In the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) darkest moment, its chairman has to shoulder a heavy burden rather than power.
Winning nearly 70 percent of the vote in the chairperson by-election, KMT Legislator Johnny Chiang (江啟臣) — at 48, the youngest KMT chair ever — became the leader of the pan-blue camp.
His election shows that KMT members are yearning for a younger, consolidated and reformed party, but for Chiang, the party’s old bad habits, difficult cross-strait relations, a collapsing party organization, unfavorable public opinion, its financial difficulties and a generation gap are all closely linked.
How will he lead and revitalize this century-old party, whose support rating has dropped far below 20 percent? This is his only task during his 14-month chairmanship.
Naturally, no one can shoulder such a huge responsibility alone. Chiang’s success would be the KMT’s success, and his failure would be its failure.
The party must abandon its “messiah complex” and stop looking for a savior. Instead it should wholeheartedly support Chiang’s reforms. This will be a collective battle that the party’s members must win together.
Since the KMT is in a state of disunity, how can it fight a collective battle? On the day of the party’s defeats in the Jan. 11 elections, some young members and I proposed a three-step reform process to the KMT leadership: establish a reform committee dedicated to reform, hold a national conference on party reform to build consensus, and hold an ad hoc national congress to pass reform plans proposed at the conference.
Such a process deserves to be taken into consideration. It would not only reduce Chiang’s burden, but also consolidate and maximize the party’s internal strength.
It could also run parallel with Chiang’s reforms and a collective leadership platform.
To create a collective leadership, Chiang should establish a system to transform the proposed collective leadership platform into a formal decisionmaking body.
With the authorization of the KMT Central Standing Committee, he could follow the example of the party’s 1950 Central Reconstruction Committee, which temporarily replaced the Central Standing Committee’s role to accelerate the reform process.
With the current number of Central Standing Committee members, regulations and membership representation, it would be difficult for it to take charge of party reform.
Holding a national conference on party reform would relieve the conflicts caused by a polarization of values within the party.
Moreover, although all sides have focused their discussion on the KMT’s cross-strait policy, the question of how to resolve the gap between the party and the young generation is going to be the key indicator to the success or failure of its reform efforts.
This is why Chiang emphasized the severe aging of the current party membership structure in his by-election campaign.
The reasons for the KMT’s inability to attract young people are complex.
It is a result of the absence of a young perspective in the party’s values, an environment that is unfavorable to the development of young people, the party’s malfunctioning youth training system and the absence of friendly promotion and nomination mechanisms.
The KMT could propose a new platform resolution, implement a collective leadership, reconstruct its youth unit and allocate part of the government’s party subsidies to youth affairs.
It could also promote talented young people as deputies to its department heads, adopt a weighting scheme for young people when nominating candidates for elections, as well as appoint young talent as candidates in unfavorable electoral districts.
Perhaps then the KMT would be able to resolve some of the difficulties facing its young members.
Chen Kuan-an is an assistant research fellow at the National Policy Foundation, the KMT’s think tank.
Translated by Eddy Chang
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