliefs.
Civic organizations or their leaders should be applauded for pinning their hopes on political influence. This is a big step forward compared with their silence of civic organizations 20 or 30 years ago.
From having been passively enlisted to working to get members on at-large lists or to run for local government office, NGOs that do not receive financial aid are making a move to gain political influence.
Frankly speaking though, political participation by individual civic organizations is not enough to control political parties, as the influence of any third force is still too weak.
Jan. 11’s elections are crucial to Taiwan’s future, in particular the presidential election. Civic organizations are of course concerned, and perhaps even worried.
They are also concerned about whether the candidates will insist on democracy, freedom, human rights and their cross-strait position in the face of the cut-throat competition, as no one wants Taiwan to end up like Hong Kong.
At this moment, civic organizations are moving beyond their issues, starting to speak up and are no longer only daring take a moderate, neutral position; we will scrutinize political parties’ values and their position on cross-strait relations, and speak up for everyone to hear.
The KMT used to be the biggest party and was firm on its anti-communist stance, but today it is becoming increasingly pro-China.
Neither its presidential or legislative candidates have come clean about their position on democracy, freedom, human rights or cross-strait relations, and they are constantly saying the wrong things.
For example, on gender issues the party continues to exhibit its longstanding patriarchal attitudes. It is not a big surprise that more voters and civic organizations are calling for the party to disappear; it is only natural.
As for PFP Chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜), who is also his party’s presidential candidate, he recently issued quite a touching advertisement.
Still, although the ad says that “democracy and freedom are in our DNA,” his party has been around for 20 years, but is still run by its founding chairman. It raises the question of when it plans to start implementing all that “democracy in its DNA.”
Soong must also clarify his position on cross-strait relations and whether he really has expressed support for the “one country, two systems” model.
Finally, there is the DPP. Its candidate, President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), is the incumbent and a woman, so she has an advantage from the start. She has performed quite well on democracy and human rights issues, including same-sex marriage and the establishment of a national human rights protection commission under the Control Yuan.
This is encouraging, but civic organizations have further demands for the government: In particular, it could be even more courageous regarding cross-strait issues, such as by implementing a refugee law as part of its concern for human rights in Hong Kong. It should also do more on issues of global concern such as climate change.
With less than a month until the presidential and legislative elections, as a civic organization, the Garden of Hope Foundation will continue to constantly scrutinize the political parties and eventually endorse one of the presidential candidates, because neutrality is no longer an option.
Chi Hui-jung is the chief executive officer of the Garden of Hope Foundation.
Translated by Perry Svensson
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