A corruption scandal implicating six former and incumbent lawmakers has tarnished the image of all political parties involved, but none has taken more damage than the New Power Party (NPP), which has been pushed to the verge of implosion.
Taipei City councilors Lin Ying-meng (林穎孟) and Huang Yu-fen (黃郁芬) on Tuesday last week quit the party, followed by the exit of former NPP chairman Hsu Yung-ming (徐永明), one of the six implicated, and the resignation of 10 NPP Decisionmaking Committee members a day later.
Lin and Huang’s exit has greatly weakened the popularity of the party. The only remaining NPP members that have national recognition are former NPP executive chairman Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌), Kaohsiung City Councilor Huang Jie (黃捷) and legislators Chiu Hsien-chih (邱顯智), Claire Wang (王婉諭) and Chen Jiau-hua (陳椒華).
This is not the first time that the party is at risk of falling apart. Former NPP legislator Kawlo Iyun Pacidal was last year expelled from the party over allegations that her assistants had secured subsidies totaling NT$4 million (US$135,501 at the current exchange rate) from the Ministry of Economic Affairs for associations that they had set up.
The incident indirectly triggered the exits of then-NPP legislators Freddy Lim (林昶佐), now an independent legislator, and Hung Tzu-yung (洪慈庸), whose position on whether to support President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), who was seeking re-election, differed from that of members close to the party’s inner circle. This difference of opinion later that year also prompted the departure of Taipei City Councilor Lin Liang-chun (林亮君) and party member Wu Cheng (吳崢), who reportedly quit due to grievances over the NPP leadership flirting with the idea of teaming up with Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je’s (柯文哲) Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) in the Jan. 11 presidential and legislative elections.
The NPP was born out of the Sunflower movement and its predominantly young supporters who wanted to reform Taiwan’s politics. Its establishment saw the media use the term “third force.” However, its short history of less than six years is fraught with allegations of graft, infighting and conflicts over collaboration with other parties. It has let its supporters down and must choose whether to carry out systemic reforms or be absorbed by the TPP.
If it chooses the former, it must resolve the conflict between its inner circle and its members. Despite Hsu having left the NPP, the party’s inner circle largely comprises members who are close to Huang Kuo-chang, whose clique was reportedly responsible for driving away Lim, Hung and other prominent former members.
If the NPP cannot even allow all of its members to have a fair say in party affairs, its calls to establish its ideals and standards on collaborations with other parties would be nothing more than empty talk.
More importantly, it must vow to never be involved in corruption scandals again and work doubly hard to win back public trust before the local elections in November 2022.
The NPP has so far fought off the temptation of collaborating with the TPP, whose support base largely overlaps with its own. If a partnership with the TPP proves more successful than going it alone, chances are that the NPP would eventually be absorbed. The partnership would surely result in a formidable third force, but given Ko’s questionable cross-strait stance, it would not necessarily bode well for the nation.
The NPP must now contemplate its fate or join the list of Taiwan’s sidelined political parties. Its troubles have plunged the future of the third force into uncertainty.
When Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) sits down with US President Donald Trump in Beijing on Thursday next week, Xi is unlikely to demand a dramatic public betrayal of Taiwan. He does not need to. Beijing’s preferred victory is smaller, quieter and in some ways far more dangerous: a subtle shift in American wording that appears technical, but carries major strategic meaning. The ask is simple: replace the longstanding US formulation that Washington “does not support Taiwan independence” with a harder one — that Washington “opposes” Taiwan independence. One word changes; a deterrence structure built over decades begins to shift.
Taipei is facing a severe rat infestation, and the city government is reportedly considering large-scale use of rodenticides as its primary control measure. However, this move could trigger an ecological disaster, including mass deaths of birds of prey. In the past, black kites, relatives of eagles, took more than three decades to return to the skies above the Taipei Basin. Taiwan’s black kite population was nearly wiped out by the combined effects of habitat destruction, pesticides and rodenticides. By 1992, fewer than 200 black kites remained on the island. Fortunately, thanks to more than 30 years of collective effort to preserve their remaining
After Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) met Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) in Beijing, most headlines referred to her as the leader of the opposition in Taiwan. Is she really, though? Being the chairwoman of the KMT does not automatically translate into being the leader of the opposition in the sense that most foreign readers would understand it. “Leader of the opposition” is a very British term. It applies to the Westminster system of parliamentary democracy, and to some extent, to other democracies. If you look at the UK right now, Conservative Party head Kemi Badenoch is
A Pale View of Hills, a movie released last year, follows the story of a Japanese woman from Nagasaki who moved to Britain in the 1950s with her British husband and daughter from a previous marriage. The daughter was born at a time when memories of the US atomic bombing of Nagasaki during World War II and anxiety over the effects of nuclear radiation still haunted the community. It is a reflection on the legacy of the local and national trauma of the bombing that ended the period of Japanese militarism. A central theme of the movie is the need, at
RSS